Former DIO and current DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell revealed in April 2012 that he is planning to join forces with three other original DIO members to play “some gigs” that will see the musicians performing material from the early DIO records that Campbell appeared on. Dubbed LAST IN LINE, Campbell, Vinny Appice (drums), Jimmy Bain (bass) and Claude Schnell (keyboards) will be accompanied by singer Andrew Freeman, who has previously fronted HURRICANE and LYNCH MOB.
Speaking to Artisan News on the “red carpet” of the Los Angeles premiere of “Sound City”, the new feature-length documentary directed and produced by FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl, Appice stated about how the idea for LAST IN LINE came about: “We just jammed one night. Viv [Campbell] called up and said, ‘You wanna jam?’ He was playing with STEEL PANTHER and they played ‘Rainbow In The Dark’ and he had such a good time playing it that he went, ‘You know what?! This is cool.’ He called me up [and said], ‘Yeah, let’s jam.’ So we all got together and we played. And we hadn’t played those songs in thirty-something years, and it was tight. So he said, ‘You wanna do some dates?’ I said, ‘Let’s schedule it and it’ll be fun.’”
On the topic of what Freeman adds to the LAST IN LINE project, Vinny said: “I’d played with [Andy] before. He’s a really good singer. Real passionate. We’re not trying to have somebody look like Ron [Ronnie James Dio] or sing exactly like him — just somebody that will sing it with passion like Ronnie did, with his heart.”
LAST IN LINE will embark on a European tour this summer, to be preceded by regional U.S. warm-up shows.
Campbell and Ronnie James Dio worked together on the first three DIO albums 1983′s “Holy Diver”, 1984′s “The Last in Line” and 1985′s “Sacred Heart” — before Irishman Campbell left to join WHITESNAKE in 1987.
DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell has announced the 5th Annual Dinner Party with Vivian on Saturday, January 26th at 7PM at the Cat And The Fiddle Restaurant in Hollywood, CA.
Vivian Campbell
An eBay auction has now been announced for fans to win a chance to attend the dinner. 25 fans will get the chance to hang out with him, eat a three-course meal, have photos taken and memorabilia signed. There are multiple listings with many chances to win.
According to TMZ, DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell has filed for divorce from his wife Julie Campbell after a 25 years of marriage.
Campbell filed documents in Los Angeles County Superior Court citing irreconcilable differences. The couple married in February 1987 and have two young daughters together, ages 13 and 11.
Campbell is asking for joint legal and physical custody of the girls and he’s asking the judge to deny spousal support to Julie.
Yesterday Tales From The Stage author Michael Toney interviewed Tim “Ripper” Owens (DIO DISCIPLES, ex-JUDAS PRIEST, ICED EARTH, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN) backstage at the Hard Rock Cafe on the strip in Las Vegas, NV.
In the video below, Ripper shares his opinion on the news of Vivian Campbell’s new DIO tribute band. He also confirms his departure from Yngwie Malmsteen’s camp, as well as who he will be voting for next month.
Peter Hodgson of SeymourDuncan.com recently conducted an interview with former DIO and current DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
SeymourDuncan.com: So DEF LEPPARD is re-recording more old material. Why?
Vivian: It’s a long and complicated story as to why we’ve decided to re-record, but basically it involves our not being able to come to a financial agreement with our former record company as regards digital releases. We are continuing to re-record the biggest hits of the band’s catalogue as, frankly, we see no signs that the label will come to an acceptable arrangement with us anytime soon and in the meantime we wish our music to be available to those who want to buy it in a digital format. Personally, I think they’re pretty impressive versions! As we now live in an à la carte world when it comes to music purchases, we’re concentrating on the most popular songs first. We have no plans to re-record entire albums at this stage.
SeymourDuncan.com: What’s it like for you to revisit the DIO material [with your new band featuring original DIO members Vinny Appice (drums), Jimmy Bain (bass) and Claude Schnell (keyboards) along with singer Andy Freeman]? The crowd seemed to go insane when you played “Rainbow In The Dark” with STEEL PANTHER recently!
