Side A: The typical drummer is a man featuring an uneven tummy and (or) a draft-shaped moustache - beard, who's primary consideration in the morning and very last thought in the evening is how to devastate his kit's skins when jamming with his whoever-wants-to-come-in band (professionally or in the region's garage). He also never seems to grow up and quits drumming usually when buried six feet under (brrr...) Side B: The average guitarist is a normal guy when his six-string comrade stands still in the room, turning into the regular narcissistic tyrant as soon as the guitar belt is on it's elbows & the amp's On. He also quits riffing the time he realizes someone is better than him. Shit...
 When musicians like Pat Travers (guitar, ex-Pat Travers Band) and Carmine Appice (drums, ex - Vanilla Fudge, Beck Bogert & Appice/ Jeff Beck, Cactus, Ted Nugent, Ozzy Osbourne, King Kobra, Blue Murder, Tommy Bolin, Les Dudek ...and nearly 50% of every rock-in-general band) roll on together there's not that much to speak about. The It Takes A Lot Of Balls CD encloses what the average dirty-rock-meets-harddrivin'-blues-meets-simple-art-progression fan can provide his money for. Neither Pat nor Carmine have something to attest to anybody, they just fix on jammin' into simply bated riff-full tunes and welcome TM Stevens (session bassist for James Brown, Joe Cocker, Tina Turner, Billy Joel and Steve Vai) to fill in the bass gap. Real Hard Rock music played with A Lot Of Balls, this CD is surely appropriate for driving, hanging out with your friends for booze, but most of all proves the imminent relationship between bluesy Rock & the straight-forward Hard & Heavy sound we all know and adore.
It is at least rediculous to open our mouth and criticise the players' performance. Is it enough to say that Carmine Appice still plays like a heated youngster, cruelly pounding his suffering skins (the man is 'round 60...) while Pat Travers with really no-remorse explodes with anger on his six-string equal every now and then with unbeliavable pure hardrockin' riff work or dominant solos? From the opening 'driving-guitars' track Better From A Distance to the Hendrix-based Remind Me and then to the thunder-and-lightning Keep On Rockin (check Carmine's intro hammering... brrr...), then backwards to the southern-Rock oriented Can't Escape The Fire & finally leading to Pat Travers' solo outro PT Slide, this bunch of songs presents how much Balls you gotta have to play simple Hard Rock. That simple...
The recordings were cut in one go, the album was written almost exclusively at the studio, Carmine Appice comments in a recent interview. Just judge from this statement...