Vinny Appice Discusses Final Years With Heaven & Hell, Shares Dio Memories - Interview

On Wednesday (April 1), drummer Vinny Appice joined Loudwire Nights to celebrate the recent release of Breaking Out of Heaven, the new box set chronicling the final years of Heaven & Hell. Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

"When I saw the package, I didn't know that we had that much stuff," Appice admitted to Loudwire Nights' Chuck Armstrong about the new box set.

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"[The records] came out one at a time and then you put them all together, it's a lot bigger than what you remember. There's a tour program, too, which is pretty cool. I'm really happy that they're doing this. Otherwise, you know, Heaven & Hell was together, we did our thing and then it kind of fades into the background. But this is more of a celebration, it's bringing it to the front."

In addition to the tour program Appice mentioned, Breaking Out of Heaven includes The Devil You Know as well as Live From Radio City Music Hall and Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell, Live at Wacken.

For Appice, it's important that the final years of Ronnie James Dio's life are celebrated.

"We were having a good time playing together and making music and we were intending to continue for a bit, to do another tour in that summer in 2010 and possibly maybe another album," Appice shared.

"But that's when Ronnie got ill and we couldn't continue. It's kind of a sad ending ... I'm glad we got to do it [and that we're] putting this out, being Ronnie's last [album]."

In addition to celebrating Breaking Out of Heaven, Appice spent some time sharing memories about his earlier days working with Dio.

"I'm just fortunate to have been able to be in that position to make music with Ronnie," Appice said.

"Besides the Sabbath thing, it was the Holy Diver era. The first two albums were pretty mega and Ronnie could express anything he wanted. It was his band. Luckily, we had a great band together."

When he thinks about making Holy Diver, the first thing Appice said was that he and the band were just having fun.

"We didn't sit there and go, 'Let's make an album that's going to last 45 years or become a cornerstone of some rock music.' We were just having a great time. We'd go to Sound City Studios at 7 o'clock, we'd all drive in, we'd smoke a lot of pot and we were just creative, you know? We did creative things. It was like a club, a boys club. We're going to hang out tonight, 7 o'clock."

Appice said when they'd get to the studio, they'd jam together with no real framework for what they were doing — and the thing he'll always remember is how happy everyone was.

"Everybody was happy, Ronnie was happy," he said.

"We used to jam with Ronnie sitting there. He'd sit there and roll a joint. He'd stand there by his music stand, rolling a joint and we're just jamming then writing some lyrics down. He'd get up and sing. We never heard what he was going to sing until he got up and sang, so it was very organic. Anything could go. It was a fantastic time."

What Else Did Vinny Appice Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

Hearing the first demos of the songs that would become The Devil You Know: "This album was different as the songs were kind of written already between Ronnie, Geezer [Butler] and Tony [Iommi] and they recorded demos with a drum machine. Whereas Mob Rules and Dehumanizer, that was put together in a room with all of us. And we just cranked it out and put songs together that way. This was done very differently. I remember going to Ronnie's house and listening to some of the songs and there's a drum machine playing. Of course, that didn't go over too well with me, but I'm not the boss."
How he honors Ronnie James Dio on the anniversary of his death: "I just think of Ronnie. He's always in my heart and we were like brothers at certain points. I always think about him — and maybe crank up a Dio song or something. He was just amazing and an amazing person."
Why he always knew he wanted to be a drummer: "My brother, Carmine, he's a known drummer. He's 11 years older than me, so there were drums in the house. His band used to rehearse in the house in Brooklyn, I was around that, like 8 years old. I used to sit there and watch them rehearse and go, 'Wow, this is so cool.' And I'd look at the equipment and all the cables everywhere and [I knew] I want to do this. I didn't even think twice about doing something else."