Vinny Appice, the drummer who enjoyed stints in Dio and Black Sabbath, has blasted the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for excluding Ronnie James Dio.

“I think the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame suck,” he exclaimed while talking to Jeff Gaudiosi of MisplacedStraws.com. “It’s supposed to be rock 'n' roll, and there’s people in there that’s not rock 'n' roll one bit. And just the way they do business — it took ’em that long to put Black Sabbath in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Black Sabbath started all this heavy stuff.”

Black Sabbath became eligible for Hall induction in 1995, the same year the institution opened its museum in Cleveland. Still, the group wasn’t inducted until 2006, and both Dio and Appice were among the former band members excluded from inclusion. The decision disappointed the drummer, but didn’t surprise him. “I wasn’t expecting them to induct Ronnie and I," he said. "They should’ve, but they didn’t. So I think they suck.”

Appice went on to opine that Dio’s body of work is more than deserving of induction, while further criticizing the Hall’s decision making.

“I went [to the Rock Hall] once," Appice said. "It was a friggin’ joke. And Ronnie should have been in there, even by himself. He should have been inducted. … He’s been in all these major bands and major albums, and he’s not in there. It’s sad. He should have been in there. I don’t even care that they didn’t induct Dio — the band Dio — but they should have did him and mentioned us. That would have been nice. [Dio‘s debut album] Holy Diver is 37 years old and it’s still selling. So [the Hall is] a joke, that whole thing.”

Ronnie James Dio died in 2010 following a battle with stomach cancer. Appice, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi had joined the singer in a Sabbath offshoot band, Heaven & Hell, in the waning years of his life.

More recently, Appice has been a member of Last in Line, a Dio spin-off band featuring former Dio member and current Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell.

 

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