Vivian: I’m very excited about revisiting the DIO songs again, as are the other guys from the original band. It’s been a long time since I was able to address that time in my life as there were a lot of bad memories that went along with all the great music. However, now I can focus on the positive again and I feel it’s time to revisit the songs I wrote and the way that I played guitar back then. They were great records and we were all very much a part of making them.
SeymourDuncan.com: What do you think of the [DEF LEPPARD] album “Slang” these days? It seems to have held up very well and not dated like a lot of other bands’ albums from that time have.
Vivian: I always had mixed feelings about “Slang”, even while we were recording it. I do very, very much like the sonics of it, as we used real drums for the first time in many years and the guitar sounds are also much less processed and more direct. However, the issue I always had with the record was that I personally don’t believe that we did ourselves justice in terms of the songwriting — I feel we could’ve fine-tuned them a lot more and that we were pandering too much to the then current trends in music. To me, DEF LEPPARD was always synonymous with well-crafted songs and big choruses and harmonies, and whilst there was an obvious shift in musical tastes going on at the time, I still felt that we could have remained more true to the principles that had shaped the band’s success.
Jeff Cramer of the Stone Cold Crazy blog recently conducted an interview with legendary drummer Vinny Appice (DIO, BLACK SABBATH, HEAVEN & HELL, KILL DEVIL HILL). An excerpt from the chat follows below.
Stone Cold Crazy: Out of all the people who played with [Ronnie James] Dio, the one who seems to have the most hostility toward Dio is [former DIO and current DEF LEPPARD guitarist] Vivian Campbell. No one else who worked with Dio has that much animosity as Vivian does. I mean I’ve interviewed Craig Gruber, before Ronnie‘s death, and he had nothing but nice things to say about him. Sounds like something really bad had happened between the two.
Appice: Yeah. Well, it was chalked down to business. There was a lot of business decisions that weren’t the best for the band, and as far as the way things were cut up and stuff, so Viv had a problem with that, and Viv was more hostile toward fighting and getting what he wanted. So, he didn’t see eye to with Ronnie. Eventually, that got worse and worse and worse until Ronnie said, “I’m gonna get rid of Viv. I’m gonna get somebody else.” I didn’t think it was a great decision, because Viv was part of that band, part of the magic, and a great guitar player, but it was Ronnie‘s band. So, yeah, it just got worse and worse and worse until one day, it was the bubble burst, boop, Viv‘s out. So that was crazy. But they didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and didn’t work together. It was more down to business. It wasn’t a musical thing. It wasn’t like DIO was gonna start playing disco songs, you know?
Stone Cold Crazy: Then you guys went on with Craig Goldy, to do “Dream Evil”, although I did notice on “Lock Up The Wolves” there is a bunch of songs that were credited to you, even though by that point you and Jimmy Bain are credited on several songs, but by that point, you guys aren’t even in the band anymore.
Appice: No, but “Lock Up The Wolves”, we wound up writing — I rehearsed with the band and we wrote all the stuff that we wrote together, and so all my parts were there and my drumming was there, and, actually — and I think Simon Wright will tell you the same thing — that he copied some of the drum parts that I had because there were certain things that I played and he wound up playing the same thing, so I wound up rehearsing and writing with the band for the whole time. Just about when we were gonna go in the studio, that’s when I left, I left the band. And Jimmy was there, but not as long as I was, so I forgot when Jimmy was actually not there.
Stone Cold Crazy: What made you leave DIO at that time?
Appice: Well, it was a little different people in the band. It was like Rowan Robinson, Teddy Cook. And they were all young, and it was like, “Wow, this is like an underage band almost.” It was like, “Jeez, it’s not the same band that I’m used to with Viv and Jimmy and Claude Schnell.” So it was so changed that I thought maybe now it’s time that I leave and I was hooking up with my buddy Jeff Pilson. He had a band called WAR & PEACE. And he was putting something together and I thought, “Okay. Let me hook up with him and try spreading my wings a little bit here.” So that’s what I did. So I decided to leave.
