Post by david company on Mar 2, 2007 7:52:31 GMT 1
Todd: How did you originally become involved with Black Sabbath?
Vinny Appice: “That was in ’79. Black Sabbath had just done the Heaven and Hell album and were on tour with (original drummer) Bill Ward or drums. At the time, Bill had some issues and they had decided to get another drummer because they were canceling a lot of gigs and it just wasn’t good business. They heard of me somehow…I don’t know exactly how (laughs), but they knew me and knew I was (legendary Vanilla Fudge/Jeff Beck Group drummer) Carmine’s brother. The ironic thing is before that happened, a couple of months before, I had gotten a call from Sharon Osbourne. I don’t know how she had heard about me, either. She had wanted me to join Ozzy’s first band The Blizzard with Randy Rhoads. I was really young…I think I was like eighteen or something, so I asked my brother because I had heard that Ozzy was kinda nuts, ya know? (laughs) So I asked Carmine ‘…So is Ozzy crazy? Should I do this?’ and he said ‘…oh, yeah…he’s fuckin’ crazy, man…’, so I backed off and turned it down (laughs). Then, a couple of months later, Sabbath calls. They were in L.A. so I went down and jammed with them, met (former Black Sabbath vocalist) Ronnie (James Dio) and we got along great, met (Black Sabbath guitarist) Tony (Iommi) and (Black Sabbath bassist) Geezer (Butler) and they loved it, so they asked me to fill in for Bill because originally Bill was going to come back, ya know? Originally, the idea was that I would play and when Bill got his stuff together, he would come back. But Bill never came back…so when we finished the tour, they were like ‘…we’re gonna make another record…’ and that was Mob Rules.”
Todd: Wasn’t it a little overwhelming to be playing with a group of such stature at such a young age?
Vinny: “Yeah, it was, but I tried not to look at it as a fan thing, which was cool. I always looked at it like ‘…alright…I’m in…let’s do it!’, ya know? I looked at it as more of a job than ‘…I can’t believe I’m playing with these guys…’ Every once in a while I’d realize how cool it was, but I still looked at it as a business and did the best that I could. I always looked at it more professionally, ya know?”
Todd: When Dio left the group, did you ever consider continuing as a member of Black Sabbath?
Vinny: “When the end was near and Ronnie was set to do his own thing and Sabbath was still going to continue, they actually asked me to continue with them, ya know? And it was a decision that I had to make…to either stay with Tony and Geezer or go with Ronnie. I made the decision to stay with Ronnie and it was a lot easier because we both lived in the same place and we had a lot of things in common, ya know? So I thought ‘…let’s do it…it’ll be a new band…’ and that’s how Dio was developed.”
Todd: In hindsight, how would you describe you time working with Dio as a solo artist? Was there a lot of pressure to replicate the commercial successes of Heaven And Hell and Mob Rules?
Vinny: “…That was great. The beginning of Dio was fantastic because (the attitude was) ‘…anything goes…’, ya know? We didn’t have anything that we had to worry about repeating from before. After you’ve made a bunch of albums, you kinda gotta watch what you did on previous albums so you can do the same thing, ya know? The door was wide open and we were having a great time together. Everybody was just having a ball and that makes great music. With all of those ingredients, it was a fun time and the music just came out. It became a great album and we all had a fun time making it.”
Todd: What ultimately prompted you to leave Dio?
Vinny: “Well, I was there for quite a long time. There was a point around ‘89 or so where it was a whole other band, ya know? Everybody was gone…Jimmy was gone, (future Whitesnake/Def Leppard guitarist) Vivian (Campbell) was gone, Claude Schnell the keyboard player, was gone…even (guitarist) Craig Goldy was gone, ya know? It was all new guys…Rowan Robertson on guitar, (future Great White member) Teddy Cook on bass, a different keyboard player… They were all young guys and it just didn’t feel like the same band, ya know? And it didn’t sound like it, either. So I thought ‘…you know what? I’ve been doing this for quite a long time. Maybe now is the time to do something else…’, ya know? So I left and went on to play with Jimmy in a band called World War III. I did that and did some projects with a few different people. Then I did something with (former Dokken and current Foreigner bassist) Jeff Pilson, a band called War And Peace. I did that for probably a couple of years and then Sabbath got back together with Ronnie and then I was back in that.”
