Vinny Appice Reflects on Dio, Heaven & Hell Legacy Amid New Box Set Release

Vinny Appice's first reaction to the Breaking Out of Heaven box set wasn't nostalgia. It was shock. "When I saw the package, I didn't know that we had that much stuff," the drummer admitted to Loudwire Nights host Chuck Armstrong on April 1. The comment lands differently when you know what stopped the band: a stomach cancer diagnosis in November 2009 that ended Heaven & Hell before anyone had planned for it to end.

Rhino Records released Breaking Out of Heaven 2007-2009 on March 27, compiling the complete recorded output from the reunion of Appice, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and the late Ronnie James Dio. The collection arrives as a 4CD/Blu-ray set and a 7LP vinyl box, with The Devil You Know (2009) as the centerpiece alongside Live From Radio City Music Hall, recorded March 30, 2007, and Neon Nights: 30 Years Of Heaven & Hell. A tour program rounds out the physical package.

What the box set makes visible, Appice noted, is easy to underestimate when each piece lands separately. "The records came out one at a time and then you put them all together, it's a lot bigger than what you remember," he told Armstrong. "I'm really happy that they're doing this. Otherwise, you know, Heaven & Hell was together, we did our thing and then it kind of fades into the background. But this is more of a celebration, it's bringing it to the front."

The fade was never supposed to happen on the terms it did. Heaven & Hell had mapped out a 2010 summer tour and were in conversations about another studio album when Dio's illness forced everything to a halt. "We were having a good time playing together and making music and we were intending to continue for a bit, to do another tour in that summer in 2010 and possibly maybe another album," Appice said. "But that's when Ronnie got ill and we couldn't continue. It's kind of a sad ending. I'm glad we got to do it, being Ronnie's last [album]." Dio died in May 2010.

Appice's relationship with Dio ran deeper than the Heaven & Hell reunion years. The two had first built their chemistry in 1982, when Dio left Black Sabbath and brought Appice into the band that bore his name. Together they recorded Holy Diver (1983), The Last in Line (1984), Sacred Heart (1985), and Dream Evil (1987), a body of work that defined what heavy metal drumming could sound like inside a riff-centered song: locked in without sacrificing feel. Appice also recalled that songwriting sessions with Dio tended toward the spontaneous, with vocals and lyrics taking shape organically rather than through rigid pre-production.

That collaborative instinct holds up across the box set's live material. On The Devil You Know sessions and through the Radio City performances, Appice plays for the song, supporting Iommi's guitar architecture rather than competing with it. The contrast between his early Dio-era work and the Heaven & Hell recordings is a useful study in how a player adapts across 25 years of shared repertoire while keeping the same fundamental pocket intact.

Heaven & Hell was a reunion that refused to coast: it produced new studio material, toured seriously, and had clear momentum before Dio's death closed the door. Breaking Out of Heaven doesn't just archive a catalog; it makes the case that those final years were a genuine creative chapter, not a curtain call. Appice's recollections give that argument a drumstick-level view.