Guitarist Vivian Campbell (DEF LEPPARD, ex-DIO) recently revealed plans to perform with original Dio members, stating: “I met up with the original Dio band guys (drummer) Vinny Appice, (bassist) Jimmy Bain and (keyboardist) Claude Schnell. Now that I’ve brushed-up on how to play those solos again, we’re planning to jam some more and plan to do some gigs, too. We found a great singer who can really do justice to Ronnie’s parts.”
Those rehearsals are currently underway and Campbell has checked in with the following update:
“I played with the Dio guys again last night and we managed to get through about 12 songs, but oh, so loud! In my entire career I’ve never before managed to wind-up a Marshall head to 10 until last night – and I STILL couldn’t hear myself! Those guys have some pent-up frustration to let out. Gonna be big fun when we take this on the road, but I’m gonna need more horsepower.”
Stay tuned for updates, and find Vivian Campbell on Facebook at this location.
Former DIO and current DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell will perform a couple of songs with Los Angeles glam-metal jokesters STEEL PANTHER this coming Monday, May 28 at the House Of Blues in West Hollywood, California. Vivian says, “Those guys are great and I’m really looking forward to playing with them again.”
Vivian previously performed DEF LEPPARD‘s “Rock Of Ages” and DIO‘s “Rainbow In The Dark” with STEEL PANTHER at the House Of Blues in Anaheim, California in January. Video footage of his appearance can be seen below.
Campbell revealed late last month that he is planning to join forces with three other original DIO members to play “some gigs” that will see the musicians performing material from the early DIO records that Campbell appeared on. Campbell, Vinny Appice (drums), Jimmy Bain (bass) and Claude Schnell (keyboards) will be accompanied by singer Andrew Freeman, who has previously fronted HURRICANE and LYNCH MOB.
Former DIO and current DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell revealed late last month that he is planning to join forces with three other original DIO members to play “some gigs” that will see the musicians performing material from the early DIO records that Campbell appeared on. Campbell, Vinny Appice (drums), Jimmy Bain (bass) and Claude Schnell (keyboards) will be accompanied by singer Andrew Freeman, who has previously fronted HURRICANE and LYNCH MOB.
In a May 14 interview with Jason Saulnier of the MusicLegends.ca web site (hear audio below), Schnell explained how the reunion of the former DIO bandmates came about. “We got together for a coincidental play a few weeks ago,” he said. “And what was initially supposed to be just kind of a fun hang to see what would come of it. I mean, it had been — amazingly — 26 years since we had all been in the same room together, since Viv‘s exit post the ‘Sacred Heart’ album. So we got together just to have a play for fun, and it turned out to be more than just fun. It was a a lot of fun, and as chance would have it, it actually sounded quite good. I think we were all a little bit surprised at not only by how good it sounded, but more importantly, how good it felt, and how authentic it felt, and how familiar everything seemed; it was kind of like walking through some kind of a time portal. I mean, basically, we recaptured — I think — the vibe that we had all those years ago, and it just seemed like an obvious next step to maybe proceed with this a little bit further.”
On what it felt like to playing with his former DIO bandmates again:
Schnell: “For the most part, we had all been in touch over the years anyway. I speak with Vinny very, very often — probably on a weekly basis, I would say. And Viv and I kind of keep in touch. We have some mutual friends. We share an auto mechanic, for one thing. So we kind of keep tabs on each other and keep in touch in that regard. But Jimmy, actually, I don’t think anybody had heard from in a long time. And it was actually a chance encounter with Viv at this past NAMM [convention] in January [in Anaheim, California], when I had approached him to perhaps get together with me to work on some stuff that I had been trying to pursue that the subject of maybe getting together for a play with the old guys kind of came up. I know Viv had done an impromptu play with, I think it was STEEL PANTHER at the House Of Blues, if I’m not mistaken. And he was energized from that performance to the point of saying, ‘Yeah, we should get together with Jimmy and Vinny.’ So Viv got everybody’s e-mails and got everybody in touch with each other, and we got together, and again, it felt like old times. [We gave each other] a couple of bro hugs, and within an instant we were off and playing. And also, Andrew, the singer with whom we did that initial rehearsal, is somebody that Vinny had played with when he was playing with George Lynch in LYNCH MOB. And I had briefly done some work with Andrew on some of my projects. So they were very familiar faces, and it felt very organic and very natural.”