Todd: At this point, do you have any regrets in regards to your time with Black Sabbath?
Vinny: “…It would have been nice to have kept the band together a little longer. The band always seems to get back together and do a little something for two or two and a half years and then everything fizzles out again, ya know? It would have been nice to have kept it going a little bit more. That’s why we keep getting back together again…everyone keeps looking back and realizing that those songs deserve to be played again. It’s a great band and that’s why it’s happening with round three here. I just wish they would have kept it together a little longer. We would have developed and made some great albums, ya know? I think we could have had our own little thing goin’ on instead of everyone leaving and doing other things…goin’ back and forth. …I looked at a family tree once…I think it was after the Dehumanizer era…and I was like ‘…wow…look at this family tree…they’ve gotta be finished by now…’, but then they went on to do the reunion with Ozzy and I played on that…and now this. …This has gotta be the biggest family tree of any Rock band.”
Todd: Looking back, what was your favorite project outside of your work with Black Sabbath and Dio?
Vinny: “I like the World War III thing I did. That was a cool band, a cool time and the CD kicks some serious ass. We still get people raving about that CD. It was really hard and heavy…and the band was a lot of fun. In fact, I think if that band would have stayed together, we would have done pretty good. But we had a couple of management problems that broke the thing up…the usual shit, ya know? …Everybody loved that album. We used to scare people. Back then, that wasn’t happening so much with that heavy, heavy stuff. (Vocalist) Mandy (Lion) was doing a lot of screaming vocals. People copied that and did it later on.”
Todd: How did it feel when Black Sabbath reunited for the Dehumanizer album? Were the relations between everyone immediately strained?
Vinny: “No...it felt pretty good. There was enough time between everything for it to feel new again. Everything was great at the beginning, but it all fell apart again at the end. It was kinda like history repeating itself, ya know? (laughs) …So this is round three, but I think everyone’s a lot more mature now and well know exactly what we’re doing before we do it. …(In the past), there were a lot of decisions made that not everybody agreed with, ya know? It’s mainly between Ronnie, Geezer and Tony…the things that happened. I’m not on that level, ya know? Business wise, the decisions that they make…if they decided to break up, they break up. It’s not my decision.”
Todd: Considering a great deal of the Dio-era Black Sabbath material has never been played live, has it been difficulty preparing for the Heaven And Hell tour?
Vinny: “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff that we never played live or did play live, but never continued with it. I’ve got a whole list of songs here. In fact, I was just listening to Heaven And Hell the other night (laughs). There’s a lot of songs on there that we’ve never played, ya know? So I don’t really know them. I’ve heard them, but I don’t know them that well. And there’s a lot of them that we did play like “Neon Knights”, “Children Of The Sea”, “Heaven And Hell”…so we’ll play most of those, too. …From what I hear and can gather, it’s going to be a good, long set. It’ll be a little longer than what we usually play, ya know? It might be an hour and forty five minute set. Everybody’s in the mood to play, so I think it’ll be cool (laughs).”
Todd: Any idea why the Heaven And Hell tour is being launched in Canada? That seems like an odd decision…
Vinny: “I have no idea (laughs). I don’t know why this tour is starting in Canada. Usually, tours start in some weird secondary market so you can get your act together. This one is starting in Vancouver, which is a major city, so we’d better be good (laughs).”
Todd: Is there any chance this line-up could end up back in the studio for a new record?
