Carmine Appice on writing Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?

Carmine Appice — the drummer who helped co-write Rod Stewart’s global hit "Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?" — lays out how the song began on a keyboard and drum machine in the 12 September 2026 issue of Classic Rock.

Appice, already known for his work with Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and Beck, Bogert & Appice, joined Stewart’s band in 1977. He says the disco-leaning single started with a specific brief from Stewart: "Rod would say: 'I want a song like Miss You by the Stones,'" Appice recalls. Appice wrote the chords on keyboard with a drum machine, took the idea to Duane Hitchings to shape the groove and bridge, and presented a near-finished song to Stewart.

The band tracked several versions — big drums, big guitars — before producer Tom Dowd layered orchestration, extra percussion and Linda Lewis’s high vocal line onto the record. Despite the tweaks and the questions in the studio, the single rose to Number One across multiple territories; Appice notes it reached the top spot in fifteen countries.

Appice stayed with Stewart until 1982, when Stewart dismissed him. On that split he remains frank:

"I don't know, and neither does he." — Carmine Appice

Appice suggests the fallout may have mixed causes: excesses on the road, internal tensions and resentment over his visibility in the band. Yet whatever the reason, he says the relationship was mended in time — he even attended one of Stewart’s weddings and they were on friendly terms again by the mid-1980s.

Beyond the Stewart years, Appice continues to lead the latest incarnation of Cactus. The band have just released a new album, Cactus, Temple Of Blues II, and Appice is active on the touring and recording circuit.

The full conversation with Appice appears in Classic Rock’s current issue, where he runs through those Rod Stewart years and the making of the song that became one of Stewart’s defining crossover hits.