VINCE MARTELL of the VANILLA FUDGE
interviewed by JUD COST

The Vanilla Fuzz l to r: Vinnie Martell, Rudi Protrudi and Elan Portney at Cavestomp '98.

Former Vanilla Fudge guitarist Vinnie Martell's knockout performance at Cave Stomp '98 - he and the Fuzztones turned the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction" on its head - was conclusive evidence that this Bronx native still delivers the goods. And Martell's no slouch at recalling the history of the Fudge, either. As part of Sundazed's four-barreled package of Fudge reissues "The Beat Goes On, Renaissance, Near The Beginning and Rock & Roll" I had the good fortune to speak to all four original members. Since we only used a portion of the interviews in each CD's booklet, we thought you might enjoy seeing what was left on the cutting room floor. The director's cut of the interviews with Mark Stein, Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice will follow shortly.

How did you get started playing the guitar, Vinnie?
My sister was two years older than me and started piano lessons at four. So, at the age of two, I started hearing scales and exercises. My mother and father both played and sang. My father played violin and guitar. He was a butcher. I grew up in the northeast section of the Bronx hearing him and his friends doing barber shop harmonies. And my mother played guitar and mandolin. I thought all kids grew up around music. Whenever company came over to the house, me and my sister would end up performing. My earliest recollections were always music.

You played a lot of music when you were in the service, didn't you?
I played with a lot of bands in Florida when I was in the Navy. When the drummer for Ricky T who were playing R&B broke his hand on the door, that kind of blew the band, because Ricky had screwed the clubowner, Porky, out of a car, an MG or something. So the law was after him. Me and the bass player formed Satan's Four with this rhythm guitarist, Joey Juliano - Hendrix wanted to do something with this guy - and he had James Brown down, dancing and singing. But we left Miami and went down to Key West and played at the Top Hat and the Tomato Patch. They would throw coins at the band and you had a net in front of you. After a couple of days of that I had to get out, to get back to New York. I had to sell my '57 Chevy to get the plane fare. I was back maybe a week. I'd had cards made at the Union Hall and passed 'em around if anybody needed a guitar player. And one day later I got a call from Joey Brennan, the old drummer for Rick Martin And The Showmen.

Did you guys hit it off immediately?
Joey a nd Mark came over to my house up in the Bronx. I had a twin reverb amp, which is a heavy amp, and they helped me carry it down the stairs, which I appreciated. They drove me over to Timmy's house in Ridgefield, in typical rural New Jersey. It was beautiful, like something you'd see in Happy Days. Mark had a new B-3 on Timmy's front porch and we proceeded to jam. And they knew their tunes because they had all been in the same band together. But with the experience I had in Florida I could sit in with anybody. I'd be the only white face in those black clubs in Florida sometimes, so this was no problem to do what they wanted. And we hit it off the first time.

What did the set list look like in those days?
When we first started we were doin' all covers, like Wilson Pickett and (sings like Joe Tex) "You had better hold on to what you got..." We didn't have an official name yet. We were just rehearsing.

Remember your first big gig as the Fudge in Manhattan?
Right after we changed our name to the Vanilla Fudge we did a gig at the Village Theatre with the Byrds and the Seeds. If we were still the Pigeons, it would have been perfect to play with the Byrds and the Seeds (laughs). Before that we played at the Choo Choo Club in Garfield, New Jersey, music goin' six nights a week. The Rascals started there and that's where we got discovered. We would back up Little Eva or the Shirelles, different black girl groups on Tuesday nights. They'd bring their chord charts with them. And this fight promoter Shelly Finkel was there to see about putting a girl group in The Action House. Sal the bartender mentioned to Mark's father - sometimes our folkswould show up at the club- that the agent was there from The Action House.

Were the Rascals big influences?
We got a lot of our movement - hand motions and how they'd move around - from the Rascals. The Vagrants had a groovin' show. They had a lead singer named Roger who would dance like an Indian while he was playing and twirl the tambourine. The drummer had long hair and when he'd bend forward his hair would go flying. It was like a show, watching these guys. We weren't doin' the slowed- down tunes yet. We were playin' high energy, all-out.

