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Post by Greta on Jun 12, 2019 0:36:59 GMT -8
Focus on Metal interview, transcribed by me. The interviewer is from Ireland and it was fun to listen to the two Irishmen playing off each other.
Richie: Hi Vivian, how are you?
Vivian: I’m very well, Richie, and yourself?
Richie: Yeah. I’m good. I’m from Waterford.
Vivian: I’m sorry to hear that.
Richie: Yeah, you said that to me the last time too. [both laugh]
Vivian: I’ve become predictable, eh.
Richie: Yeah. So are you off to—you’re doing rehearsals with Leppard this weekend?
Vivian: I am. I’m leaving on Sunday, yeah, to go to—we’re rehearsing north of Sheffield [laughs]. That should be exciting.
Richie: Okay. That’s good. All the lads get to go home.
Vivian: Yes, yes indeed, aye. So we’re there for a few days. And speaking of getting home, I’ll get to run over to Belfast for a couple of days too.
Richie: Yeah. I was actually going to ask you how often you get to actually get back there.
Vivian: I get back once—at least once a year. Some years I make it back two or three times even, you know.
Richie: Okay.
Vivian: Depending on the schedule. Actually, yeah man, we’re heading back and I’m playing Belfast again with Last in Line on November 29th.
Richie: Nice. Nice.
Vivian: That’s—I think that’s the … fourth time I’ll have played in Belfast with Last in Line. Trying to get them to like us there. [laughs]
Richie: They gotta be special shows for you.
Vivian: Ah yeah, they always are. I mean, you know, it’s always with any band, be it with Last in Line or Def Leppard, you know, it’s always special to play your hometown, you know. And it’s always been a great rock audience too. I mean, I remember, you know, back in the seventies, Rory Gallagher in the Ulster Hall, you know. Great show. Great energy. Great audience.
Richie: So I spoke to Damon Johnson yesterday and I know you did a run of shows with Lizzy when they got back together. He told me yesterday they’re doing the whole of the Black Rose album this year when they tour.
Vivian: [gasps] The whole album?
Richie: Yeah, the whole thing.
[sort of a sigh from Viv/laughter from Richie]
Vivian: Yeah well, I got to play a few of those songs, I played, you know, “Waitin’ for an Alibi.” We did “Do Anything You Wanna Do” early on the Lizzy tour that I did. We did that song. And of course we did “Black Rose,” which was the important one, you know. It was great, I mean. Part of that whole thing, I mean, it was, after that tour, that kind of was the stimulus for me to call up Jimmy Bain and Vinny Appice and started what was to become the Last in Line band, you know, so that kind of grew out of that mostly. You know, just being there with those guys just kind of brought me back to my youth, you know, playing those songs.
Richie: Now, I asked Damon yesterday what songs from Lizzy that he always prodded Scott to play and he said “Got to Give it Up” and he’s going to be able to play it this summer. But when you were in the band with Scott, was there any particular song that you really wanted to play from the Lizzy catalog?
Vivian: Yes, and both he and Brian didn’t want to play it, especially Scott! And that was “The Rocker.” I just love that song. It’s such a great guitar riff, and I know it’s not his, it’s Eric Bell’s obviously, so maybe that’s why you know, Scott was a little bit reluctant to want to do it. Brian didn’t want to do it ’cause it’s a high-energy song, and you know, I’m talking about the encore song. We always had a bit of like, “What do you want to do tonight for the encore kind of thing?” And I always wanted to do “The Rocker” and they would always look at each other and look at me and go “uhhhh …” And then, toward the end of the run of shows I did with them—it was only three or four months I played with them—but I would just go out there and start it and they would have no choice but to follow. [laughs] It’s such a great riff, I mean the guitar riff is great, the bass riff is great. I mean it kind of sums up Lizzy/ Phil Lynott’s whole personality. He was The Rocker, you know.
Richie: Now, can you envision a day when Last in Line where you actually don’t do any Dio stuff in the set?
Vivian: Probably not, but we’re certainly doing less. And in fact, a couple of weeks ago—we just finished doing a run of about three weeks of shows on the East Coast—
Richie: Yeah. I know. Vivian, I missed them all. I couldn’t go.
Vivian: Thanks, Richie, I really appreciate it. Appreciate your support.
Richie: [laughs]
Vivian: But there was one show we opened for Dokken and so we had to cut down our set to about fifty minutes. And it wasn’t a deliberate thing, but it was only after the show that I looked at the set that we just played and I realized it was the first time ever where we tipped the balance and we actually played more of our own songs than our Dio catalog. So, you know, I do think that going forward we have to kind of aim for that because you know, we’ve got two albums of original music out now, but I think it would be foolish of us to not address the history of the band. I mean the band did grow out of the ashes of the original Dio band, you know. It was Vinny Appice and Jimmie Bain and myself, you know. Obviously we lost Jimmy, unfortunately, three years ago. But, you know, it’s—we’ve taken the name Last in Line. We’re named after the Dio song and album, so, you know, it was a very crucial part of not only my career but Vinny Appice’s.
