Says guitarist Vivian Campbell, “When we started this project a few years ago, the initial idea was to reunite the original Dio band to play the songs we wrote and recorded with Ronnie in the early 1980’s. Joined by Andrew Freeman on vocals, we played a handful of shows in southern California, the UK, and Japan. It was a limited ambition, but it brought us great joy in reconnecting to this great music, to each other, and to our collective history.”

“When we first got together as the Last In Line line-up, our ambition at that time didn’t extend to writing and recording any new music, says Campbell, “but when we were offered the opportunity to do so by Frontiers, we decided to enter the studio to write this new album in the very same spirit as we did the Holy Diver album; Back in 1982 Ronnie, Vinny, Jimmy and I went into Sound City studios to kick around ideas and riffs, and about six weeks later we started laying down the tracks for what was to become the Holy Diver album.”

I'd love to see that reunited line-up do another album. It's clear that there's interest, given the recent canceled show due to too MUCH interest!

Dave took a chance. He decided to try a new direction with the music. In a way he was right because he wanted to mix dance beats into the music. He was like ‘We need to be more Dance-orientated’. And I was like ‘That’s great, but…’ …It just wasn’t me. I just couldn’t get up there and do that kind of thing. So I was gone, but in a way he was right because Dance music did become the next giant thing and now that’s pretty much all there is. I call it Karaoke Aerobics. It’s basically people doing Karaoke because they’re singers who don’t really sing on their records and just get pitch-corrected. And then they get eight to twelve people to do Aerobics next to them and that’s ninety percent of the music that you see on TV now. So in a way, he was right, but the problem with doin’ a switch like that when you’re a Rocker guy is that the Rockers are going to hate you because you’ve turned on them and the Dance guys are going to hate you because you were once a Rock guy …So unfortunately, he fell between the cracks, but in a way he was right. He accurately predicted that Dance music was going to come in. It did, but at the same time, we had a lot of other great music by a lot of other great bands. I just think he threw the dice and they just didn’t come up with the number he needed.”

Huge interest I'm sure. I'm still a huge fan of Vai's stuff and IMO Sheehan's work with The Winery Dogs has been quite good. But I do wonder if they would get a different (better) drummer.

I went to Best Buy on Saturday to buy a Last In Line CD (no, I do not have a free one - at least not yet) and was most disappointed that it took forever to find a copy. After seeing nothing in the 'New releases' section, I eventually found 3 copies buried behind a rap artist, but on the wrong rack and under the wrong letter of the alphabet. It doesn't give me much faith in the current state of the music business (not that I had any, really). Oh, how I miss Tower Records.