Thursday, 17th May 2012
Pic by DefDazz/Darren
Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell will reunite with the original DIO band as reported recently and they have now chosen the band name Last In Line.
Original keyboard player Claude Schnell shared the news during an interview with Music Legends. Cluade had joined the band after the recording of the first album 'Holy Diver' for it's world tour. Therefore the first album the first album he played on with the other original members was their second 'The Last In Line' which accounts for the choice of name.
The other musicians involved are Vinny Appice (drums) and Jimmy Bain (bass). The new singer is Andrew Freeman who has previously sung with Lynch Mob, Hurricane and The Offspring (touring guitarist/backing vocals). Andrew recently made a comment about the job on his facebook page.
Jimmy Bain has said the band plan to play live in late 2012 with Vivian saying in recent radio interviews they would tour in 2013 in between Leppard activity. The 23 minute audio interview by Claude with Jason Saulnier of Music Legands.ca can be heard below.
Music Legends - Claude Schnell Interview Quotes
Getting Together Again
"There has been a reunion of sorts of the old DIO back line consisting of Viv Campbell, Jimmy Bain, Vinny Appice and myself. And we got together for a play a few weeks ago and what was initially supposed to be just kind of a fun hang to see what would come of it. It's been amazingly 26 years since we had all been in the same room together since Viv's exit post the Sacred Heart album which was 26 amazingly quickly passing years ago. So we got together and just had a play for fun and it turned out to be more than just fun. It was a lot of fun and as chance would have it, it actually sounded quite good. I think we were all a little bit surprised at not only how good it sounded but more importantly how good it felt and how authentic it felt. And how familiar everything seemed it as kind of like walking through a time portal and basically we've recaptured, I think, the vibe that we had all those years ago. And it just seemed like an obvious next step to maybe proceed with this a little bit further."
"For the most part we had all been in touch over the years anyway. I speak with Vinnie very often, probably on a weekly basis I would say. And Viv and I kind of keep in touch we have some mutual friends we share an auto mechanic for one thing so we kind of keep tabs on each other and keep in touch in that regard. But Jimmy actually I don't think anybody had heard from in a long time and it was actually a chance encounter with Viv at NAMM this past January when I had approached him to perhaps get together with me to work on some stuff that I've been trying to pursue and the subject of maybe getting together with the old guys kind of came up."
"I know Viv had done an inpromptu play with - I think it was Steel Panther at the House Of Blues if I'm not mistaken and he was energised from that performance to the point where he said yeah we should get together with Jimmy and Vinnie. So Viv got everybody's emails and got everybody in touch with each other and we got together and again it felt like old times. You know it was like a couple of Bro hugs and within an instant we were up and playing. And also Andrew the singer with whom we did that initial rehearsal is somebody that Vinny had played with when he was playing with George Lynch in Lynch Mob. And I had briefly done some work with Andrew on some of my project so there were very familiar places as you alluded to and it felt very organic and very natural."
Being Called The Last In Line
"Yeah that's the plan at the moment that seems to be the consensus from the emails that I've received and from the various commentaries that I've seen through the social sites and online it's been getting a very good response so I think that's probably gonna be the name. And also it's kind of a subtle nod to in his last efforts when Ronnie did the Sabbath reunion of sorts. Even though they couldn't call it Sabbath they chose to use the name of the first album on which Ronnie played with Sabbath. Similarly the first DIO album which we all played together, myself included, was The Last In Line. And I think Last In Line works better as a band name than Holy Diver anyway."
New Singer Andrew Freeman
"His online comments about 'preparing to be the world's most hated singer' notwithstanding, I think he's going to do a very credible and impressive job of covering this material."
Andrew Freeman - 4th May facebook Quote
"I'm getting a lot of press today. Very happy and humbled to be asked by these true music legends do this."
Video Source - youtube.com/gtmo
News Source - facebook.com/andrewfreemanmusic
Previous News - 4th May 2012