Vinny: “It hasn’t been talk about at this point. I guess we’ll have to wait until we get to the end of the tour and see how things go and see what they wanna do. It hasn’t been talked about, but anything can happen. I think if the market’s there, if the people wanna hear it, something like that could happen.”
Todd: What was the main motivation behind the formation of 3 Legged Dogg?
Vinny: “Well, we had a band called the Hollywood Allstarz that we were doin’…it was kinda a fun thing…with another drummer named Krigger (ex-Giuffria, London), who was actually the one that put it together. It started at a gig for the Great White fire victims. Krigger asked me and (ex-Quiet Riot guitarist) Carlos (Cavazo) to play along with a whole bunch of people that he knew and we all agreed because it was a great idea. We all got up and played a bunch of Zep songs, some AC/DC, all that stuff and people really liked it, ya know? The idea of a cool All Star band (laughs). Then we started getting some offers for some gigs around town, so we started doing those. Then we got an agent…and eventually, the band turned into Jimmy Bain (ex-Rainbow/Dio) on bass, Carlos Cavazo on guitars, Chas West (ex-Lynch Mob) on vocals and me on drums. We kept that goin’ because it was fun. There was no rehearsal involved unless we were gonna play live and we weren’t writing songs, so it was a no brainer, ya know? And then we decided to start writing our own stuff. So we did that last year. …We wrote some stuff with Carlos on guitar and we wrote some stuff with Brian Young, who used to play guitar with David Lee Roth. Then we wrote some songs with Greg Hampton, who’s the co-producer of the record and writes a lot of songs, so we wrote in three different layers. …We put it together and we had a deal with a major label, but we couldn’t come to terms with them. A lot of the majors want too much stuff, ya know? We were unwilling to give up our publishing and things like that, ya know? …Somebody turned us on to Perris Records, we played it for them, they loved it and we made a deal…and now it’s on the internet and we’re doin’ good. And we’ve got complete control over it, too.”
Todd: That must be a really satisfying scenario, especially considering how many recording contracts you’ve been involved with over the years…
Vinny: “…Yeah, when the contracts up, it’s your CD, it’s not the record company’s ya know? Some of these records companies…the band gives them their CD and then they never release it. Now the thing’s dead. Everything you worked for us just sitting there. We’ve maintained complete control over the whole thing.”
Todd: Is there any truth to the rumors that you originally contacted Eddie Van Halen about joining 3 Legged Dogg?
Vinny: “Yes. Jimmy contacted me…I hadn’t seen Jimmy in a couple of years…this was probably in 2003, and he was like ‘…hey, man…let’s start a band…’ and I was like ‘…okay…that’ll be cool…’ because I like playing with Jimmy. He was like ‘…we gotta get a guitar player…’, so we decided to start at the top of the food chain and call Eddie. …I called Eddie and he was really cool. A guy like Eddie probably never gets asked if he wants to join a band, ya know? I’ve known Eddie for a long time from when Van Halen started…we’ve always ran into each other. He was real cool. He said ‘…I’m honored that you’d call me, but my brother and I are still doin’ stuff…’. And then we just talked for a while. So it was cool. We just thought we’d start from the top, ya know? You never know…if he had said yes, that would have been awesome. I always thought Eddie should do something else, anyway (laughs). I mean, he proved the point with Van Halen and that was awesome. …He’s such an incredible guitar player…it would be interesting to see him travel down some different roads, ya know?”
Todd: Oh, well…it’s not as if Carlos isn’t a talented guitarist…
Vinny: “Yeah, Carlos is awesome, man. I think he’s totally underrated, ya know? He’s a great guy…you really gotta hear him play. He’s actually really into Classical guitar. I never knew that until we went over to someone’s house and there was an acoustic guitar there. He started playing it and I was like ‘…holy shit!’ (laughs). It was totally awesome. And he wants to do an album like that.”
