HEAVEN AND HELL's VINNY APPICE Talks About New SABBATH Songs, Upcoming Tour

Debby Rao of KNAC.COM recently conducted an interview with legendary heavy metal drummer Vinny Appice (HEAVEN AND HELL, BLACK SABBATH, DIO). A few excerpts from the chat follow:

KNAC.COM: How did the idea of HEAVEN AND HELL come about? Did you get a phone call from Ronnie [James Dio]?

Appice: I got a call from Ronnie's manager, Wendy Dio. That was in November. I heard about this project right after the summer. I heard Bill Ward was involved, and they were doing the Dio years kind of thing. So I thought that was interesting that Bill is doing it, because I actually played on more stuff with Ronnie in SABBATH than Bill. So I said, "We will see what happens." So Wendy called me in November, and Wendy said, "Bill is not going to be involved in it, do you want to do it?" I said, "Sure." I flew to England the next day and went to play on three new songs that are included on the new BLACK SABBATH "The Dio Years" album. So that was like a big reunion when I went there. Obviously, we hadn't seen each other in a while. It was really cool.

KNAC.COM: What was it like when you first walked into the studio and saw Ronnie, Tony [Iommi], and Geezer [Butler] again? It must have been really exciting.

Appice: Well, when I walked in I could hear Ronnie doing the vocals, and that brought back memories, and I said,"Yeah I remember that." (Laughter) Ronnie finished, he came out and we hugged each other. We started talking and Tony and Geezer came in and did the same thing. It was a just like big family reunion. I have known these guys for over twenty-five years.

KNAC.COM: So you went to England to lay down the three new drum tracks for the upcoming [BLACK SABBATH] release. Tell me a little bit about the three new songs. How do they hey differ from early SABBATH?

Appice: Obviously, from the early stuff, they are a little bit more polished. There is more production quality on them. The songs themselves contain very heavy riffs. There are two songs that are on the slow side, so they a bit more SABBATH-y. It sounds like a cross between "Heaven And Hell" and "Dehumanizer". Ronnie is singing his ass off and Tony and Geezer are playing asses off. It is really cool, I am really excited.

KNAC.COM: Let's talk about the upcoming HEAVEN AND HELL tour. Now there is only one U.S. date so far. The band will perform in New York at Radio City Music Hall on March 30th. Why did you choose Radio City Music Hall and New York City for the HEAVEN AND HELL U.S. debut?

Appice: Well actually we just decided to book a one-day U.S. date so we could say the whole tour is sold out. (Laughter) I am only kidding.

KNAC.COM: OK. Actually the Radio City Music Hall show sold out in 45 minutes. How exciting was that?

Appice: Yes, it did sell out in 45 minutes. I don't know who picked that venue. I guess they are having rock concerts there. [ROCK STAR] SUPERNOVA just played there. I was just there in December; I went to see one of the Christmas shows. It is so nice inside, and I kept looking around going, "Wow, we are going to play here." It is really amazing that they are having rock concerts in that nice place. So they are having concerts there, and that was the one that was chosen. Then we are going to come back in April for a month and do more States, and than a month later to do more U.S. dates.

KNAC.COM: So hopefully HEAVEN AND HELL will be playing all the major U.S. cities from coast to coast soon.

Appice: Yes, probably in two different sections, in two different tours.

KNAC.COM: What can the fans expect to hear on the upcoming tour?

Appice: We have been rehearsing. Yesterday, we played seventeen songs, which is a lot. It is not going to be seventeen songs, but it is going to be a very long set. It will probably be longer than the usual one-hour and twenty-minute set. I think they want to play a lot of the stuff. It depends on how we put it all together. It is going to be all the classic songs, that we haven't played live really much. Plus a couple of the new ones, it is going to be a great set list.

Reaad the entire interview at KNAC.COM.