Winners of the Devil You Know Giveaway

While I have notified all the winners directly via email, I wanted to let everyone else know the winners of the giveaway for the Devil You Know contest have been picked. The winners are:
Alexandre Matte (Gatineau, Quebec Canada)
Brad Mozley (Yorba Linda, CA)
Doug Southgate (Stratford, Ontario Canada)
Simon Elliott (Riverside, CA)
Daniel Holloway (Arlington, VA)
To the winners, the CD’s are enroute to me from Rhino, and I should have them in hand tomorrow. When I get them, I’ll turn around and get them out the door to you the same day, so if the mail is working, you should have it before it releases next Tuesday (except for the Canada guys, sorry about that). Anyway, here are the answers to the questions:
1) What was the first song written by the Dio incarnation of Sabbath after Dio started jamming with the guys originally?
Answer: This is a very well known story, something Dio says just about every time he’s asked about how he joined the Sabs originally. He talks about jamming with Tony and the lads, and on the first night they wrote “Children of the Sea”. This was kind of amusing, as I got all kind of wild guesses. Things from The Devil Cried, to Computer God, to Mob Rules. I didn’t think this question was that confusing.
2) On the new album, there’s a track by the name “Rock & Roll Angel”. What was this track called earlier in the album’s production?
Answer: In early press for the album, there was a song named “Rock & Roll Jesus”. This was later changed to the final version of Rock & Roll Angel. There’s been some fan speculation that it was done to avoid confusion with a song by Kid Rock of the same name. Like anything he does can be called a “song”. Ewww… Anyway, I’ve gotten no official reason for the name change, but there you are – the answer is R&R Angel.
3) Vinny Appice played his own drums on this album. Whose kit did he play on the three tracks from 2007’s “The Dio Years”? (They weren’t his)
Answer: When the Heaven & Hell project first started, Bill Ward was involved. My research shows that he was there long enough to lay down some basic tracks in the studio, but it never progressed with Bill far enough to get to true recording of the songs when he realized he didn’t want to do it and went home. That apparently had the band in a bit of a bind, as they needed to complete the songs, so they flew Vinny Appice over to Tony Iommi’s house, where the songs were being recorded. As it needed to be done in a hurry, they didn’t have time to properly get Vinny’s gear to England, so Vinny played the drum kit that is inside Tony’s house in his recording studio on those three tracks. That kit belonged to the late Cozy Powell. This is another one I got a bunch of wild guesses on – pretty much everyone who has played drums in Black Sabbath at some point got a mention, but most people who got this wrong guessed Bill Ward.
4) Dehumanizer & The Devil You Know were recorded in the same studio. What’s the name of that studio?
Answer: It was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales. This was another one I got several interesting wrong guesses on. Several said it was Tony’s studio, which would have been a good guess, and the DVD footage has Tony saying they considered that, but they wanted a more proper recording studio, so they went back to Rockfield, as it’s one of the few studios you can also live at. I also had a handful of people guess “Rich Bitch Studios” in Midland.
5) Who plays keyboards on the new “The Devil You Know” album?
Answer: This is the one that tripped up most people. In fact, I’d wager 90% of the people that got the answers wrong got this one wrong. I understand why. The reason is when the press started coming out about this album, I asked who was playing keyboards on the album, and I was told “nobody, no keyboards”. As time went on, I found this to be untrue, and later found out that there were keyboards (albeit not a lot) on the new album. They were played by engineer Mike Exeter. Mike also played keys briefly on the “Shadow of the Wind” track from the Dio Years compilation. Most people guessed “nobody” because I reported it that way for a long time, but I have made references to Exeter lately, so the info was out there. I also got a ton of people guessing Scott Warren, Geoff Nicholls, and a few for Adam Wakeman. :)
Anyway, congratulations to the winners, as I said, I should have the prizes out in the mail either tomorrow or Monday.