Did you guys play much with the Vagrants?
We got a gig opening for the Vagrants at The Action House, but something happened to their truck they were late and there were like two thousand people in the place. And one of the tunes we did was "Like A Rolling Stone." I'd sing it and do this thing where I'd take the guitar off and fall down on the floor like I'm cryin' and freakin' part of the show. And Phil, the manager of The Action House, liked us very much because the crowd really got into it. So we went with Phil because he had the biggest connections. He was holdin' the aces. And we weren't sorry. Eight months after we got together we got a record deal. Five record companies came down to The Action House to hear us. The Cowsills' father saw us up in Darien and offered us a lot of money. We were tight, and they all wanted us.

How did the Fudge come up with that slow and heavy sound?
I think Mark and Timmy came up with the idea to slow down the Supremes' tune. We were basically looking to make everything heavier than it was. And that bouncy Supremes tune - we didn't consciously try to slow it down - we just felt we could make it heavier. But to get it heavier you had to slow it down and fatten it up. The Vagrants had a couple of things that they had slowed down a little bit, like "The Old Man In The Sky." I guess we did get ideas from the other bands, and it just evolved into how heavy could we make it.

Mark's organ sound was a Fudge trademark.
My sister took organ lessons, so hearing the organ in the house when I was growing up, I was foolin' with the draw bars we had a church model Hammond, the same as a B-3. Later with the Fudge, me and Mark at the Action House were coming up with ideas for arrangements. And I would tell him, like in the beginning of "Season Of The Witch," try hitting a note and slowly pulling the draw bar out to get all the overtones. That's when we were all hitting it off good and were all enthused. We had a creative surge and the best thing to do was ride it out. The egos came into play when everybody started telling us how great we were.

Did the major record label people hound you to sign?
When those record companies came after us we were really tight, playing this same material in clubs on the road. We were living together; we were riding in a van together. We rented a big cottage down in Florida, but we tore it up and had to get out of the state. Once we got goin' with Phil he suggested we all live closer together. So me and Carmine got an apartment in the Azores in Long Island, in Long Beach - about ten minutes from The Action House. Then Mark got an apartment right next door. And eventually Timmy got a house out on Long Island too.

What did you think of Shadow Morton as a producer?
I feel that Shadow was the best producer we had because he was able to channel everybody's energy. He wrote that poem in the middle of "Season Of The Witch." Basically he got a little lit in the studio, and he didn't want nobody else in there, just him and the engineer. He was the guy who was able to get all our creativity goin' in the same direction. And Shadow was the guy who brought "You Keep Me Hangin' On" over to Scott Muni at WOR, and they played it on the air. I remember we were on the road, stayin' in Poughkeepsie at some chick's house. I was takin' a shower and Mark bangs on the door and says, "Vinnie, hurry up and come out here. 'Hangin' On' is on the radio.'" So I threw the towel around me and came runnin' out, and sure enough it was on. And we didn't even have the records in the stores yet. It was really cool. All of a sudden you see yourself in a different dimension.

You hit the road immediately with some lucrative gigs?
I thought we ought to stay in the studio to keep this creative run going, but Phil said we were getting a lot of calls for a lot of gigs for a lot of bread. At that point Phil had been paying us salaries, so he was looking for us to get out and start making some money. And we ended up going out for the bread, and once we did that, then the chemistry started changing and we became more oriented towards live performances.

How do you feel about the second album, The Beat Goes On?
We had started a second album when Shadow had this other concept for The Beat Goes On, and we decided to go for it. And we had ultimate confidence in Shadow. Renaissance was the third major phase we were taking the public through, probably not a real good idea. But in some ways it was a welcome change, original tunes and good cover tunes.

Who painted the cover for Renaissance?
Don Visconti did the cover art for Renaissance. He was a friend of the group. He got to know us at The Action House, a graphic artist just hanging around. And he submitted some of his ideas to Atco.

Did you sing much with the Fudge?
When we first got together I was singing more, but as time went on I was singing less and less. But I'm an easy-going personality, always looking to help anybody else get theirs. Then I expected they'd turn around and say the same thing to me. But that kinda didn't happen, and I realized I had to fight to get my two cents in. I didn't do a lot of soloing on the first album. That's one of the reasons Renaissance is my favorite album. It gave me a chance to get into two solos. And I was bugged I didn't get to sing nothin' on the first album. It became like three chiefs and one Indian. I was constantly tryin' to chase after and catch the train.