On the new band’s tentative plan to play some shows under the name LAST IN LINE:
Schnell: “[To call the band LAST IN LINE is] the plan at the moment; that seems to be the consensus, and from the e-mails that I have received and from the various commentaries that I have seen through the social sites and online, it’s been getting a very good response, so I think that’s probably gonna be the name that will survive. And also, it’s kind of a subtle nod to how, in his last efforts, when Ronnie did the [BLACK] SABBATH reunion of sorts, even though they couldn’t call it SABBATH, they chose to use the name of the first album on which Ronnie played with SABBATH. Similarly, the first DIO album on which we all played together — myself included — was ‘The Last In Line’. And I think LAST IN LINE works better as a band name than HOLY DIVER does anyway, so…”
On the first LAST IN LINE rehearsal:
Schnell: “I think ‘Holy Diver’ was the first [song] that we played. And interestingly, too, because the song starts with just the instruments alone, I think all of us had kind of a memory anticipation of the next thing we were gonna hear being Ronnie‘s voice. Because other than the obvious and notable absence of Ronnie‘s voice, it sounded exactly like it sounded back in the day. It was very, I guess, duplicitious. On the one hand, it felt great to be playing this music again and to have the authenticity and the strength and the power and all of the things that go with playing with such notable material, but the absence of Ronnie being no longer with us to sing it became painfully obvious as we progressed through the session. Not to take anything away from Andrew‘s performance — he did an outstanding job, and if he didn’t, I don’t believe that he’d be the one that we’d be pursuing the project with. But he did a very, very good job. His online comments about ‘preparing to be the world’s most hated singer notwithstanding,’ I think he’s going to do a very credible and very impressive job of covering this material.”
“Sadly, none of us really remembered all the songs all the way through exactly the same way, but it didn’t really matter. As a testament, I think, to Ronnie‘s work ethic, having played together for so long and having had so much repetition back when we did play together, it didn’t matter, and I think the momentum and inertia of how strong the music is just carried us through and we basically got through it all. Probably the largest component of that is the military Swiss clock that Vinny and Jimmy provide when they play together. I mean, I don’t think there’s a better rhythm section in rock out there.”
On LAST IN LINE‘s setlist:
Schnell: “Well, it’s largely gonna be material from the first three albums — ‘Holy Diver’, ‘The Last In Line’ and ‘Sacred Heart’ — the albums on which Viv played. I don’t think we’re gonna be doing any material from the albums on which Craig [Goldy, Vivian's replacement in DIO] played and the later incarnations of the band. But, fortunately, there is no shortage of material and hits on those first few records, so you can count on ‘Rainbow In The Dark’ and ‘Holy Diver’ and ‘Rock And Roll Children’, and so forth and so on. The list goes on and on, on and on.”
On LAST IN LINE‘s touring plans:
Schnell: “We’ve been putting out some feelers and getting some kind of feedback about… Actually, [there is] a very strong international interest in seeing this back on the road. Again, this is all kind of very ironic and surprising, because quite honestly, initially, the only interest in doing this is a bunch of friends getting together to have a play and socialize a little bit and kind of catch up. But, like I said, it just seemed so organic once we started playing that the notion of doing it more than once seemed inevitable. And, of course, with that being considered, then it was an obvious conclusion that, ‘Well, let’s see if anybody would be interested in hearing this.’ Needless to say, the ears that were listening within the rehearsal hall were on fire. There was an awful lot of, ‘Hey, that sounds like that band from way back when.’”
