{"id":9509,"date":"2012-05-09T07:00:43","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=9509"},"modified":"2012-05-01T11:58:25","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T15:58:25","slug":"part-2-of-2-blowin-wind-w-kill-devil-hills-vinny-appice-if-black-sabbath-is-going-to-do-a-reunion-bill-should-be-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=9509","title":{"rendered":"Part 2 of 2: Blowin\u2019 Wind w\/ Kill Devil Hill\u2019s Vinny Appice: \u201cIf Black Sabbath is going to do a reunion, Bill should be there.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hey Fartheads! Welcome to Part 2 of my interview with Vinny Appice of Kill Devil Hill. In this 2nd half Vinny and I continue to discuss such topics as the current drama surrounding the Black Sabbath reunion, his early days as a kid inspired by his big brother to play drums, and the risky payoff of touring as Heaven and Hell. Vinny was an amazing person to talk to and I\u2019m so glad that I get to share this with you all. Enjoy the rest of my interview with the amazing Vinny Appice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I keep getting asked by folks about what\u2019s going on with the current Black Sabbath drama with Bill Ward not doing the reunion and all. What\u2019s your take on it all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been contacted or anything so I\u2019m not involved to be honest. I am in touch with them though, especially with Tony regarding his health and all. It was kind of funny to see this big deal about Sabbath coming back and then suddenly Bill\u2019s not doing it. Then I read all these posts online saying, \u201cWell if Bill\u2019s not doing it Vinny should be next in line\u201d and then other are saying shit like, \u201cFuck Vinny! He shouldn\u2019t be up there. It should be Bill!\u201d Then I read that Tommy (Clufetos) from Ozzy\u2019s band is thrown in the mix and then they\u2019re like, \u201cFuck Tommy. Vinny should be up there!\u201d [laughs] It\u2019s like the gossiping housewives of Jersey Shore or something [laughs].<\/p>\n

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You said you\u2019ve talked to Tony. How\u2019s he holding up these days?\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

He sounds really great. He\u2019s still doing his treatments and he\u2019s feeling good and working on the album. He sounds great and he\u2019s in great spirits. That\u2019s as far as I know. It seems like he\u2019s moving along which is great.<\/p>\n

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Obviously it\u2019s not fair to say that you weren\u2019t a part of Sabbath\u2019s history but with them calling it a \u201cBlack Sabbath reunion\u201d, do you think it\u2019s proper for them to carry on without Bill Ward and still call it a Sabbath reunion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I think that the first choice should honestly be Bill Ward. If Black Sabbath is going to do a reunion, Bill should be there. Back in 1998 they did a reunion tour but Bill couldn\u2019t do it because of some medical problems so I did like 4 or 5 weeks with them in Europe with Ozzy singing. They didn\u2019t call it a reunion tour though. They just went out as Black Sabbath. Then they toured the states and they were billing it as a reunion tour. Bill was actually playing on that tour but I was on tour with them in case Bill had a problem. He didn\u2019t have any issues on that tour so I went the whole tour without playing which was the weirdest tour I ever did.<\/p>\n

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Being on tour and not being able to play sounds horrible. It\u2019s kind of like being in a brothel and not being able to touch anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Exactly. It was ridiculous. Then I felt like I was getting out of shape from not playing. Yeah, I think Bill should be doing this tour. It\u2019s a reunion thing. At this point, it\u2019ll probably be the last Sabbath tour and I think the fans, well I don\u2019t think, I know that the fans honestly want to see the real band. I would like to see it to. They play unbelievably together.<\/p>\n

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I really hate to see this turn into such a soap opera. I feel like it kind of tarnishes any kind of reputable legacy that Sabbath could have left behind.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, exactly. I guess the whole problem with this thing was money. It\u2019s a shame to see that. I don\u2019t know what the hell\u2019s going to happen. If they end up doing it with another drummer it\u2019ll be the 2nd best thing since the fans still obviously want to hear those classic songs.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>I want to talk about Heaven and Hell a bit. You, Ronnie, Tony and Geezer reunited, shaved off the Sabbath moniker, and chose to do only Dio era Sabbath achieving much success. Do you look back in that now and feel like you fulfilled something and maybe even closed on a good chapter after Ronnie\u2019s passing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Um, yeah. Tony, Ronnie and Geezer said in the beginning that the band was going to be called Heaven and Hell. It made sense because Tony and Geezer were doing Black Sabbath appearances with Ozzy on the Ozzfest tour for years. Coming out as Black Sabbath with me and Ronnie in it would\u2019ve just been confusing to people. We weren\u2019t going to do any of the older songs because we had plenty of new songs from the Heaven and Hell album on. It wasn\u2019t a legal thing at all because Tony owned the name Black Sabbath. It was a risky move. There were times where we\u2019d play and the arena wasn\u2019t as full as it should\u2019ve been and a lot of times we heard, \u201cif you call it Black Sabbath, the promoters would be more excited\u201d but all in all, the gigs were pretty packed. It was a gamble but it seemed to work and it was pretty cool to see the band reinvent themselves with a different name and still become successful with it. We went around the world with it.
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I feel like Heaven and Hell definitely went out on top. You guys were killing it out there live.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yeah. Towards the end of the last Heaven and Hell tour, we were smoking. We were jamming away and Tony\u2019s “Heaven and Hell” solo got to be 20 minutes long because we were jamming so much. Everybody was just musically happy. There was another album in the works and if Ronnie was still here we would\u2019ve done another one. The interesting thing with Ronnie was that when I went down and first played with Black Sabbath in 1980 in LA, I went down and met Ronnie and Tony the night before and then met Geezer and Geoff Nichols the next day. The first song we played was \u201cNeon Knights\u201d and on the last show we played with Ronnie that was the last song we played.<\/p>\n

