Vicious Rumors,
Vinnie Moore,
To save time in this segment, I will not delve into how I hooked up with Geoff and joined VR. Anyone interested in reading about that, please go to the Fanspeak#2 section for all of those details. When I joined VR in November of 1984 Geoff, Gary, and I were the only solid members of the band. We were playing with a temporary drummer (whose name escapes me!) and we played as a 4-piece doing some local shows in the Santa Rosa Ca. area. About June of 1985, we had auditioned a handful of drummers and finally found our man in Larry Howe, who would go on to stay with VR for 13 years. Geoff had a friendship with Shrapnel Records president Mike Varney, and Mike had offered VR a 2 album deal. The catch was that we still needed a 2nd guitar player to complete the band. Mike suggested to us a new talent that he had discovered from Delaware named Vinnie Moore. Mike had been writing the spotlight column in Guitar Player magazine, and had showcased Vinnie in a 1984 issue. Mike was responsible for hooking us up, and he left it up to us to take it from there. Vinnie ended up flying out to stay in Santa Rosa with Geoff, and to begin learning our songs and to begin pre-production on what would become 'SOTN'. This is when the problems began. Although Vinnie was then and is today a great guitar player, he was very young and in my opinion immature back then when we worked with him.This is not meant to be a slight in any way, he was young and away from home for the 1st time, away from his girlfriend and he ended up getting really homesick. He was also having problems with our musical direction and he did not care for Gary's singing or his attitude. He also did not really respect Geoff as a lead guitar player and he felt that Geoff was getting to many solos and stepping on his toes musically. I think that Vinnie went into this thinking that SOTN was going to be a showcase for himself and less of a "real band"album. All of the problems that I just described above were kept secret to us but confided by Vinnie to Mike Varney. Vinnie told him that he was so unhappy that he wanted to bail out in the middle of the recording and go home to Delaware. Mike told him that he needed to stay and to finish the record and then to go home if he still felt the same way after the records completion. He told him also to use 'SOTN' as a stepping stone for his carreer, and to chalk up the bad vibes as a learning experience. Well, Vinnie did keep his secret and we finished the record not knowing about any of his problems with us. After the record was done, the last item of business was the photo session, and this was done with the Legendary rock photographer JIM MARSHALL. The shoot went really well, and later that day we took Vinnie to the airport. He told us that he wanted to go home and take care of his personal affairs and that he would be back in about 4 weeks. The truth is that we never saw him again! He kept up the charade with us for several months, always telling us that he was going to be out there asap. I eventually got him on the phone one night and we had a long talk. And that is when he laid it all out for me. He told me about all of the things he was unhappy with about VR, and I just told him that it's ok he just should have been honest with us and that would have been a lot better for all of us. He agreed with me and said that he was sorry and he wished us all of us the best in the future, and I said the same to him. Looking back on the'SOTN' record and working with Vinnie, I really do not have any regrets. It was great to work with Vinnie and people always ask me what it was like to work with the "Legendary Vinnie Moore" and I always say kind things about him! His leaving the band was obviously not done with much professionalism, but I don't hold that against him today. As far as Vinnie's criticism of Gary and Geoff goes, the problems with Gary were taken care of within a year and he was replaced by the epic talent of the mighty Carl Albert! And back then and still today I think one of the best solos on 'SOTN' was Geoff's soaring and heart wrenching work on "Domestic Bliss", so stick that in your pipe Vinnie!! And one more thing, although I appreciate Vinnie's contribution to the VR legacy, it was not until Mark McGee joined the band that a true guitar hero came on board....... Dave Starr 03-99 |