On Vivian‘s involvement with LAST IN LINE:
Schnell: “I’m not terribly familiar with what Viv‘s following has been post-DIO. I mean, I know everything that he’s done, but it seems to me that he is largely defined by what he did on those first few albums, and I’m here to tell that, believe me, every bit of fire he had back in the day is still well in place and is just chomping at the bit, waiting to break out.”
Campbell and Ronnie James Dio worked together on the first three DIO albums 1983′s “Holy Diver”, 1984′s “The Last in Line” and 1985′s “Sacred Heart” — before Irishman Campbell left to join WHITESNAKE in 1987. Their subsequent relationship was strained, to say the least.
In a June 2011 interview with Share My Guitar, Vivian was asked about his “falling out” with Ronnie and how Dio‘s passing affected him. “It’s not so much that we had a falling out. Ronnie and I never really had much in common other than the music,” he said. “There was a real age difference between us. When I joined DIO, I had just turned twenty. Ronnie was a lot older. I’m sure it was just as uncomfortable for him as it was for me. We had this very awkward kind of relationship where we found it very hard to communicate with each other. It was like being in a band with your stepdad. It was really weird. Then Ronnie fired me. A lot of people think I left DIO and I turned my back on him. That’s absolutely not the case. I got fired half way through the ‘Sacred Heart’ tour. I never wanted to leave the band.”
When asked why he got fired, Vivian said, “When we first got together, Ronnie promised us that by the third album there would be an equitable split for the band. Everyone would be an equal guy in terms of merchandise and record sales. We got none of that. Jimmy Bain and Vinny Appice and myself were all salaried players. We earned less than our road crew. I just felt it was wrong. Ronnie, and particularly his wife Wendy, made this promise to all of us back then. So we started doing the third album, and I was probably the most vocal. ‘Hey Ronnie, we talked about this back then and you promised us this.’ Ronnie kept saying, ‘We’ll talk about it when the record is over.’ Then the record was over and I brought it back up again and he said, ‘We’ll talk about it when we’re on the road.’ It just kept getting put off. Then we had a break in the tour and I went back to Ireland to visit my parents. I got this FedEx [package] asking me to sign this contract. They were going to pay me an extra two hundred bucks a week, and that failure to return it signed by such and such a date would be constituted as me leaving the band. So I’m on the phone trying to get Ronnie, and, of course, Ronnie won’t pick up the phone. The next thing I know, the band is doing the U.K. part of the tour with Craig Goldy and I’m fired.
“I’m very proud of those records. The songs that I wrote with Ronnie and the records we made really stand up. It’s bittersweet for me because I never got paid for them, nor did Vinny or Jimmy. . . We got no royalties on the records. We got none of the receipts from the tour. We were salaried guys getting paid less than the lighting designer, getting paid less than the sound guy, getting paid less than the professionals on the crew. To put a dollar figure on it, in 1984 I earned sixty-something thousand dollars, and Ronnie earned eleven million. It’s a little bit of a financial discrepancy, considering that the band also wrote the music. Jimmy Bain and I wrote a lot of those songs with him. To not get paid at all and then to be fired…”
He continued, “I don’t like talking about the details of it in that way. I thoroughly enjoyed playing in that band. I never wanted to leave. I got fired. As a result, it did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, so I hadn’t spoke to Ronnie since then. Frankly, when he died it was two weeks after my mother died, so I was kind of a little bit numb to the whole thing. People were calling me saying, ‘What do you think about Ronnie dying?’ I didn’t feel anything about Ronnie dying. I hadn’t talked to him in over twenty-five years and my mother had just passed. Saying that I left the band and turned by back on DIO is absolutely not true. I was 100% fired.”