Todd: What are your current touring plans? I would imagine your involvement with Heaven And Hell kinda limits what you can do…
Vinny: “…Well, the idea was to work with our management to book some tours and some shows for this year, but now that the Heaven And Hell thing is happening, we’ve had to postpone that. We’re gonna try to do some gigs in between the Heaven And Hell thing because there’s going to be some breaks here and there. We’re also gonna shoot a video and have that on the internet so we can keep the buzz going.”
Todd: In regards to 3 Legged Dogg, do you have any idea what type of set list you’ll be working with?
Vinny: “We’re gonna be playing a lot of stuff from the Frozen Summer record and then we’re gonna be playing some of our old stuff…Sabbath, Dio. Some stuff from Jimmy’s old bands like Rainbow, stuff from Carlos’s old band Quiet Riot. We’re gonna do the history thing because people wanna hear that shit. Some bands make the mistake…when well-known guys put a band together…they don’t play any of the old stuff, but people wanna heard the old stuff, ya know? …We like playin’ it, so we’ll do it. It’ll be a combination of everything.”
Todd: All things considered, particularly early in you’re career, did you ever feel as if you were living in Carmine’s shadow?
Vinny: “No, I kicked his ass (laughs). Actually, he’s ten years older than I am, so when I was a kid, I used to go see him play with Vanilla Fudge. Then he became one of the best drummers in Rock and had quite a reputation, so I decided at an early age…probably around age nine…that I was gonna play the drums. ‘…I said …I’m gonna fuckin’ practice, man. I’m gonna be just as good or even better and I’m gonna do my thing…’. So I took it very seriously. I took drum lessons and always practiced my lessons, ya know? I always practiced by myself, always had a band and always took it seriously because that’s what I decided I wanted to do. Then I got my career started and I always played one hundred and ten percent regardless if there were two people in the audience or if there were twenty thousand and I started to build up my reputation. …We don’t have any big competition between us. We admire each other’s playing and we’re gonna try to do some stuff together, too. …We intend on putting together a drum show…something we can take out on the road…”
LINK:
www.blasting-zone.com/VinnyAppice1.htm
Vinny Appice: “That was in ’79. Black Sabbath had just done the Heaven and Hell album and were on tour with (original drummer) Bill Ward or drums. At the time, Bill had some issues and they had decided to get another drummer because they were canceling a lot of gigs and it just wasn’t good business. They heard of me somehow…I don’t know exactly how (laughs), but they knew me and knew I was (legendary Vanilla Fudge/Jeff Beck Group drummer) Carmine’s brother. The ironic thing is before that happened, a couple of months before, I had gotten a call from Sharon Osbourne. I don’t know how she had heard about me, either. She had wanted me to join Ozzy’s first band The Blizzard with Randy Rhoads. I was really young…I think I was like eighteen or something, so I asked my brother because I had heard that Ozzy was kinda nuts, ya know? (laughs) So I asked Carmine ‘…So is Ozzy crazy? Should I do this?’ and he said ‘…oh, yeah…he’s fuckin’ crazy, man…’, so I backed off and turned it down (laughs). Then, a couple of months later, Sabbath calls. They were in L.A. so I went down and jammed with them, met (former Black Sabbath vocalist) Ronnie (James Dio) and we got along great, met (Black Sabbath guitarist) Tony (Iommi) and (Black Sabbath bassist) Geezer (Butler) and they loved it, so they asked me to fill in for Bill because originally Bill was going to come back, ya know? Originally, the idea was that I would play and when Bill got his stuff together, he would come back. But Bill never came back…so when we finished the tour, they were like ‘…we’re gonna make another record…’ and that was Mob Rules.”
Todd: Wasn’t it a little overwhelming to be playing with a group of such stature at such a young age?
Vinny: “Yeah, it was, but I tried not to look at it as a fan thing, which was cool. I always looked at it like ‘…alright…I’m in…let’s do it!’, ya know? I looked at it as more of a job than ‘…I can’t believe I’m playing with these guys…’ Every once in a while I’d realize how cool it was, but I still looked at it as a business and did the best that I could. I always looked at it more professionally, ya know?”
