Drummer Vinny Appice (KILL DEVIL HILL, HEAVEN & HELL, DIO, BLACK SABBATH) is featured in a new in-depth interview with Jeff Cramer at Stone Cold Crazy. An excerpt from the discussion, which looks back on Appice's extensive career - including stints with JOHN LENNON and RICK DERRINGER - is available below:

On leaving Black Sabbath to join Dio: "What happened was Ronnie had a record deal through Warner Brothers, and his intention was stay with Sabbath, obviously, and when he got time, he was gonna do his own solo record, which was pretty much Ronnie James Dio and friends. He would have like Cozy Powell on there, and people he’d played with over the years, some guy from Kansas, Kerry Livgren was his friend from the band KANSAS. I was gonna play on it, maybe Jimmy Bain. So it was like that was the intention.

But then when Sabbath started to go south, he realized, 'Well, you know what? I’m just gonna form my own band,' so he decided that instead of a solo record with friends, he would like to put a band together, so he asked me. He said, 'Look, I’m gonna leave Sabbath. I’m gonna put this together. Do you wanna play drums?' And then at the same time, Tony and Geezer asked me if I wanted to stay with them. So I had to make the decision, and I decided to go with Ronnie because he was a little easier to work with, being from LA. We both live close to each other and it was just an easier choice as far as continuing with a career.

And I thought it would be more exciting – 'Wow, a new band with this great singer. Wow, this could be cool,' – and I thought it would be a lot more exciting starting from below where we were with Sabbath. And, of course, it would have been amazing with Sabbath. But I thought this would have been more of a challenge, so I decided to go with Ronnie.

And then we put the band together, and then we tried a number of different people. One of them was JAKE E. LEE on guitar, he came down and we played."

Click here for the complete interview.