During a conversation with the Professor of Rock, drummer Vinny Appice looked back on leaving Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio to launch the Dio band back in 1982.
When asked, “You and Dio left Sabbath in 1982 – what led to that departure?
He said:
“Well, at that time, the band – I’m talking about Ronnie, Tony [Iommi, guitar], Geezer [Butler, bass] – they weren’t seeing eye to eye, they weren’t getting along. It was nothing musical.
“And then, Ronnie always had a solo deal for Warner Brothers on the side, and the first thing he wanted to do was do a solo album with a whole bunch of friends and different people guesting on the record.
“But when things turned a little sour with Sabbath, he decided, ‘I’m gonna put a band together, do my own band. I got a record deal, and it’s a great springboard to launch a career of my own.’
“So he approached me, he said, ‘I’m going to leave the band. Would you like to join me?’ I love Tony and Geezer, I love the music, I love Ronnie, and now I’m the guy in the middle.
“But, I thought it would be easier to work with Ronnie. We were both in California, we got along really well, and it would be exciting to start something new with such a great singer. So, I decided to stay with Ronnie.
“I called Tony and Geezer and told them. It was a difficult decision, obviously, two pretty big things.
“And that’s how we started. It was just me and him at the rehearsals for the very beginning. He played bass, and that’s how it worked.”
“‘Holy Diver’ we did at Sound City Studios, and we rehearsed there because they had a U-shaped building and on one side was the rehearsal, and on the other side was a recording studio.
“So we go into the rehearsal side, and we were there for about two months and we wrote songs.
“We were there every night at 7 o’clock, and also we did, you know, we would jam and write songs, we smoked a lot of pot, and they would drink Jim Beam, bourbon and it was like a boys club.
“And we’d destroy the place. Anybody wanted candy would just smack the machine on the wall until it dropped all the candy out, we put holes in the walls, and they let us do anything there, it was really cool.
“We were open for anything; one time, we were recording, so my drums are in front of the glass facing Ronnie singing and Vivian [Campbell, guitar], and [my brother, drummer] Carmine comes in the control room, and Ronnie goes, ‘We finished.’
“And he goes, ‘Look behind you,’ and I look and there’s Carmine, then I told Ronnie, I said, ‘That’s cool, ‘Look behind you’.’ And now it’s on the record, ‘Look behind you.’