HEAVEN AND HELL Drummer Discusses New Setlist, Songwriting Process For New Album

Marko Syrjälä of Metal-Rules.com recently conducted an interview with drummer Vinny Appice (BLACK SABBATH, DIO, HEAVEN AND HELL, DERRINGER). An excerpt from the chat follows:

Metal-Rules.com: At the beginning of the last tour you were playing for about two hours, but as the tour progressed you dropped a couple of songs cutting the set down somewhat. What was the reason for that?

Vinny: Yeah, we started with a long set and then we just cut it because at a couple of shows we had to play less time and then we pulled the songs out and everybody went, "Let's just play that." But then that got longer because we started jamming, so what went from... we played for two hours, down to an hour and forty-five minutes, then it went back up to almost two hours, because on "Heaven And Hell" we started jamming shit, which was good because we were enjoying it so much. We just started jamming and improvising, so that's a good thing.

Metal-Rules.com: Can you tell us what stage the new HEAVEN AND HELL studio album is at right now?

Vinny: Right now we have six songs... about six songs written. They're just demos and they sound fucking awesome! Heavy, great... sounds like really cool SABBATH!

Metal-Rules.com: These six new songs that you've got at this point, how would you compare them to the three new tracks ("The Devil Cried", "Shadow of the Wind" and "Ear in the Wall") that were recorded for the BLACK SABBATH ("The Dio Years") compilation that brought about this whole reunion in the first place?

Vinny: Well, the [new stuff on the] compilation was just written by Tony [Iommi] and Ronnie [James Dio]... and it was done quickly, the first time they got together. We now have a whole tour of playing together behind us, so now we got together and Tony and Ronnie wrote a lot of stuff and then there's a lot of stuff with Geezer. Then we got together... we haven't played together, they write it on the computer and then I put drums on it. So, it's a lot more relaxed since we've played together so long, it's a lot tighter and a lot more focused.

Metal-Rules.com: That sounds very promising. So, this time around all of the members are participating in the writing process?

Vinny: Yeah... it seems to work best if Tony and Ronnie sit there and start the things and then... sometimes [together] with Geezer too or sometimes Geezer will come in and put his thing in there [later], you know. But mainly the two or three of them [write the material]. And then we'll get together in a room when we've got a couple more songs and play them and then we'll go in the studio and record them.

Read the entire interview at Metal-Rules.com.