Niclas Müller-Hansen from Stockholm, Sweden-based Metalshrine.se spoke to HEAVEN AND HELL drum legend legend Vinny Appice (ex-BLACK SABBATH) recently about a number of topics. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Metalshrine.se: I thought I'd start off with Heaven and Hell. What's it like being back together after all these years?

Appice: "Well, I went over to England to play on the three new tracks that will be on this new CD and everybody was there. I walked in and Ronnie was singing and after he finished, you know, it was great seeing him. We hugged and talked for a while and Tony (Iommi) and Geezer (Butler) walked in and it was like a big family reunion. It was fantastic, so I'm totally excited about this and I´m just glad to be part of this."

Metalshrine.se: Do you think you´ll alternate the setlist during the tour, or will it be a "fixed" set and that´s it?

Appice: "Well, we always did a fixed set with Sabbath before, even with Dio, but I´ve gotten used to alternate lately, just with all the different projects I've done and so many different songs. I didn't like doing it before, but now I like it, so I don't know how everybody else feels, but maybe we will do that. 'Alright, let´s throw in this song!' The only problem is you've got different lighting cues and so on, so we have to rehearse those songs with the people that are involved."

Metalshrine.se: The new material? Were those three songs already written when you came in?

Appice: "They were already written and I flew in and then I heard these three songs and they were pretty awesome. They had a drum machine on them and I just laid the drum tracks to the track, you know. We didn't play it live. We just did it on Pro Tools and laid the drums to that existing track, so then when I was finished, I think they went on to redo some bass and redo some vocals."

Metalshrine.se: How long did it take for you? You come in and you have three songs to put down drums for, is that like a days work?

Appice: "You know what? I flew in to England, so it´s like an eight hour time difference and I took a car up to Birmingham and that´s another two hours. Got to the studio, or I mean got to the hotel and took a five minute nap and then they called 'Hey, you want to come down to the studio?' And I said 'Yeah!' So I go down to the studio and I hadn´t slept and I had a big headache. We had a drink and we hung out, had a laugh and reminisce and all that stuff and then we listened to the songs. Then we were figuring on coming in the next day and start laying it down and listening to everything, because I´d never heard these songs. So we hung out for a while and then I told the engineer 'Well, let's screw around with the drums and get some sort of sound!' So I started playing and getting the drum sound and then I started waking up, you know. So after about half and hour we got a cool drum sound and I went 'Well, why don´t you start one of the songs and I'll start playing to it!' I started doing that and within two hours I got the whole song down. We were able to do parts by parts and keeping them on Pro Tools, it's easy. I was able to finish those songs pretty quick. We did that song one night, one song the next day and finished some of the bass and vocals and then I did the last song the third day. We even did a photo session too."

To read the entire interview head to this location.