What do you remember about "The Break Song"?
When we recorded "The Break Song" live at the Shrine in LA, they had a truck outside, and I was using this fat guitar, a Gibson L5 - not the easiest guitar to get around on because it was cumbersome. They had very few mics back then so it's hard to hear the crowd.

Have you ever seen an alternate version of the Rock & Roll album?
I have a friend who's a record collector and he says he's talked to people in England who have a slightly different version of the Rock & Roll album. Sometimes whoever the affiliate with Atlantic was would remix an album or put different versions on it.

Did things change when Adrian Barber replaced Shadow?
Bringing in Adrian Barber as a producer was a political thing. It's not always talent that controls business but the politics. I think there was a politics thing between Shadow and Phil - different factions, if you will, and some of the guys were lookin' to make a change. There were some definite gripes. I wanted to give Shadow some more shots, the way he was able to work with us, but I was just goin' with the flow at that point. Adrian was OK. But once a group makes it everybody looks at you different, including the producers. The group started gettin' notoriety and everybody in the industry started lookin' at us different. Adrian was a younger guy and he came in to keep the momentum movin' where he saw it. Whoever the power brokers were in the band, Adrian was going along with them. Whereas with Shadow that stuff hadn't been established yet, and he had more of a creative free reign. He had a beautiful vibe with us.

How did you handle the songwriting among you?
How we arranged our material was generally me and Mark would get into a lot of creativity between the organ and the guitar. If there's an idea that I hear I like to try it and see how it fits, because sometimes you come across some magic by just trying a certain idea. You can't look at it like, "Don't change it again." You're always going for perfection. Mark would always go along with the ideas I had and he had great ideas himself. And Carmine would get in on it too. Timmy, not as much. He didn't have the patience to hang around and get in from the beginning. Timmy and Carmine would get their own section goin' and then Timmy would come in later after an arrangement was down.

Did you feel the band was beginning to drift apart at this point?
We'd get picked up to go to the airport to go fly to Europe and we'd all be interested in talking to each other, what we were doing, chicks, whatever. Once we got to the plane we were pretty much talked out and everybody, like, fragmented off. There was no longer the cohesiveness that we'd had. And we were doin' a lot of goofin' around to make up for it. We were in this elevator of this fancy, high class hotel in Milano - people waitin' to get on - and Timmy comes walkin' out on his knees, with his hands out and his mouth open and flops down on his back like he'd got a heart attack. We would do different things like this to keep ourselves entertained. Then Carmine and Timmy refused to sing harmonies, because they thought it was hokey. Zeppelin and Hendrix and the Cream didn't have a lot of harmonies. That's when all the songs became jams.

Did Haight-Ashbury and mind expansion have any effect on you guys?
We started gettin' into the drug scene in Frisco, right at the height of the Haight/Ashbury thing, and I was lookin' to get the most out of the vibe, and I think Mark was also. So we ended up trying some of these concoctions. But our management said not to do it. We were makin' a lot of bread for them, and they didn't want anybody shakin' their money tree.

How was everybody getting along at this point?
You can see from that picture on the back of the Rock & Roll album: we were almost to the point of not talking to each other. That's how it got. We were together too much. From 1967 to 1970 I think we had two periods of two weeks off. The rest of it was two days here, three days there. We went from being good friends to getting into fist fights with each other. The pressure just built until we hit the boiling point. We were all coming down for breakfast in Italy one morning, and Timmy was the first one to come out with it. But we all came to the same conclusion: Let's disband it officially. I'm always the kind of guy to see things out to the ultimate end, but I was glad. I shook hands with him afterwards. When the band broke up, I didn't want to go onstage for two years. I just wanted a break
.
How do you see the Fudge from 30 years down the pike?
Looking back, yeah, things were definitely getting heavier in 1968. We did thirteen dates with Hendrix in a row, places like the Spectrum in Philly, where we played with Hendrix and Joplin. We did Red Rocks in Colorado. We did a lot of jammin' with Hendrix at The Scene when they were closin' the place up. And Eddie Kramer says let's go down to the Record Plant on 43rd Street. Everybody's smokin' and Buddy Miles was there too. Hendrix was a real gentleman. We started jammin' and he let me do the first solo. I would just like to hear that, just once: me and Hendrix on the same recording.