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That is so amazing. It\u2019s like full circle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. It was a full circle. It was a journey with Ronnie from there to the end. We completed that whole journey of 30 something years with \u201cNeon Knights.\u201d It was really weird. I mean, what are the chances of ending with the same song that you started with? That was one of his favorite songs.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s go back in time a bit Vinny. When did you know that you wanted to be a musician?\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, my brother Carmine is 11 years older than me so he had a band rehearsing in the house. They\u2019d set all their equipment up in the front room of the house. I would be sitting there watching them and looking at all the gear. It was fucking exciting. To me that was better than going to school and learning about Abraham Lincoln or something [laughs]. That totally influenced me. I started banging on the drums and eventually Carmine showed me a few things and as I got more serious, he told my parents to send me for drum lessons at 10 years old. I went to the same guy that Carmine went to. My mother would take me on two buses to the lessons every Saturday. I knew in those early years when I was 8 or 9 years old that I wanted to do this. I didn\u2019t even think about anything else. When you\u2019re a kid, you don\u2019t think about \u201cwhat am I going to do to survive?\u201d or \u201cI need something to fall back on.\u201d I didn\u2019t think anything like that. I just thought about drums, I practiced hard, and I studied my lessons. I learned a lot and kept my ears opened up to learn.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of Carmine, there\u2019s been this long, ongoing debate on how to actually say your last name. So what is the right way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh man, I haven\u2019t heard that before [laughs]. Well, my father says Appice (A-puh-see). Carmine used to say it that way too. If you listen to a Vanilla Fudge (Carmine\u2019s early band) called Near The Beginning<\/em>, a live album, he does a drum solo and Tim Bogen introduces him \u201cCarmine A-puh-see on the drums.\u201d When he started working with Rod Stewart, Rod used to call him \u201cCarmine Appice (Uh-piece)\u201d so he changed it to that [laughs]. That\u2019s around when I first started getting together with Derringer and I didn\u2019t like that. I thought it sounded like \u201cA piece of pizza\u201d or something [laughs]. So I said fuck that and I went by \u201cA-puh-see\u201d and it\u2019s been going on and on. That\u2019s why we do this thing called Drum Wars<\/em>. We did a video in the 90\u2019s and now we\u2019re planning on doing some live dates where we\u2019ll be battling for the correct pronunciation of the name [laughs].<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Well, I hope the best pronunciation wins!\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs]\u00a0 Thanks!<\/p>\n

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Vinny, you were young when you first joined Sabbath. Did it blow your fucking mind that you were playing with Black Sabbath or was it just a good gig for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ok, here\u2019s another secret. I worked with John Lennon, Rick Derringer, Black Sabbath and Dio. All the people I ever played with I was never a big fan of except for John Lennon. I knew who all these people were and I respected them as musicians so I was very professional when I went into these gigs. Even with John Lennon I didn\u2019t go, \u201cHoly shit! He\u2019s in the same room with me.\u201d I just went in and said, \u201cOk, what do we need to do?\u201d [laughs] I had complete respect and admiration for Sabbath but I never went into it as a fan. Honestly, that was probably better because it was more of a level playing field. When I joined Sabbath, I had never bought a Sabbath record. I had heard them over at a friend\u2019s house in Brooklyn. He played me the first Black Sabbath album and I went, \u201cWow, that\u2019s some scary shit.\u201d I actually didn\u2019t like the drums on the album to be honest. Bill\u2019s a different drummer than I am. I liked big sound and more groove like John Bonham. Bill\u2019s playing was a different kind of playing. When I joined the band we only had four days of rehearsal before playing in Hawaii at a 30,000 seat venue so there was no time to think about it [laughs]. Back when I joined the band they were all happy so we\u2019d rehearse for an hour and then go to the pub for two hours and them come back and play a little bit. At that time I was the only \u201cother\u201d drummer that Tony and Geezer had played with.<\/p>\n

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You’ve got a really impressive catalog of recordings under your belt.\u00a0 If you could be remembered for any recorded piece, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If it were for one song I would have to say \u201cWe Rock\u201d by Dio. On that song, everybody was on fire. There is a lot of energy and a lot of heart on that song. The playing on that song came straight from the heart and soul. That song would sum it up.<\/p>\n

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Man, that song is exactly what you would hope a song called \u201cWe Rock\u201d would sound like.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Exactly. There are a lot of drum fills on that song. When I see people play that song, including people who are supposed to know the parts, they leave all the important drum fills out. I hear the drums played kind of generically and it just think, \u201cShit man, I worked hard on that stuff. Jesus. [laughs]<\/p>\n