In interview conducted a short time before he died, Ronnie stated about Vivian‘s tenure with DIO, “In my opinion, Vivian no longer had the commitment to the band he had in the early days. He was — and remains — an excellent guitarist. I never lost sight of how good he was as a musician, but as a person… Well, he was no longer on the same page as the rest of us. That annoyed me hugely. When you’ve got four people really stretching and straining to do their very best, and one person who’s clearly holding back, it makes for an unhappy camp. A lot of negative things have been said since by both Vivian and me… Now, I regret some of those things. I’m sure he does, too.”
Speaking to U.K.’s Metal Hammer for the magazine’s May 2012 issue which features a six-page spotlight on DIO, Bain said about Campbell‘s exit from the group, “Viv did nothing that warranted his removal from the band in what is still considered to be a cowardly way. For me, firing Viv was the biggest mistake of Ronnie‘s career. The problem could’ve easily been resolved if there had a been a will to do so from Ronnie and Wendy [Dio, the band's manager and Ronnie's wife].”
Vinny also regretted Vivian‘s departure although he was a little more diplomatic in his comments on the situation.
“Viv wasn’t happy with the business part of the band, and musically wanted to pursue something else,” Vinny said. “If he had been happy with the business end of it, he probably would’ve stayed and made a few more records with us. We had a successful, great band with Viv, and it was unfortunate to change ingredients.”
Bain also felt that DIO was in decline by the time the band released “Sacred Heart”.
“DIO should have gotten better with each album, but what happened was the opposite,” Jimmy told Metal Hammer. “The production was watered down with all the keyboards, [and] the songs were not as good because it became harder to satisfy Ronnie‘s need to complicate arrangement and structure.”
In a May 2011 interview with Brazil’s Roadie Crew magazine, Wendy Dio stated about the controversy surrounding Ronnie‘s relationship with Campbell (in a 2003 interview Vivian called Ronnie “an awful businessman and, way more importantly, one of the vilest people in the industry.”), “[Vivian] always said that he hated all the albums that he played on with Ronnie, and that was very hurtful to Ronnie. Very hurtful. Would you like someone who said something like that about your albums? He said a lot of things in the press that I don’t wanna get into, because it really wasn’t Ronnie‘s feud at all. Ronnie didn’t fire him. I fired [Vivian]. He wanted as much money as Ronnie wanted. He thought he was as important as Ronnie was, and that was just wrong. But I don’t wanna get into that. It’s water under the bridge. It doesn’t matter.”
In March 2011, it was announced that the surviving members of the final lineup of DIO would embark on a project with former JUDAS PRIEST frontman Tim “Ripper” Owens under the name DIO DISCIPLES.
During an April 2011 appearance on the “All Hail Hair” show on Fightin’ Words Radio, Vinny Appice was asked what he thought of DIO DISCIPLES going out on the road and paying tribute to Ronnie James Dio. “I think it’s disgusting,” he said. “I mean, why are they even doing it? Plus, [Ronnie has] not even been passed away for a year. And, you know… It’s kind of… I don’t know. It’s kind of weird, man. It’s weird.”
Don de Leaumont of The Great Southern Brainfart recently conducted an interview with legendary drummer Vinny Appice (DIO, BLACK SABBATH, HEAVEN & HELL, KILL DEVIL HILL). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
The Great Southern Brainfart: I want to talk about your playing on the KILL DEVIL HILL album. The playing on this album is like nothing I’ve ever heard you do before. You have such a signature sound to it but there’s some groove and swing in there that I’ve never heard from Vinny Appice.
Vinny: There are two things that were involved in that. One thing was that the last HEAVEN & HELL album, “The Devil You Know”, was written with a friggin’ drum machine. It was all of us in a room with a drum machine. It was stupid. I wanted to go into a rehearsal place and jam and work the shit up loud. That’s the way we did “Mob Rules” and “Dehumanizer”, but instead, it wound up with us working in Ronnie‘s [James Dio] studio with a drum machine. When we recorded “The Devil You Know”, the band wanted it really simple on the drums so I didn’t play a lot on that album. When the album came out, I got all this feedback like, “Vinny didn’t play shit on the drums,” and “The drums are really boring,” and shit like that [laughs]. I was like, “OK, but you guys don’t know the whole story.” That was in my head so I decided that I was going to play my ass off on [the KILL DEVIL HILL] record.
