Sometimes before interviewing a musician, I find myself fighting a preconceived image I’ve gotten of the person. Perhaps it was a picture painted by another journalist in some other publication, or maybe the image was conceived in my own mind as a result of the kind of songs that person writes or the kind of music that individual plays. I’ve learned that preconceptions are often as useful as stereotypes; both are non-realities. I couldn’t help wondering, though, what Vinny Appice would be like: raucus like the music he plays, or even outspoken and aggressive like his brother, Carmine. He really wasn’t either—not offstage, anyway. Vinny was warm, down to earth, and relaxed. He took me from his early beginnings with John Lennon and Rick Derringer, through his life with Black Sabbath to his current position with Dio. I realized it wasn’t merely his playing experiences, however, which qualified him to […]

September 1985 Issue