HEAVEN AND HELL's VINNY APPICE "IT'S GONNA BE FUN PLAYING THESE OLD SONGS AGAIN"
Recently, Metalshrine, Niclas Müller-Hansen conducted an interview with Heaven and Hell drummer, Vinny Appice. Few excerpts are follows:
Metalshrine: I thought I'd start off with HEAVEN AND HELL. What's it like being back together after all these years?
Vinny: Well, I went over to England to play on the three new tracks that will be on this new CD and everybody was there. I walked in and Ronnie was singing and after he finished, you know, it was great seeing him. We hugged and talked for a while and Tony and Geezer walked in and it was like a big family reunion. It was fantastic, so I'm totally excited about this and I'm just glad to be part of this.
Metalshrine: When you start rehearsing for the HEAVEN AND HELL tour, will that be the four of you in a studio somewhere just jamming it out?
Vinny: We're going into a rehearsal place, a big room and we'll have a lot of amps and shit and we're gonna play at full volume. We'll have to relearn all these songs. We'll probably have a boom box, a cd player...and I didn't have "Heaven and Hell" on cd, so they just sent it to me. I'm sure we'll be playing these songs and making mistakes and laugh. "Oh, I forgot that part!" I spoke to Tony and we talked about some of the songs and some of the songs even he said "Wow, I forgot that it's so complicated!" about some of the stuff on "Dehumanizer". It's gonna be fun playing these old songs again.
Metalshrine: Do you think you'll alternate the setlist during the tour, or will it be a "fixed" set and that's it?
Vinny: Well, we always did a fixed set with SABBATH before, even with DIO, but I've gotten used to alternate lately, just with all the different projects I've done and so many different songs. I didn't like doing it before, but now I like it, so I don't know how everybody else feels, but maybe we will do that. "Alright, let's throw in this song!" The only problem is you've got different lighting ques and so on, so we have to rehearse those songs with the people that are involved.
Metalshrine: How long did it take for you [to lay down the drums tracks for the new songs on "The Dio Years" CD]? You come in and you have three songs to put down drums for, is that like a day's work?
Vinny: You know what? I flew in to England, so it's like an eight-hour time difference and I took a car up to Birmingham and that's another two hours. Got to the studio, or I mean got to the hotel and took a five minute nap and then they called "Hey, you want to come down to the studio?" And I said "Yeah!" So I go down to the studio and I hadn't slept and I had a big headache. We had a drink and we hung out, had a laugh and reminisce and all that stuff and then we listened to the songs. Then we were figuring on coming in the next day and start laying it down and listening to everything, because I'd never heard these songs. So we hung out for a while and then I told the engineer "Well, let's screw around with the drums and get some sort of sound!" So I started playing and getting the drum sound and then I started waking up, you know. So after about half and hour we got a cool drum sound and I went "Well, why don't you start one of the songs and I'll start playing to it!" I started doing that and within two hours I got the whole song down. We were able to do parts by parts and keeping them on ProTools, it's easy. I was able to finish those songs pretty quick. We did that song one night, one song the next day and finished some of the bass and vocals and then I did the last song the third day. We even did a photo session too.
According to a posting at VHLinks.com, Hit Parader magazine recently conducted an interview with VAN HALEN guitarist Eddie Van Halen about the group's reunion with singer David Lee Roth and their upcoming North American tour. The question-and-answer session follows:
Hit Parader: So how does it feel to be back?
Eddie Van Halen: Back where? I haven't gone anywhere.
Hit Parader: What have you been up to since your 2004 was tour with Sammy Hagar was cut short?
Eddie Van Halen: Oh, just writing, recording. Jamming with my kid [Wolfgang, new VAN HALEN bass player] and Al [Alex Van Halen, VAN HALEN drummer]. My son Wolfie, the kid's a natural. Started on guitar. Moved to bass last year, and we've just been jamming it up.
Hit Parader: Did you know from the outset that you would be getting Dave back in the band?
Eddie Van Halen: Y'know, it didn't really matter who it was. It could be Dave. It could be someone else. We actually had a couple of people come up to the house and sing. It could have been them.
Hit Parader: Or Hagar?
Eddie Van Halen: Nah. After the last tour, I realized that was sort of a mistake.
Hit Parader: What happened?
Eddie Van Halen: We just wanted to play. Couldn't get it together with Dave, though we'd sure tried. So Sam called Al and that set into motion. I was the last one. I said sure. Then we got Sobolewski [ex-VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony] in, though I didn't really want to. Anyway, it just fell apart. Nobody was on speaking terms. And Hagar and the bass player were just using the press coverage to sell tequila or hot sauce. It was below the belt.
Hit Parader: So no chance on getting Anthony back in the band?