So, you know, I think that you know, there’s a great legitimacy to Vinny and I playing those songs. So I think we will always feature some of those big songs. I think we’ll always finish the set with “We Rock.” You know, I think we’ll always play “Last in Line,” our namesake song. We’ll probably always play “Holy Diver,” you know, and a few—you know, “Rainbow in the Dark” obviously is always going to feature as well. But you know, it’s nice now that we’ve got two albums’ worth of material that we can, you know, fill out a set that represents who we are as a new band, you know, and still, you know, pay respect to our history.
You know, it reminds me a lot of the Holy Diver tour itself, you know, back in 1984. When we toured the Holy Diver album, you know, we didn’t have enough songs on that album. There’s only nine songs on Holy Diver and we didn’t play all of them. We played quite a few of them, but we had to fill out the set with a bunch of Black Sabbath songs, you know, a few Rainbow songs and stuff, and that’s kind of how it’s been with Last in Line for the last several years, you know, where the bulk of the set has been built around Dio classics. So we’re taking that next step forward.
Richie: Now when Jimmy passed away, did you think to yourself, “Maybe I don’t want to continue on with the band”? That you wanted it to be the three of you guys moving forward? Or were you just like, right, “We’re just going to keep going.”
Vivian: No, that was certainly the first thought, you know, “That’s it, we’re done.” But you know Jimmy died a month before the album came out, before Heavy Crown came out in early 2016, and a couple things happened. Number one, the record was really really well received, you know, by a lot of people and there was a lot of excitement about it. And also, you know, when Jimmy died he had one tattoo on his body and that was Last in Line [laughs] and it was in reference to this band and not the original Dio album, you know. It had our logo on it. That’s how much the band meant to Jimmy.
You know, the last couple of years of Jimmy’s life in particular were very troubled. You know, he’d gotten—his past had caught up with him. You know, he’d gotten into trouble with the law, you know, and drug offenses and whatnot. DUI and stuff and you know, he had no material possessions. He was really, you know, living hand-to-mouth, and you know, he was very excited about the band. And when we were making the Heavy Crown album, it really was his life, you know, and he was so excited about it he went out and got the only tattoo he ever had in his life.
And so, you know, when the record came out and we had a chance to mourn Jimmy and gather our thoughts and stuff, we looked at that and we thought, “The record’s been really really well received. We’ve invested so much in it. Jimmie invested so much energy. It was his final recorded work.” You know, we owed it to ourselves, and we owed it to his memory to do what we could with it. And that was especially apparent when Phil Soussan came into the picture because you know, we thought about moving forward first of all and we started playing with a bunch of other bass players in rehearsal rooms and it didn’t feel right. You know, I mean, there’s some great players who came in and whatnot—but when Phil walked in—I’ve kind of casually known Phil over the decades. I’d met him a few times. I didn’t really know him that well, but Vinny and Andy knew him much better than me and they suggested that he come down and play with us. And as soon as Phil walked in the room, he just has that presence about him. He’s a professional, you know—he, you know, back when we were with Ronnie in the eighties doing those early Dio albums, he was with Ozzy, you know, so there’s sort of a kindred spirit there. There’s a connection there, musically and generationally. And what’s more, you know, Phil’s English and Jimmy was Scottish, so we still have that balance in the band of two Americans and two Europeans and that sense of humor and that sensibility that comes with it. It just kind of felt right.
You know, he’s such a professional, Phil. Now, he doesn’t play exactly like Jimmy. No, two people play alike, but he brings something different to the band musically that I think really kind of pushed us on the new album on the II album, you know. He’s a much more ambitious player than Jimmy was and he kind of challenges himself a bit more as a musician to find bass parts. He’s less fundamental and more ambitious, a bit more I would say like how John Entwistle was to The Who.
Richie: Now Vivian, when you’ve done a run of shows with Last in Line and you end up going back into rehearsals with Def Leppard, do you feel a change in your guitar playing? Do the other guys even sense at all that you know, ’cause you’re playing a different style of music and then you’re coming back into Leppard, which is a completely different style in a lot of ways.
Vivian: I notice it, I mean. I’m definitely a much much better guitar player because of the work I’m doing with Last in Line, but I’m not sure that that you’d notice it in Def Leppard, you know. Leppard, obviously it’s a two-guitar band, and Phil gets to do most of the heavy lifting and solos because most of what we’re playing is the band’s classic catalog from the eighties. You know, with Leppard, I always say the real challenge in the band is, not only as a guitar part, mostly it’s the rhythm parts and whatnot, but as vocalists, you know, we are a very very unique band in Leppard. We’re, you know, the only band that really has such strong live vocals married with this real hard rock sensibility. And you know, that’s kind of where the focus is in that band, you know?
