Vinnie Vincent says that former VINNIE VINCENT INVASION singer Mark Slaughter is a “no-talent individual” who reduced his music “to the level of worse than a local bar band.”
Slaughter joined VINNIE VINCENT INVASION as the replacement for former JOURNEYfrontman Robert Fleischman, who provided vocals on VVI‘s 1986 self-titled debut album.
After Fleischman exited the band, a video was produced for the song “Boyz Are Gonna Rock” with Slaughter lipsyncing over Fleischman‘s vocal track. With Slaughter on board, the band released its second album, “All Systems Go”, in 1988.
Vincent never mentioned Mark Slaughter by name but made it clear that he does not look back fondly on his collaboration with the current SLAUGHTER frontman.
“Rob and I built a palace on that first record, and that was the design, the architecture,” Vinnie said
“Where Rob and I should have gone would have been like this [raises his hand up in the air] always, always, always, always, because he was very talented, and together, we were the perfect team. It was like when I worked with [KISS members] Paul [Stanley] and Gene [Simmons] and Eric [Carr] — we were the perfect team; we had a chemistry that was absolutely incredible. And that’s how Rob and I were. It was a lot of regret, because we know that we could have gone on to do so much and we didn’t.”
“That’s what they fell in love with, the record company fell in love with that, so for them to destroy my creation was disgusting,” Vincent continued.
“And they had new people in, and they said, ‘That’s okay. We just want a quick cash-in on something.’ And I said, ‘Either you keep my creation with Rob or I quit. I don’t wanna be on this label.’ [And they told me] ‘You can’t quit. We will can the record. We will not do this. We will not do that.’ And they said, ‘You owe us two records right now.’ So they said, ‘You have to finish this tour. You can’t stop anything, because the machine is moving, and this is a big record.’ So I had management that was not looking out for Vinnie, he was looking out for himself, and everything changed. So once I began to tour, I said, ‘How quick can I get out of this? This has to end now.’ And they said, ‘You cannot end it now. You have to go through one more record, you have to do the tours, and then we have another option that we, the record company, will pick up, for record number three.'”
Vinnie says that by the time “All Systems Go” was released, it was clear that the magic that made the band’s debut LP special was gone. “The first record, all the rock magazines at that time were saying, ‘Oh, this is the best f*c*ing record that has come out in so long. Oh my God! This thing is hot, hot, hot!’ Because it was different from the records that were out,” he said. “At that time, there was nothing like it. They were all either JUDAS PRIEST type of records or they were POISON type of records, but there was nothing like VINNIE VINCENT INVASION. So the radio stations jumped on it, ’cause they said, ‘What the hell is this?’ And everybody loved that record. It sold big and it sold fast. Once this no-talent individual came into the picture, everything went ‘Boom!’ It was just like dropping a lead weight. And I saw that happen and I thought, ‘This is a sin.’ Everything that could have been was insantly over. So we recorded the ‘Boyz Are Gonna Rock’ video with a faker; it was like fake news — trying to make you believe something that… this is not what this is. So one thing led to another, to another, got worse and worse. I did the second record, and I had all these great songs that I said should sound like the first record, only this is the second record. It follows the same everything — the same sound, the same passion, the same intensity, the same power, and it was not there.”
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Vinnie spend to much time on his solos on all systems go record and burned the budget, Chrysalis dropped Vinnie and Dana Strum came with the idea he have this new band,and with the remaining budget Chrysalis signed Slaughter and the rest is history..the band went platnium and Vinnie was buried..closed case..