The drummer Vinny Appice, famous for his work with Black Sabbath and Dio, said in an interview with Dean Delray (Transcribed by Blabbermouth) that it was a wrong move when Ronnie James Dio decided to fire the guitarist Vivian Campbell from the band Dio in the mid 80s. The musician said that the band’s music went downhill after that happened and that there are some musicians who can’t be replaced in some groups.
Vinny Appice says it was a wrong move when Dio fired Vivian Campbell
“Ronnie told me, ‘We’re gonna get rid of Viv.’ ‘What? Why?’ I [said], ‘Why are you gonna do that?’ It was a money thing. We were promised a lot of stuff — a lot of percentages, and this and this and this and this — and it never really materialized. And I kind of had my separate deal with Ronnie and Wendy, with the contract.”
“So that’s what happened. Viv was questioning it: ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ And it just got to be a thing where they didn’t like that. And they thought, ‘Anybody could be replaced’ — which is not true. Sorry — that’s not true. And they got Craig Goldy in there. Craig Goldy was in the band Rough Cutt that Wendy managed, so it was convenient and easy for him to come in.”
Vinny Appice continued:
“But it’s not true that [everybody is replaceable]. In certain bands, yeah, you can replace everybody, whoever you want, but certain bands you can’t. Imagine Zeppelin replacing Jimmy Page with somebody else, or Robert Plant. There’s a magic there with that chemistry. So, that’s what happened.”
“So I was kind of bummed. And then, ‘Okay, we’ll carry on with Craig.’ And then the music, we started to go downhill a little bit. It’s not Craig’s fault, but Ronnie was producing it, and we brought keyboards in more. We started off as a fucking guitar band on fire,” Vinny Appice said.
Vinny Appice and Vivian Campbell work in the band
The drummer Vinny Appice was a member of Dio from 1982 to 1989 and from 1992 to 1998, appearing on almost all the albums released by the group.
Vivian Campbell was the groups guitarist from 1982 to 1986, appearing on the classic albums “Holy Diver” (1983), “The Last In Line” (1984) and “Sacred Heart” (1985). After being fired from the band recorded with other groups like Whitesnake, Riverdogs and Shadow King before joining Def Leppard in 1992.