VINNY APPICE Talks LAST IN LINE, Performing With Orchestra (Video)

California Rock News conducted an interview with legendary drummer Vinny Appice (BLACK SABBATH, DIO, HEAVEN & HELL) on Friday, September 23 at GoDpsMusic in Newbury Park, California. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On LAST IN LINE, the band featuring Appice alongside DEF LEPPARD guitarist and fellow founding DIO member Vivian Campbell, plus singer Andrew Freeman, who has previously fronted HURRICANE and LYNCH MOB:

Vinny: “We love playing together. I love playing with Vivian. Vivian‘s just such a great guitar player. Unfortunately, Jimmy Bain, the original bass player from DIO and a good mate, passed; he died in January on the DEF LEPPARD rock cruise, and it was shocking. So we took some time off. And since then we’ve played, I think, two gigs, and we had Phil Soussan on bass from OZZY [OSBOURNE] and a good friend, and Erik Norlander on keyboards. And Andy Freeman on vocals — a great singer; he’s amazing. It’s a band where… Sometimes you play in bands and you look at the setlist and you go, ‘Shit, we’ve still got eight songs to go?’ This band is, like, ‘Oh, we’ve only got eight more songs. That’s too bad,’ you know? It’s one of those bands. We just love playing together and hanging out together.”

On performing with the Temecula Valley Symphony on June 18 on the steps of the Temecula Civic Center in Temecula, California:

Vinny: “My fiancée, Joey [Wester], put together. We went to see the orchestra, and she said, ‘How would you like to play with them?’ And I said, ‘That would be unbelievable.’ And that was a bucket list item — to play [LED ZEPPELIN‘s] ‘Kashmir’ with an orchestra. I had my monitors blasting with the orchestra. So we did it, and it was Craig Goldy [DIO] on guitar, myself on drums, Rudy Sarzo [OZZY OSBOURNE, QUIET RIOT] on bass and Andy Freeman, who’s in LAST IN LINE, on vocals. And we did songs like ‘Love Reign O’er Me’ [by] THE WHO, ‘No More Tears’ [by] OZZY [OSBOURNE], with the orchestra part in it, ‘Nights In White Satin’ [by the MOODY BLUES], something I normally wouldn’t play. And just songs like that. [There were] 1,500 people [there]; the place was packed. It was outside. Beautiful night. So that was a definite highlight of my career — something like that; I never did that before, and it was awesome. We’ll try to put another one together, ’cause it was killer. And everybody loved it. There were more people after that show going, ‘Oh, man. That was so great.'”

LAST IN LINE — the band featuring DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell alongside fellow founding DIO member Vinny Appice, plus singer Andrew Freeman, who has previously fronted HURRICANE and LYNCH MOB — will embark on its first-ever European tour this fall.

The band’s debut album, “Heavy Crown”, was released on February 19 via Frontiers Music Srl. The CD was recorded at a Santa Clarita, California studio with producer Jeff Pilson, a veteran bassist who has played with DIO, FOREIGNER, DOKKEN and T&N, among others.