Todd: When Dio left the group, did you ever consider continuing as a member of Black Sabbath?
Vinny: “When the end was near and Ronnie was set to do his own thing and Sabbath was still going to continue, they actually asked me to continue with them, ya know? And it was a decision that I had to make…to either stay with Tony and Geezer or go with Ronnie. I made the decision to stay with Ronnie and it was a lot easier because we both lived in the same place and we had a lot of things in common, ya know? So I thought ‘…let’s do it…it’ll be a new band…’ and that’s how Dio was developed.”
Todd: In hindsight, how would you describe you time working with Dio as a solo artist? Was there a lot of pressure to replicate the commercial successes of Heaven And Hell and Mob Rules?
Vinny: “…That was great. The beginning of Dio was fantastic because (the attitude was) ‘…anything goes…’, ya know? We didn’t have anything that we had to worry about repeating from before. After you’ve made a bunch of albums, you kinda gotta watch what you did on previous albums so you can do the same thing, ya know? The door was wide open and we were having a great time together. Everybody was just having a ball and that makes great music. With all of those ingredients, it was a fun time and the music just came out. It became a great album and we all had a fun time making it.”
Todd: What ultimately prompted you to leave Dio?
Vinny: “Well, I was there for quite a long time. There was a point around ‘89 or so where it was a whole other band, ya know? Everybody was gone…Jimmy was gone, (future Whitesnake/Def Leppard guitarist) Vivian (Campbell) was gone, Claude Schnell the keyboard player, was gone…even (guitarist) Craig Goldy was gone, ya know? It was all new guys…Rowan Robertson on guitar, (future Great White member) Teddy Cook on bass, a different keyboard player… They were all young guys and it just didn’t feel like the same band, ya know? And it didn’t sound like it, either. So I thought ‘…you know what? I’ve been doing this for quite a long time. Maybe now is the time to do something else…’, ya know? So I left and went on to play with Jimmy in a band called World War III. I did that and did some projects with a few different people. Then I did something with (former Dokken and current Foreigner bassist) Jeff Pilson, a band called War And Peace. I did that for probably a couple of years and then Sabbath got back together with Ronnie and then I was back in that.”
Todd: At this point, do you have any regrets in regards to your time with Black Sabbath?
Vinny: “…It would have been nice to have kept the band together a little longer. The band always seems to get back together and do a little something for two or two and a half years and then everything fizzles out again, ya know? It would have been nice to have kept it going a little bit more. That’s why we keep getting back together again…everyone keeps looking back and realizing that those songs deserve to be played again. It’s a great band and that’s why it’s happening with round three here. I just wish they would have kept it together a little longer. We would have developed and made some great albums, ya know? I think we could have had our own little thing goin’ on instead of everyone leaving and doing other things…goin’ back and forth. …I looked at a family tree once…I think it was after the Dehumanizer era…and I was like ‘…wow…look at this family tree…they’ve gotta be finished by now…’, but then they went on to do the reunion with Ozzy and I played on that…and now this. …This has gotta be the biggest family tree of any Rock band.”
Todd: Looking back, what was your favorite project outside of your work with Black Sabbath and Dio?
Vinny: “I like the World War III thing I did. That was a cool band, a cool time and the CD kicks some serious ass. We still get people raving about that CD. It was really hard and heavy…and the band was a lot of fun. In fact, I think if that band would have stayed together, we would have done pretty good. But we had a couple of management problems that broke the thing up…the usual shit, ya know? …Everybody loved that album. We used to scare people. Back then, that wasn’t happening so much with that heavy, heavy stuff. (Vocalist) Mandy (Lion) was doing a lot of screaming vocals. People copied that and did it later on.”
Todd: How did it feel when Black Sabbath reunited for the Dehumanizer album? Were the relations between everyone immediately strained?
