Which Pink Floyd song did Carmine Appice feature on?
In hindsight, a joint musical venture between David Gilmour and Roger Waters seems about as fitting as chalk and cheese. After all, in many ways, it was, with frictions and frustrations from both sides ultimately leading to an impasse at the centre of Pink Floyd in 1983. However, for the band’s first album without Waters, Gilmour knew he needed to step up to maintain their broader relevancy.
During this time, the remaining members entered a legal battle to maintain the name, adding to a growing list of reasons why the follow-up album needed to be nothing short of outstanding. After all, fighting to maintain audiences after members leave is one thing, but pushing to keep control over the entire entity breeds a different kind of pressure.
However, 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason became a reckoning of sorts, with Gilmour and Nick Mason enlisting the help of another esteemed and reliable player to get the job done. Their saviour, of course, was Carmine Appice, who was brought in to help on the track ‘The Dogs of War’. There were many reasons for this, including Mason’s brief distraction with racing cars, but mainly, Appice served as a force, enhancing the song beyond what they could have reached alone.
According to producer Bob Ezrin, the track needed to be “daring,” which was one reason they initially hired Appice. In the studio, Appice was the missing link between stagnation and “a little different inspiration”, particularly as his technique allowed the sound to better align with the song’s theme, which centres around military figures who abuse their power.
How did Pink Floyd work with Carmine Appice?
Reportedly, this collaboration started with a considerably unexpected approach, with Ezrin initially leaving Appice a voicemail about their plans. According to Appice, Ezrin’s voicemail said, “Hey Carmine, I’m in the studio with Pink Floyd, and there’s a track that’s just screaming for some Carmine fills”.
Requesting more context, Ezrin then said Mason was a “bit rusty” and “everybody wants a bit of a change.”
As a result, Appice stemmed in, not only enhancing the track but pushing the band’s broader relevance back into the mainstream. Appice even recalled that, during this time, Pink Floyd was slowly but surely being erased from broadcasters like MTV, which had suddenly shifted their focus to “safer” and more accessible acts like Def Leppard, Journey, Foreigner, and others.
However, his involvement in A Momentary Lapse of Reason and the band’s sudden surge towards more “daring” sounds and structures suddenly placed them in front of audiences again. Not only this, but they began to enjoy a monopoly, becoming a new version of Pink Floyd everybody felt endeared to. As he put it in MTV Ruled the World – The Early Years of Music Video: “They never gave airplay to the other bands after a while.”
