JIMMY BAIN Jammy Jimmy Jimmy Bain finally got lucky when he joined DIO Has Jimmy found his pot of gold at last? Skipping jauntily over the Rainbow, 'Rising' briefly to a flood of spotlight and then whoops perhaps he forgot where his feet were as he danced along with his head in the air, for Jimmy slipped and the next thing he knew he was tumbling Down To Earth... We-ell never mind - he had plenty of company: there was Cozy, and Tony, and Don, and Graham... and who was that squitty little man with the lungs of a lion? Ah yes, Ronnie. Of course, neither Jimmy nor Ronnie sat around for long commiserating (if they really did of course) with each other - the wide-eyed (or is that 'wild-eyed'?) Scots Rocker pieced together a very efficient little ensemble with Lizzy evacuee Brian Robertson - Wild Horses didn't tread the boards for long. As for dinky Dio, the world knows that he cast his powerful little spell on the Sabs and took them to Heaven and Hell and back in one fell swoop, before deciding his name wasn't big enough on the cover 'Time to collect my own army' he rubbed his hands with glee. Meanwhile young Jimmy was gathering his thoughts together having reached the conclusion that the world needed a 'SUPER-heavy band' and that he was gonna be the one to throw the weight around. But, no sooner had he uttered the immoral word 'Eureka!' than the phone rang..... "Sorry I'm late, ah-yawn-scuse me, I only just go' up". and Jimmy stretches his limbs in one almighty "wooargh that's better", shakes his head to banish any lingering sleep and focusses his bleary eyes on me. Jimmy, of course, has every right to feel shagged - "I spent four months in the studio with Ronnie and right after that I did the Scorpions album - that's another 4 months. I just had time to mow the lawn - I tell ya it was like a jungle after 8 months! - do a few interviews, then fly back to the States for Dio's tour with Aerosmith..." Now he and the rest of Dio are boiling themselves up 'hello' to us, for it's nearly time for the annual destruction of Castle Donnington Racetrack. Dio's machinery we'll fiddle about with later. First, while we're about it, what makes Jimmy tick? And how did James Bain, quantity surveyor and 9 to 5-er, end up thwanging his way into the rock 'n' roll-over biz (and indeed two rockin' epical musical cliques?) These questions and more are just about to be answered so don't let Rover loose on MF yet.... "I've always wanted to be a player, but I didn't actually turn professional till I was about 20. After I'd finished my four years of surveyor training, I went over to Canada, but after a while I began to get really disillusioned by all the 9 to 5 bullshit. So I started to play full-time. "It's been a bit of a struggle in some ways over the years, but in other ways it's been very rewarding. As long as you can keep playing and keep actually getting better at what you do, it's well worth while." Did Jimmy ever think 'oh God I don't know if I'll be able to handle it - day in day out on the road, in and out of hotels...'? "No - I think that's part of the drug of music. All the stuff that goes with it - the travelling and the touring and the pressure - has a positive effect on you. Keeps you going all the time. And y'know after all that time in the studio I was going nuts, I was just dying to get out on the road again. You can have too much studio - you haveta balance it out. "At the same time. It's great to be able to shut the door on the whole scene every now and then, and spend some time with your family, just relaxing. Off the road I guess I have a pretty boring existence..." Ha! Sez he! Still I guess he needs a little boredom every once a while; some time to recharge those batteries, so that when it's time to plug in again, all that suppressed energy's ready to burst in an explosion of activity. "Even when I'm actually on tour, I make sure that I keep myself at a low ebb all day before a gig. If you go running around all day letting all that adrenalin loose. you're too knackered to play properly!" Jimmy makes a conscious effort to stick to a strict routine when he's on the road, from conserving energy to packing his bags the 'night before' to save himself the horror of having to do it the next morning with a hangover! But his most important rule is never to take anybody on tour with him. He says It'd mess up his schedule! Whether he sticks to this one or not is another matter of course... This penchant for organising Jimmy the Rocker (as opposed to his alterego 'Jimmy the Homelover - The Man Behind Closed Doors') wasn't