The Great Southern Brainfart: I really loved “The Devil You Know” and I had no idea the level of restraint you were working with.
Vinny: Well, with SABBATH, it was more that the playing had to be under that SABBATH umbrella. We couldn’t do too much crazy shit. Even having too much melody would be too nice for SABBATH. There are three different egos that are running the band and the way “The Devil You Know” was written, it wasn’t inspiring for me to play drum machine parts. You can’t hang or swing on a drum machine. It’s hard to work that way. If we would’ve been in a room rehearsing the music, it would’ve been a lot more aggressive and a lot more SABBATH-y than what came out.
The Great Southern Brainfart: I keep getting asked by folks about what’s going on with the current BLACK SABBATH drama with [drummer] Bill Ward not doing the reunion and all. What’s your take on it all?
Vinny: I haven’t been contacted or anything so I’m not involved, to be honest. I am in touch with them though, especially with Tony [Iommi] regarding his health and all. It was kind of funny to see this big deal about SABBATH coming back and then suddenly Bill‘s not doing it. Then I read all these posts online saying, “Well, if Bill‘s not doing it, Vinny should be next in line,” and then other are saying shit like, “Fuck Vinny! He shouldn’t be up there. It should be Bill!” Then I read that Tommy [Clufetos] from Ozzy‘s band is thrown in the mix and then they’re like, “Fuck Tommy. Vinny should be up there!” [laughs] It’s like the gossiping housewives of “Jersey Shore” or something. [laughs]
The Great Southern Brainfart: Obviously it’s not fair to say that you weren’t a part of SABBATH‘s history, but with them calling it a “BLACK SABBATH reunion,” do you think it’s proper for them to carry on without Bill Ward and still call it a SABBATH reunion?
Vinny: 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’t do it because of some medical problems, so I did like 4 or 5 weeks with them in Europe with Ozzy singing. They didn’t 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’t have any issues on that tour, so I went the whole tour without playing which was the weirdest tour I ever did.
The Great Southern Brainfart: Being on tour and not being able to play sounds horrible. It’s kind of like being in a brothel and not being able to touch anything.
Vinny: [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’s a reunion thing. At this point, it’ll probably be the last SABBATH tour and I think the fans, well I don’t think, I know that the fans honestly want to see the real band. I would like to see it to. They play unbelievably together.
The Great Southern Brainfart: 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.
Vinny: Yeah, exactly. I guess the whole problem with this thing was money. It’s a shame to see that. I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen. If they end up doing it with another drummer, it’ll be the second best thing since the fans still obviously want to hear those classic songs.
The Great Southern Brainfart: You worked with three different guitarists in DIO (Vivian Campbell, Craig Goldy, and Tracy G). In your opinion, who was the best DIO guitarist?
Vinny: Oh, it was Campbell. He was the man. He was on fire. He played great, he had a great feel, and he had great rhythm. He was a really cool guy. Viv, Jimmy [Bain], Claude [Schnell] and I just jammed last month. Viv was in town and he wanted to play, so we got a rehearsal place and went in and just played all these old DIO songs. It was really cool. We might even do some dates, so we’ll see. We have this really cool singer named Andy [Andrew Freeman; HURRICANE and LYNCH MOB], who really loves Ronnie and it might be cool to just go out and do some shows. I hadn’t played with Viv since 1985 or ’86, but yet it was tight as fuck. We could’ve gone out and played a show that night. That’s how tight it was even after all those years. [laughs] That’s something that might happen. I mean, we were the real guys. We were the band. Ronnie>‘s not here and it would be nice to play those songs they way they should be played in memory of Ronnie. I don’t know what we’d call it. RE-DIO? [laughs]
Read the entire interview from The Great Southern Brainfart:
