You need to wear earplugs at concerts. You just do. I’ve been going to loud rock concerts since I was 14 years old and I just started wearing earplugs a few years back and, let me tell you, I wish I had started a lot earlier. If I could meet my younger self like in that new Aubrey Plaza movie that’s coming out, I’d probably slap her and tell her to wear earplugs and to also never go through a Kid Rock phase because that’s just embarrassing. Vinny Appice, drummer for the related bands Dio, Heaven & Hell, and Ronnie James Dio-era Black Sabbath can attest, as someone who’s been playing in loud rock bands since the mid-70s can attest that being deaf from loud music sucks.
In a recent interview of Drum Syndicate Podcast (that was transcribed by Blabbermouth), Appice was asked if he wears earplugs to play, and apparently he doesn’t wear the amount of protection he really needs for the volume of music he plays:
“I wear little swimming plugs that cut out the top end, and that’s it. And my hearing sucks. The TVs in this house are all closed captioned. And I’m always asking my beautiful girlfriend Leslie, ‘What? What did he say?’ So, yeah, my hearing is terrible.”
Apparently, Appice found it difficult to do his job with the kind of ear protection he needed, which led to his bad hearing:
“I wore ’em — probably first started with SABBATH, ’cause it was so loud. We played with monitors, the first SABBATH tour, ‘Mob Rules’. There were fucking refrigerator-sized cabinets, two of ’em, behind me, just cranked. But you can’t play that stuff through in-ears. It’s BLACK SABBATH and [Ronnie James] Dio, and you’ve gotta feel the power. Unfortunately, it takes a toll on your ears.
“It’s funny. I don’t hear great — like on the TV, if they’re talking, I’m better off with the closed captions, or in a room with a lot of noise, forget it,” he explained. “It’s hard to hear anything. But I can hear bad tuning, wrong notes, wrong key, wrong movements, whatever, timing and music while we’re on stage. I’ll be playing, it’s loud. ‘What the fuck? That’s the wrong note.’ And somebody’s hitting the wrong note and stuff like that. I could hear that, like, perfect. But everything else is screwed up.”
While Vinny Appice never found a way to drum with the proper hearing protection in his ears, you have a no excuse for going to that Sun O))) concert with unprotected ears that will be bleeding by the end of the concert. Go out and buy a pair of quality earplugs. Your future self will thank you.