In the music world there are many icons and legends. One man has crossed paths and worked with many throughout his life.
At the UFCW Union Local 324 building in Buena Park, heavy metal fans lined up to see legendary drummer Vinny Appice.
Appice was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. During his time at home, Appice’s brother Carmine Appice would bring his band to practice.
“My brother Carmine played drums before me. He’s 11 years older than I, and there were always bands rehearsing in the house when I was a kid, and I was around that all the time. I said, I want to do this,” Vinny Appice stated.
Growing up, Appice listened to Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.
When Appice was in high school, he was with a band called the nine-piece band.
Appice’s band got a call from Jimmy Lveen, a producer from Record Plant Studios. There they performed some demo tapes for them.
After the demo rehearsal, Appice said, “They signed us through a management deal and gave us a room in the Record Plant Studios in Manhattan to rehearse for free. It was like a dream come true and we used to hang out there all the time.”
During his time at Record Plant Studios, he ran into an up-and-coming band named Aerosmith.
One day Appice’s band was asked to help someone in the studio. The person was Beatles member John Lennon.
When Appice saw John Lennon in the studio, he said, “John Lennon, oh my god, John Lennon. And then we put the headphones on, John starts talking to us, like oh my god, and he wanted us to do hand claps on a song called ‘Whatever Gets You Through the Night.’ So we did that and we met him and we were really cool with him. He wrote some lyrics for us, so he used to hang out with us a lot.”
When Appice was in Los Angeles, he received a call from England asking to meet with him.
“I was in Los Angeles and first I got a call from Sharon Osbourne saying we’re going to put a band together with Ozzy and we heard about you, we’ll fly you to England, go hang out with them. So I didn’t really want to go to England and I was young, really young, and so I didn’t do it. About a month later I get a call, Black Sabbath’s in town and they’re looking for a drummer, they heard about you, same thing. You want to come meet Tony Iommi at the hotel in Hollywood? Yes. OK. That was easy. Just get in the car and I was in Hollywood and I lived there. And I met Tony and we hit it off and the next day I was rehearsing with him,” Appice said.
Appice joined Black Sabbath and was in “Mob Rules,” “Live Evil,” “Dehumanizer,” “Black Sabbath: The Dio Years” and “Live at Hammersmith Odeon.”
With the recent illness of Ozzy Osbourne, Appice recalls the time he had with him.
“So I’m fortunate I got to play with him with Sabbath, got to know him, got Christmas cards from him and you know I’m so sorry he was that sick. It’s terrible,”
After working with Black Sabbath and Dio, today Appice is the drummer for a band called Sabbath Nights. They will be performing at Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood on Dec. 18.