Vinny: “No...it felt pretty good. There was enough time between everything for it to feel new again. Everything was great at the beginning, but it all fell apart again at the end. It was kinda like history repeating itself, ya know? (laughs) …So this is round three, but I think everyone’s a lot more mature now and well know exactly what we’re doing before we do it. …(In the past), there were a lot of decisions made that not everybody agreed with, ya know? It’s mainly between Ronnie, Geezer and Tony…the things that happened. I’m not on that level, ya know? Business wise, the decisions that they make…if they decided to break up, they break up. It’s not my decision.”
Todd: Considering a great deal of the Dio-era Black Sabbath material has never been played live, has it been difficulty preparing for the Heaven And Hell tour?
Vinny: “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff that we never played live or did play live, but never continued with it. I’ve got a whole list of songs here. In fact, I was just listening to Heaven And Hell the other night (laughs). There’s a lot of songs on there that we’ve never played, ya know? So I don’t really know them. I’ve heard them, but I don’t know them that well. And there’s a lot of them that we did play like “Neon Knights”, “Children Of The Sea”, “Heaven And Hell”…so we’ll play most of those, too. …From what I hear and can gather, it’s going to be a good, long set. It’ll be a little longer than what we usually play, ya know? It might be an hour and forty five minute set. Everybody’s in the mood to play, so I think it’ll be cool (laughs).”
Todd: Any idea why the Heaven And Hell tour is being launched in Canada? That seems like an odd decision…
Vinny: “I have no idea (laughs). I don’t know why this tour is starting in Canada. Usually, tours start in some weird secondary market so you can get your act together. This one is starting in Vancouver, which is a major city, so we’d better be good (laughs).”
Todd: Is there any chance this line-up could end up back in the studio for a new record?
Vinny: “It hasn’t been talk about at this point. I guess we’ll have to wait until we get to the end of the tour and see how things go and see what they wanna do. It hasn’t been talked about, but anything can happen. I think if the market’s there, if the people wanna hear it, something like that could happen.”
Todd: What was the main motivation behind the formation of 3 Legged Dogg?
Vinny: “Well, we had a band called the Hollywood Allstarz that we were doin’…it was kinda a fun thing…with another drummer named Krigger (ex-Giuffria, London), who was actually the one that put it together. It started at a gig for the Great White fire victims. Krigger asked me and (ex-Quiet Riot guitarist) Carlos (Cavazo) to play along with a whole bunch of people that he knew and we all agreed because it was a great idea. We all got up and played a bunch of Zep songs, some AC/DC, all that stuff and people really liked it, ya know? The idea of a cool All Star band (laughs). Then we started getting some offers for some gigs around town, so we started doing those. Then we got an agent…and eventually, the band turned into Jimmy Bain (ex-Rainbow/Dio) on bass, Carlos Cavazo on guitars, Chas West (ex-Lynch Mob) on vocals and me on drums. We kept that goin’ because it was fun. There was no rehearsal involved unless we were gonna play live and we weren’t writing songs, so it was a no brainer, ya know? And then we decided to start writing our own stuff. So we did that last year. …We wrote some stuff with Carlos on guitar and we wrote some stuff with Brian Young, who used to play guitar with David Lee Roth. Then we wrote some songs with Greg Hampton, who’s the co-producer of the record and writes a lot of songs, so we wrote in three different layers. …We put it together and we had a deal with a major label, but we couldn’t come to terms with them. A lot of the majors want too much stuff, ya know? We were unwilling to give up our publishing and things like that, ya know? …Somebody turned us on to Perris Records, we played it for them, they loved it and we made a deal…and now it’s on the internet and we’re doin’ good. And we’ve got complete control over it, too.”
