Vinny Appice of Scream Taker, Dio, Black Sabbath and More – Interview
Scream Taker – Story by Anne Erickson, album artwork via Scream Taker
Vinny Appice of a bevy of Scream Taker, Dio, Black Sabbath and Last in Line talks with Anne Erickson about his latest project in this interview
Scream Taker is the new super group fronted by Jim Crean of the Appice Brothers, along with legendary drummer Vinny Appice (Dio, Black Sabbath, Appice Brothers) and guitarist Steph Honde (Paul Di’Anno, Hollywood Monster). The three musicians have come together to create this new project, offering songs with a classic hard rock feel.
Vinny Appice spoke with Audio Ink Radio’s Anne Erickson about the vision for Scream Taker, the band’s beginnings and his favorite Black Sabbath and Dio memoires.
Of the new Scream Taker material, Appice says, “We’re really happy with it. I love the songs on it. They’re really good songs. And, mainly, the fun thing is to work with these guys. They’re really cool guys.”
Scream Taker’s debut single and video, “Stone Cold,” is out now. As for the song, Appice says, “I think that was one of the first ones we recorded. The funny thing is there’s a video that goes with it…check out the video… the video is funny, because it looks like a really bad horror movie. You’ve heard of B-movies. This is a C- really cheesy, and it’s just funny. But, the song is real heavy. It’s a cool song.”
Switching gears to the legacy of being part of Dio, Appice says those songs never really went away. They have always been popular.
“The thing is, this music never died,” Appice says. “The Dio stuff, the ‘Holy Diver’ album, ‘The Last in Line’- mainly those two big albums are the ones that we played on. I played on more, but those are the important ones. They never really died. They keep selling and selling. It’s 40-something years, and these albums keep selling and selling and selling. They just used “Rainbow in the Dark” in the “Saw 4” movie. It’s at the end of the movie. They used it in “Bad Teacher.” We’re getting a lot of movie requests, and I’ve seen that show on Netflix, that really popular show “Stranger Things,” on the last season, the guy is wearing a Dio jacket- on the back of his denim jacket. And then there’s the movie, “Dreamers Never Die,” that just came out about 10 days ago, and that rekindkeld the whole thing again. Every day, I get these messages (from) people that went to see it. They love the movie. I’m in it, and they did a great job on the movie.
He added, “So, the music never really died. These new, young kids and musicians (are) coming to the shows and buying the albums, and they’re really liking, it because it’s old school. Back then, we didn’t use a click. We didn’t use samples. We didn’t have a computer. We mixed the song. It might be three of us on the mixing board. We did that at Sound City Studios, and we’d all take a bunch of faders and go through it how we’d want to mix it and then finally take it. So, the stuff never went away.”
Appice also says he had modest expectations for Dio when the band first started out. Of course, what happened with the band’s massive success exceeded his expectations.
“When we did those albums, especially ‘Holy Diver,’ Ronnie and I put the band together, and it was a great band, and we just thought, ‘We’ll make the best album that we can.’ We never sat there and thought, ‘Well, let’s make it like Black Sabbath,” because we both came out of Black Sabbath at that point, and we never said, ‘Let’s try to make a legendary album,’ because how do you do that? You can’t sit there and go, ‘I’m going to make a legendary album today.’ It just got to happen. So those albums, especially ‘Holy Diver,’ just kind of came together,” he said.
He added, “My drum tech said, ‘Man, this is going to go double platinum.’ Back then, he said that, and I went, ‘Nah. It’s probably going to do good, but double platinum? Oh, man.’ Sure enough, when it came out, it was like a typical story. We’re playing theaters, and then all of a sudden, the album comes out, and it’s climbing the charts, and after about three, four months, we’re starting to play arenas, and it’s one of those rock ‘n’ roll stories you hear. I was blessed with being able to play this incredible stuff in my career. In the right place at the right time.”
Listen to the full interview via the Audio Ink Radio podcast on Apple Podcasts here and Spotify here or via the audio player above.
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