And the show, I mean, it’s a very very very different experience to me to be onstage with the Last in Line, you know, and the only melodic instrument in Last in Line, you know, we’re not even touring with a keyboard player currently. So it’s a lot of—it’s a real challenge to me as guitar player to go out and play that stuff.
You know with Def Leppard it’s a real challenge to be part of that team to excel as a guitar player in a very subtle way and very nuanced way, but to really kind of bring it home as a singer, you know. [laughs] Every single song we’re singing multiple parts and I don’t know if anyone’s ever noticed, but they’ve given me the Mutt Lange parts. [laughs][ It’s not like “here’s a nice little cushy line for you to sing.” It’s a real ballbuster, night after night.
And you know, we’re nuancing our performance in Def Leppard, you know, and Phil and I in particular talk about this a lot. You know, how with just tour after tour we get better and better at it, you know? As indeed you hope you would, you know, and that’s a great thing about being a musician as opposed to an athlete; you can actually get better as you get older, you know, even though your body may be not what it was twenty years ago, you know. Our throats are getting better, you know, as a guitar player I’m definitely getting better. I actually, you know, without wishing to toot my own horn. I’m very very very comfortable with how I’m playing guitar in the last several years, and I think it’s as a result of the Last in Line project. In fact, I know it is, you know. And it’s also a result of being you know, almost fifty-seven years old and of having a bit of a grown-up attitude towards it all.
But I was never really happy with my guitar playing in my twenties and my thirties. I was always spinning my wheels, you know and thinking “oh, that’s not very good.” But you know, now I can kind of really appreciate what it is I do and think “oh, you know, I may not be the best guitar player in the world, but nobody else is going to be able to do what I just did,” because we’re all unique, you know. We all have a unique approach to our instruments and that’s what gives us our own unique voice and I’m finally comfortable with my own, and I can’t say I was happy with it when I was in my twenties.
And even you know, going back to Last in Line again, when I go out and I play those solos, they’re really really challenging because a lot of it when I was recording, it was very spontaneous, and it’s all very idiosyncratic. It was difficult to do and difficult to relearn that. I’m still trying to finesse those guitar solos. Like I don’t feel like I’ve ever played them a hundred percent. You know, I think like I’ve gotten close, and I get closer and closer every time I perform them, but I’m still you know, I’m trying to reinvent the wheel in that way, you know. I’m trying to get that ultimate performance [laughs]. And I’ll probably never reach it. In fact, hopefully I never will because then I won’t want to push myself. [laughs]
Richie: So Vivian, I just got one more question before I leave you go. You got the residency coming up again later this year, and hopefully you’re going to be doing the Ded Flatbird thing again where you delve deep into the Leppard catalog. If the band were to ask you what songs you’d like to put in that you rarely play, which ones would you pick?
Vivian: Well, I would always pick the deeper album cuts from you know, the earlier albums—High ‘n’ Dry and the Pyromania record, you know, but they’re the songs we’re least likely to play. Things like “Billy’s Got a Gun” or whatever, you know. I honestly don’t know what it is we’re gonna do in Vegas. We haven’t even decided it. So, I’ll know more next week when we start rehearsals for this upcoming tour. But yeah, deeper cuts. You know things that are more guitar centric are always a bit more exciting to me, and I know that they’re excited to probably about twenty-five or thirty percent of our audience. [laughs] Everyone else wants to hear “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” You know, as always, we’ve gotta strike the right balance between appealing to the majority and appealing to the hardcore. Yeah.
Richie: Have you have you written anything for the new Leppard album?
Vivian: I don’t have a studio at the moment. I’m in the midst of moving. I’ve been in an apartment in LA for the last several years. So I’m finally moving. Actually, these are my last couple of nights in LA and I’m moving to New Hampshire and all my stuff is in boxes. So to answer your question—I just keep ideas on my iPhone and I have done for several years. So it’s more difficult to write songs for Def Leppard in that way because with Leppard, I’m not very good at selling my ideas. I kind of need to make them fully realized, you know. I always kind of equate it to like a picture. Like if I’m trying to sell Def Leppard on one of my songs, I need to bring them like an oil painting. [laughs] Not like a pencil sketch. And it’s different with Last in Line ’cause with Last in Line we just go in and jam. And Def Leppard don’t write songs like that. So I really do feel like I need to kind of focus on that.
I’m excited to be moving finally into a new home and to reestablish a studio because I’ve been kind of in a state of flux for literally the last ten years. A bunch of series of events happened in—actually, it was exactly ten years ago. It was May 2009, you know, it’s when my first marriage fell apart and I left home. And that was the last time I had a studio and I’m really really really excited about getting this new one up and running, you know?
Richie: Well, if you’re moving to New Hampshire, Vivian, I hope you like the cold because it gets cold up here in the winter.
Vivian: Oh I know, I know, yeah. I’ve spent a few winters there. I can handle that.
Richie: All right. Well, have a good rest of the day. I’m going to leave you go. I know you probably got other interviews and you gotta pack and all that stuff. All right, Vivian. Take care.
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