Legends in their own right, top rock percussion siblings Carmine and Vinny Appice recently released a special tribute to an artist that both of them consider to be a solitarily exceptional figure in the history of hard rock and metal music – Ronnie James Dio.
The tribute video is for a song that was included on an album the brothers released in 2018 called Sinister. The track is an original composition called Monsters and Heroes, penned by the brothers with long-time friend Paul Shortino (Rough Cutt) handling the lyrics. The song was sung by Rochester rocker Jim Crean with James Caputo on bass, and Artie Dillon handling guitar chores, as well as directing the video.
“I kept seeing all these videos online that people were doing during the lockdown, like the Brady Bunch thing with the people in different boxes with each musician playing in their own window. So, Carmine said we should do a video like that. And we had a song that we recorded on the album we did together two years ago, the song Monsters and Heroes, and it’s written about Ronnie. It’s a tribute to Ronnie. Paul Shortino wrote the lyrics and we put it on our record and did an actual video for it on YouTube. We thought, well that’s kind of the single off the album so let’s do that song for a video. And then I realized a couple of days later, ‘wait a minute, Ronnie’s anniversary [of his death in 2010] is coming up.’ So instead of just putting out the video for us, let’s kind of promote it as a tribute to Ronnie. And it’s perfect time and so we will release it on the day of his passing [May 16],” said Vinny Appice from his home in Temecula, California, which is about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego.
“It’s been 10 years, and we figured let’s get the word out and put it out there. It’s good timing – of course it should be good timing for two drummers. But it’s crazy that it’s been 10 years. Time flies.”
Vinny is the youngest of four children, with Carmine being the second oldest, 11 years older than his baby brother. There is an older brother, Frank, and a sister in between Carmine and Vinny in age. As a side note, much has been made over the decades as to the proper pronunciation of their last names, with there always being a differentiation between how Carmine and Vinny pronounce it.
Vinny sets the record straight, adding an interesting twist. Oldest brother Frank pronounces it in a very old school Italian manner, as ‘A-peach.’ Carmine says ‘A-peace,’ while Vinny says ‘A-pis-ay’ which, he claims, is how his father said it.
Career wise, Vinny knew Dio the best, as he played with him in Black Sabbath starting partway through the 1980-81 Heaven and Hell Tour, and then spent much of the first part of Ronnie’s solo career behind the kit for his solo band. He then reunited in 2007 with Dio, and former Black Sabbath bandmates Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler to form Heaven & Hell, the band, which released three live albums and one studio album. Not long thereafter, on May 16, 2010, Dio died from stomach cancer.
Carmine Appice has had, arguably, a more celebrated career than his little brothers, first in the cult psychedelic bands Cactus and Vanilla Fudge, later working with Rod Stewart (including co-writing Do Ya Think I’m Sexy), Ozzy Osbourne and Jeff Beck. He also founded or co-founded bands such a King Cobra, Blue Murder, and more recently Rated X, alongside Joe Lynn Turner.
Both understood the importance of Ronnie’s last legacy as a vocalist, songwriter and icon of the heavy metal genre.
“The songs he played on and sang on and wrote are classic songs. With Rainbow you’ve got Man on the Silver Mountain, Long Live Rock and Roll and then he goes to Sabbath and writes an album called Heaven and Hell which is a classic album with classic songs on there, including the title track Heaven and Hell, which is a bona fide rock anthem and Neon Nights. And then later on with me they did Mob Rules and then more great songs came out of his own band, Dio, including that incredible first album Holy Diver. These songs were, and still are, very popular and he is such an incredible singer and he sang from his heart and soul, and he influenced so many people over the years,” said Vinny.
“It wasn’t anything that was forced. You can tell everything he did came from his heart just by the way he sang and performed. And then on top of all that he was just a great guy. He was a nice guy and very smart, and you could hear it by the way he talked that he had a really sharp mind. And when you met him as a fan, if you met him and talked to him at a show or as a journalist in an interview, he was always very nice and he remembered your name a year later, which is incredible.
“Creatively, he was amazing. He loved the rainbows and the dragon imagery and things like that, the whole medieval thing. He was very inspired by that, and he loved England and all the history over there. So, he stuck with that kind of thing, he never sold out anything. He never sold out to what was happening; when grunge came out, he didn’t try to do a korn song you know. He stayed true to his heart, and people get that about it, and respect him for it. He loved his music and he loved his fans, and people always really related to that about him.”
Ronnie was still creating and touring right up to the point where his illness prevented him from doing so. In fact, he was planning on reconvening with Appice, Iommi and Butler for a tour in the summer of 2010 when the cancer finally overtook him.
“He was planning on going and doing a Dio tour and then come back from that for a break at Christmas [2009] and then Heaven and Hell was probably going to start rehearsing in the spring and then go out for the summer festival season. But that’s when he got sick,” said Appice, who didn’t play in Dio’s most recent solo band. That featured other former Dio members, including Simon Wright on drums, Rudy Sarzo on bass, and Craig Goldy on guitar.
Dio’s music continues to be performed by various cover and tribute acts, including the Dio Disciples, a creation of Dio’s wife and business manager, Wendy. Back in 2015, Appice joined forces with original Dio band mates, guitarist Vivian Campbell and bassist Jimmy Bain for form the band Last in Line, named for the second Dio album. It was meant to be a tribute to Dio by playing songs from the first three albums on which they all played – Holy Diver, Last in Line and Sacred Heart, But the proposition proved to be so popular that the act was offered a record deal with Frontiers music, and has subsequently released two albums, a self-titled debut in 2017 and Last in Line II last year.
“In many ways Ronnie and his music actually got bigger after he passed. Like so many important artists, when they die, people get interested in that artist and there becomes a spike in popularity. And the music he made is kind of timeless. The albums that Ronnie made, and some of the ones we made together are still selling and they are considered rock classics. And then there are a lot of tribute bands out there playing Dio stuff,” he said.
“There’s my band Last in Line with Vivian. We go out and play some songs from the old Dio era. When we started, we played all the songs from those first albums, but then we became a real band because we got a record deal and we wrote an album, and then we wrote a second album, so we started building up our own group of songs. We were the original band that started it out. It was me, Vivian and Jimmy Bain, who later passed away also. We were the band on those classic records, so we knew how to play those songs the way they were meant to be played. We still do all the old classic Dio tunes, which everybody wants to hear. I think it’s so amazing that these songs, the Rainbow stuff, the Sabbath stuff and the Dio stuff has last 20, 30, 40 years.”
Appice said Last in Line is at the preliminary stages of working on a third album but can’t do much because of the Covid-19 lockdown.
The link for the Monsters and Heroes video is at the end of this article, or you can click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwxvx1kN7ys&feature=youtu.be.
For more information on Carmine Appice, visit www.carmineappice.net.
For more information on Vinny Appice, visit www.vinnyappice.com.
For more information on Ronnie James Dio, visit www.ronniejamesdio.com.
To donate to the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund, visit https://diocancerfund.org.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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