Eddie Van Halen: Why? He hasn't played on a VAN HALEN record in years. We've not spoken. I don't mean to slight him, he's a good player. But there hasn't been that vibe or closeness for years. Plus now he's off playing with the enemy. (laughs)
Hit Parader: You mean Hagar? Their band, THE OTHER HALF?
Eddie Van Halen: Yeah, what's with that? They're out there selling hot sauce and tequila and playing all the songs I wrote. It's kind of sad.
Hit Parader: So how did Roth enter the picture? I've been under the impression that you two haven't gotten along for years?
Eddie Van Halen: We wanted to play music again. Wolfie came to me last year and told me how much he loved those old songs. They were easy to learn and fun to play. So we've been jamming them for ages now, and I just sort of looked at Al and said, "Forget it, get Dave in here!" So we called him.
Hit Parader: Just like that?
Eddie Van Halen: No, it wasn't just like that. There were lots of lawyers and things to go through. (laughs)
Hit Parader: Did Anthony contact you?
Eddie Van Halen: No, but my agent, who is also my girlfriend, told me she'd heard that Hagar was trying to contact me. I don't know what the hell he wants.
Hit Parader: So cancer-free, going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a tour with Roth? That's a big turnaround.
Eddie Van Halen: Yeah, it's great. But I don't think we're all going to play at the Hall of Fame. I can't imagine us all trying to share the stage together. Frankly, I don't want to play with everyone.
Hit Parader: What about a new album?
Eddie Van Halen: Yeah, maybe. I've got so much music. The name VAN HALEN, the family legacy, is going to go on forever. Passed on. My kid is a natural. I'm going to have him play on a solo record at some point.
Hit Parader: And new music with Roth?
Eddie Van Halen: Well, that's what we hope. We all sound great. You have no idea. And there's more than enough new music. But one thing at a time. We haven't even rehearsed that much yet.
BON JOVI, RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS AMONG ACTS CONFIRMED FOR AL GORE's "LIVE EARTH" EVENT
Al Gore, the former vice president and now hit documentary maker, on Thursday added rock promoter to his résumé, announcing plans for a 24-hour concert series on all seven continents to highlight, you guessed it, the dangers of global warming.
With a powerhouse lineup of acts from the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS to SNOOP DOGG to BON JOVI, what's being called "Live Earth" aims to gather more than 100 of the world's top musicians on July 7th - and attract 2 billion viewers, most of them via television, radio and the Web.
The concerts will be streamed live on MSN, Microsoft's information portal. (MSNBC.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
Ahead of the formal announcement in Los Angeles, Gore said that the push, which includes a new campaign called Save Our Selves, has the potential to reach far beyond his earlier audiences.
"In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to reach billions of people," Gore said in a statement. "We hope to jumpstart that movement right here, right now, and take it to a new level on July 7, 2007."
The SOS campaign was founded by Kevin Wall, the producer behind the Live 8 global concerts in 2005 that raised money for Africa.
"Our climate crisis is the biggest challenge facing humanity," Wall said. "SOS is more than a global distress call. SOS will give the world the tools we need to answer that call with meaningful action."
Wall said that these performers had already signed up: PHARRELL, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, FOO FIGHTERS, SNOOP DOGG, LENNY KRAVITZ, BON JOVI, PAOLO NUTINI, SHERYL CROW, AFI, MELISSA ETHERIDGE, JOHN MAYER, DAMIEN RICE, CORRINE BAILEY RAE, DURAN DURAN, SNOW PATROL, JOHN LEGEND, BLACK EYED PEAS, AKON, ENRIQUE IGLESIAS, FALL OUT BOY, MANA, KEANE, KELLY CLARKSON, KORN, FAITH HILL AND TIM MCGRAW, RAY LAMONTAGNE, ROBIN THICKE and KENNA.
The concerts will take place in Sydney, Australia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shanghai, China; London, England; Kyoto, Japan; Johannesburg, South Africa; and a U.S. city that has yet to be determined, Wall said. Gore added that the campaign even plans to stage the first-ever rock concert on Antarctica.
Each concert will run between four and eight hours, Wall said. Stadium locations and ticket sales information will be announced in March.
Proceeds from the concerts will fund initiatives by the Save Our Selves campaign, which launches the same month that a climate experts reported that they are more convinced than ever that human emissions of greenhouse gases are behind an accelerated warming trend around the Earth.
Gore is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008 despite his repeated statements that he's not running. Recently, some former aides met in Boston to discuss a campaign to draft the former vice president.
The concerts bring newfound publicity to Gore, who already is enjoying celebrity status with his Oscar-nominated documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore said he was thrilled that the film, on the perils of global warming, was nominated for best documentary and for best song, the latter nod coming for Melissa Etheridge's 'I Need to Wake Up'.