Todd: That must be a really satisfying scenario, especially considering how many recording contracts you’ve been involved with over the years…
Vinny: “…Yeah, when the contracts up, it’s your CD, it’s not the record company’s ya know? Some of these records companies…the band gives them their CD and then they never release it. Now the thing’s dead. Everything you worked for us just sitting there. We’ve maintained complete control over the whole thing.”
Todd: Is there any truth to the rumors that you originally contacted Eddie Van Halen about joining 3 Legged Dogg?
Vinny: “Yes. Jimmy contacted me…I hadn’t seen Jimmy in a couple of years…this was probably in 2003, and he was like ‘…hey, man…let’s start a band…’ and I was like ‘…okay…that’ll be cool…’ because I like playing with Jimmy. He was like ‘…we gotta get a guitar player…’, so we decided to start at the top of the food chain and call Eddie. …I called Eddie and he was really cool. A guy like Eddie probably never gets asked if he wants to join a band, ya know? I’ve known Eddie for a long time from when Van Halen started…we’ve always ran into each other. He was real cool. He said ‘…I’m honored that you’d call me, but my brother and I are still doin’ stuff…’. And then we just talked for a while. So it was cool. We just thought we’d start from the top, ya know? You never know…if he had said yes, that would have been awesome. I always thought Eddie should do something else, anyway (laughs). I mean, he proved the point with Van Halen and that was awesome. …He’s such an incredible guitar player…it would be interesting to see him travel down some different roads, ya know?”
Todd: Oh, well…it’s not as if Carlos isn’t a talented guitarist…
Vinny: “Yeah, Carlos is awesome, man. I think he’s totally underrated, ya know? He’s a great guy…you really gotta hear him play. He’s actually really into Classical guitar. I never knew that until we went over to someone’s house and there was an acoustic guitar there. He started playing it and I was like ‘…holy shit!’ (laughs). It was totally awesome. And he wants to do an album like that.”
Todd: What are your current touring plans? I would imagine your involvement with Heaven And Hell kinda limits what you can do…
Vinny: “…Well, the idea was to work with our management to book some tours and some shows for this year, but now that the Heaven And Hell thing is happening, we’ve had to postpone that. We’re gonna try to do some gigs in between the Heaven And Hell thing because there’s going to be some breaks here and there. We’re also gonna shoot a video and have that on the internet so we can keep the buzz going.”
Todd: In regards to 3 Legged Dogg, do you have any idea what type of set list you’ll be working with?
Vinny: “We’re gonna be playing a lot of stuff from the Frozen Summer record and then we’re gonna be playing some of our old stuff…Sabbath, Dio. Some stuff from Jimmy’s old bands like Rainbow, stuff from Carlos’s old band Quiet Riot. We’re gonna do the history thing because people wanna hear that shit. Some bands make the mistake…when well-known guys put a band together…they don’t play any of the old stuff, but people wanna heard the old stuff, ya know? …We like playin’ it, so we’ll do it. It’ll be a combination of everything.”
Todd: All things considered, particularly early in you’re career, did you ever feel as if you were living in Carmine’s shadow?
Vinny: “No, I kicked his ass (laughs). Actually, he’s ten years older than I am, so when I was a kid, I used to go see him play with Vanilla Fudge. Then he became one of the best drummers in Rock and had quite a reputation, so I decided at an early age…probably around age nine…that I was gonna play the drums. ‘…I said …I’m gonna fuckin’ practice, man. I’m gonna be just as good or even better and I’m gonna do my thing…’. So I took it very seriously. I took drum lessons and always practiced my lessons, ya know? I always practiced by myself, always had a band and always took it seriously because that’s what I decided I wanted to do. Then I got my career started and I always played one hundred and ten percent regardless if there were two people in the audience or if there were twenty thousand and I started to build up my reputation. …We don’t have any big competition between us. We admire each other’s playing and we’re gonna try to do some stuff together, too. …We intend on putting together a drum show…something we can take out on the road…”
LINK:
www.blasting-zone.com/VinnyAppice1.htm
