RESURRECTION KINGS is the name of new so-called “supergroup” featuring singer Chas West (RED DRAGON CARTEL, TANGO DOWN), guitarist Craig Goldy (DIO, GIUFFRIA, ROUGH CUTT, DIO DISCIPLES), bassist Sean McNabb (DOKKEN, GREAT WHITE) and drummer Vinny Appice (DIO, BLACK SABBATH, HEAVEN & HELL). The band is currently working on its self-titled debut album for a 2016 release via Frontiers Music Srl.
Regarding how RESURRECTION KINGS came together, West said: “It stated about five years ago when Craig Goldy contacted me and said he’d like to do something, do a project. ‘Let’s get together and write.’ Because we had played together, doing some covers in an all-star thing called the HOLLYWOOD ALLSTARZ.”
Added Goldy: “I was contacted by Serafino [Perugino], the president of Frontiers. He wanted to do an album with famous guys from the ’80s, and I was absolutely flabbergasted that they came to me for it, so I was more than happy to say yes.”
Said Appice: “Craig told me he was doing this project and he needed somebody to play drums on it, and he’d love for me to come check it out. He played me a couple of songs, I loved it, so I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’ So I laid all the drum tracks down, sent them back, and I thought it came out great.”
Regarding the songwriting process for RESURRECTION KINGS‘ debut CD, Goldy said: “Originally, I had the music [for the song ‘Living Out Loud’]… I had learned the hard way that you’ve gotta start off with a good groove, and then you come up with a cool riff and then you come up with some simple chord progressions and then a melody line. And then, once the melody line is established, and we’re starting to work on lyrics, that’s when you can go back and kind of mess with the chords and stuff to make them more interesting. But we kind of had the outline of the song already, and then I presented that to Chas and him and I just started doing the process that’s supposed to be. The first thing he did is just start improvising, what came naturally. So it came from his heart and it came from his talent.”
Goldy also spoke about some of the other tracks on RESURRECTION KINGS‘ debut album which were written by producer Alessandro Del Vecchio. He said: “[Alessandro] is an amazing songwriting [and] a great producer, a keyboard player. I think he plays guitar and stuff as well. He’s a great singer too. I can’t wait for people to hear how he sings. So some of the demo versions already had vocals, drums, bass and guitar on them. So we would learn the songs, and then we’d do them our way. It was something Alessandro and I called ‘Goldy-izing.’ ‘Cause we would get these demos, and they’d be kind of in an odd kind of shape, and so I would Goldy-ize it and turn it into something that I thought would be more interesting. Once Vinny and Sean got ahold of these songs, they really came alive. ‘Cause a lot of the times, songwriters will write demos to drum machines, which is fine, ‘cause it’s just basically a sketch, and then you turn that sketch into an oil painting. And so when Vinny and Sean got ahold of these songs, it really came alive. So that gave me automatic inspiration on top of a great song that Alessandro had already written.”
The cover artwork for “Resurrection Kings” was designed by Stanis-W Decker and can be seen below.
Appice and Goldy played sporadic shows earlier in the year as part of BLACK KNIGHTS RISING, also featuring bassist Elliott Rubinson (Uli Jon Roth, MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP, Carmine Appice) and vocalists Tim “Ripper” Owens (JUDAS PRIEST, ICED EARTH, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, DIO DISCIPLES) and John West (BADLANDS, LYNCH MOB, TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA).
After joining DIO in 1987, Goldy became Ronnie James Dio’s right-hand man and went on to co-write such DIO classics as “Dream Evil”, “One More For The Road” and “As Long As It’s Not About Love”.
Vinny Appice has anchored the rhythm and power live and in the studio for the music of DIO, BLACK SABBATH, HEAVEN & HELL, WWIII, AXIS, Rick Derringer, John Lennon, and more. He has recorded and co-written songs on over 25 albums and CDs, including many multi-platinum records. Touring the world for over two decades resulted in selling millions of records. Vinny’s drumming can also be heard on numerous movie soundtracks, including “Wayne’s World 2”, “Heavy Metal”, “Iron Eagle” and “Bedazzled”. Vinny, the author of drum instruction book “Rock Steady” and DVD “Hard Rock Drumming Techniques”, has performed incredible powerhouse drum clinics around the globe. Numerous books have been written about BLACK SABBATH and DIO with the authors always mentioned Vinny’s unique powerful drumming style.
Source: Blabbermouth