acquired all in one right y'know. Though he catapulted from a life of Marquee dates (with an outfit called Harlot) to the dazzling lifestyle of a Rainbow rider in one clean shot, his sudden plunge into what might've been obscurity must've landed him one helluva blow in the nuptials, because he started to watch his steps more carefully in future. He also realised that the only way to survive in such a dodgy business, is to "hold onto what you believe." This he offers as sound advice to any aspiring musicians on the verge of making their first fatal mistake. "It's particularly dangerous it the States! Y'know out there, anyone can get a band together if they're reasonably good-looking. Take Motley Crue for example - they have amazing equipment and incredible hair an everything, and they charge on stage like this (Jimmy impersonates irate gorilla) and as soon they start playing, it's like - WIMP rock. There's no fire there. They haven't had to fight all that hard to get anywhere - and they haven 't got anywhere. They're just sitting in Hollywood. "Thats why you've gotta be so careful when you go out there. It's so easy to get wowed by all the attention you get - but the thing is, everybody's treated like that. You can play at 'having a wild time in Hollywood' but if you don't keep hold of your scruples you haven't got a chance." In fact, Jimmy reckons that, on the whole, today's bands don't have to 'pay their dues' as much as their more experienced counterparts. That they don't have to go through the staggering-up-the-motorway-in-dirty-old-van business to get anywhere. "-and that's a shame- 'cos that's where you learn a lot about life, as well as music. Y'know it's like - music and life go hand in very poetic. Being a true Sagittanan (whatever that may be), Jimmy is a self-confessed 'dreamer-optimist' and he certainly seems to do a lot of thinking. According to him the rest of Dio are much more pessimistic than he is, so does the chemistry spark off turbulent vibes' "No not at all - we balance each other out! I mean I've been good friends with Ronnie a long time, seeing as we worked together in Rainbow. S'funny 'cos as it turned out, both of us used Rainbow as a stepping-stone in our careers! And Vinnie and Vivian are both really nice guys too. "It's so important to get the record straight with everybody before you go anywhere with them. That way you have fewer problems!" Jimmy probably knows Ronnie better than most people, so what is the Wee Wizard Warbler really like? And where did he get that 'Little Hitler' tag from? "S'funny y'know 'cos Ronnie's very much the opposite of that tag. I think he got that reputation because he definitely knows what he wants and goes after it without a moment's hesitation. That's why we get on so well I think because I'm pretty much the same. "Anyway I think he was really pushed to the front in Sabbath, and found himself doing all the press stuff 'cos none of the other guys were ever interested. So his role gradually got bigger and bigger, until it got to the stage where the others were getting annoyed with it, and, well, that was it." Not that Ronnie was particularly upset by this turn of events, because he'd been planning to do a solo album for quite some time anyway, a project that Jimmy was asked to collaborate in. So when Ronnie and Vinnie left Sabbath for good, there was no question of who was going to be bass-player. Jimmy filed away his own plans (for future reference?) and scuttled off to L.A. to sort things out. The hunt for a guitarist didn't take much effort either. "It was really jammy how we found Viv! I was in Dublin rehearsing with Phil Lynott for his solo tour, and I happened to say to the studio engineer 'I'm trying to get hold of this guy Viv Campbell'. Well it just so happened that he was producing his band the next day in the same studio! Y'know Ireland's not that big a place so it was really jammy! After I'd got hold of a tape from Viv - a Sweet Savage tape - I went back to London, and the first night I was back I saw Ronnie and Vinnie. They were really impressed with the tape, so they rang Viv there and then and asked him to join - at 4.00 in the morning! Yeah, really jammy!" From the sounds of 'Holy Diver', we can expect quite a jammy time at Donnington and indeed later in the year when Dio spend a little more time over here. Jammy? I can't help feeling that isn't quite the right word... Still, Jammy -sorry- Jimmy knows what he means - and remember, if you want to create a really jammy band just hold onto those scruples! © Pippa Lang, Metal Fury 1983