Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa has reflected on a car crash that killed his bandmate Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley, who died with Vince Neil behind the wheel.
During an appearance on Waste Some Time With Jason Green Yaffa explained that he, Dingley and Neil were all hanging out in L.A. He said that the Mötley Crüe vocalist picked the two of them up in his car to show them around the city.
“Vince came to pick up me and Razzle. We stayed at the Franklin Plaza Suites, or something like that, at LaBrea and Franklin. ‘Cause Razzle and Vince were buddies, so he was going to pick up Razzle and show him around L.A. and all this stuff,” Yaffa began.
And Razzle was, like, ‘Sami, come along.’ And he came with a tiny little sports car – it wasn’t that car that ended up in an accident; it was another one; but [it was] a two-seater – and there was no room.
“And Razzle was just, like, ‘Oh, fuck it, mate. Just hop on my fucking lap.’ So it was three of us just cruising around L.A. And he showed us Santa Monica and Hollywood Boulevard and we drove all around L.A. And he was showing us places,” he added.
Yaffa said the trio decided to head back to Neils to have dinner, and that they were joined there by some other famous rockstars, and began to drink beer.
“So we had a really nice afternoon with Vince. And then he said, ‘Let’s just go back to my house and my wife will cook some lunch, or whatever, and some dinner, and we’ll hang out.’
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“And that’s what we ended up doing – we ended up hanging out, having some beers and smoke a little spliff and have a good time and talk about things. And little by little, it just turned into more of a party.
“But it wasn’t really like a crazy party; it was just a bunch of people showed up. Andy [McCoy, guitarist] and Tommy [Lee, CRÜE drummer] came a little bit later and some of their friends. And we’d been kind of drinking beer all day.
Yaffa explained that some of the party wanted more beer, so Neil and Dingley headed to the liquor to pick some more up. That’s when tragedy struck.
“And I just said that I’m gonna take a nap. They actually asked me to go with them to go and pick up some more beer. And I said, ‘I’m gonna take a nap.’ And when I woke up, Mick Mars [guitarist] was just kind of shaking me awake.
“And I wondered where everybody else was. And he said that there’s been an accident. And we went to the hospital and I found out that my bro was gone. It was very heavy.”
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Watch ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Hanoi Rocks:
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