Drummer Vinnie Appice talked to Eddie Trunk about his early jobs with Black Sabbath and why he turned Ozzy Osbourne‘s first line-up down. Take a look:
“I got a call from Sharon Osbourne to play with Ozzy before he started [his solo band].
“Sharon called me up, and said, ‘Hey Vinny, we heard about you. Ozzy’s going to put a band together. Do you want to fly to England, go hang out with Ozzy?’…
“But the rumors and stuff – I was, like, 19, maybe 20 then. So I asked [brother] Carmine, ‘Carmine, I got this offer from Ozzy to go to England.’
“And I’ve never been out of the country, except to Canada. Like, ‘Where’s England? Should I do this? Is he crazy?’
“And Carmine goes, ‘Yeah, he’s pretty crazy.’ So he kind of talked me out of it, and I didn’t do it.
“About two months later, I got a call from Sabbath. They’re in LA, they want me to meet Tony Iommi. I said, ‘Yeah.’ So I go down, I meet Tony at the hotel, he walks in with that Axis album [1978’s ‘It’s a Circus World’], and he goes, ‘Yeah, this is good.’
“He was a jokester. I like to joke around, we had a good laugh. So I went down to rehearsal the next day, I brought my little drum set – four toms. They set up this little kit and Tony goes, ‘Can you play double bass? The kit’s so small.’
“‘Oh, no, I don’t really play double bass. I’ll add to it.’ So I added two drums up above my shoulder. As the thing progressed, I kept adding drums.”
