Original subtitles

Back in the day

we were the people that stood in line

at a record store waiting for the gate to open.

Because the discovery of music was everything.

For years the only way you would be able to

judge what you should get

was you'd look at the cover and be like

"That's cool. That's gonna piss off my parents!"

or "That looks rockin'!" or whatever.

And it was all we looked forward to

was to open that cellophane

and see what would fall out of the jacket -

sometimes there would be a picture or something,

and smell it and hold it,

put it on the turntable,

drop the needle, and when this music's in your blood

and Dio and the music he made's in your blood,

it's just impossible to get out.

When you're a kid, you're looking for a voice,

somethin' that says "This is my generation."

And for us it was heavy metal.

And then all of a sudden comes this dude

with the most powerful voice of all!

With a heavy metal band, the music is so powerful

and so potent, you really have to know

how to control it,

specifically singers because we have a message,

we have things to say.

He found a way to create music that makes people

unable to contain themselves,

to the point where they refuse to live without that music.

I was amazed by the way

he was able to captivate people.

I want to know how, why...

How do you get there?

There are a lot of people that think of Ronnie

as being the guy that did this and singing metal.

That is him, but there's another side.

The million dollar question.

How do you describe Ronnie James Dio?

I tend to be an enigma to a lot of people, I think.

There was something about the guy.

There was just something about him.

When Ronnie sang, he wanted to make sure

that everyone never forgot it.

People took it home with them and they named their pet "Dio",

and they named their firstborn "Ronnie".

It was like "This is rock 'n' roll

that is gonna change your fucking life."

It's been years since Ronnie passed.

He passed on the 16th of May, 2010.

I think he's here. I think he's here still, all the time.

Sometimes I hear my name called, but there's nobody here.

I'm probably just imagining it.

Hello. Welcome to my home

and welcome to Behind Closed Doors.

This was a Christmas present from my wife, from Wendy.

We can see the lions and whatnot.

Mick, away we go. I'm gonna make this ball here,

and then we can talk.

Ronnie's story traverses, really, the whole history of rock music.

His career went on for decade after decade. * Mullet is the hairdo - long in the back, shorter elsewhere.

Here we are all these years after he died,

and he's still this huge figure in heavy metal.

Some of these guys are immortal,

but none more so than Ronnie James Dio.

We now have a media room here,

but I still have the lions and I still have the nostalgia

of when we used to have the pool table here.

You've caught me in the library,

one of my favorite places in all the world

because it contains words.

He had a message. He was a messenger.

His message was for the people that lived regular lives,

had regular dreams that meant something real.

You know I don't play piano. I'm a singer.

Let's go to the bar. It's my favorite place anyway.

This is his favorite place, was the bar.

I feel his presence much more here.

And it's a warm, comforting feeling.

Obviously you've had a lot of elbows resting on this at one time or another.

We never started with this.

And why should we think that this should last forever?

I was just as happy, and I'm sure Wendy was just as happy before

struggling and being happy together.

I think this is all very transitory anyway.

It comes and it goes.

You have ups and downs. It's like life.

Life goes through great waves of emotion and passion

and great lows of despair and whatnot.

That's the way life is.

There it is.

That's his beautiful trumpet.

It hasn't been played in a long time.

He used to play this from when he was 5 years old.

He never played it for me.

It's a beautiful thing, but he had had enough of it,

I think from all the hours of practice

he had to do with his dad.

I started as a trumpet player

when I was 5 years old.

So you've been very musical. Where was that?

Upstate New York,

a town called Cortland, New York,

which is right in the middle of nowhere.

Dairy farming community. 18,000 people.

It was a great place to grow up because you got a good moral attitude.

You grew up well.

This is the house where Ronnie grew up.

After he became famous, the city decided

that they were gonna name the street after him

'cause it was on the corner of his house.

So, this is the Dio way.

This had been stolen a couple of times.

His immediate family, they were pretty straight-laced*. * Strict in their ways.

His mother was a sweetheart, of course.

The moms were always easier on the kids than the father.

My father was harsh with me.

These were the days when a good hiding was

right around the corner. And boy, I...

Believe me, I was always up for* one of those. * Deserved.

I wasn't up* for it, * Necessarily to blame.

but I always caused one of those, apparently.

Everyone had the same ideas.

They were good ethics, good morals,

a lot of church involved.

Whether I believed in it or didn't, it gave you rules.

Catholic, ya know.

Ronnie was an altar boy.

Ronnie loved classical music.

His father insisted he practice trumpet

3 hours every day, for years.

He was a voracious reader.

He was a smart kid in school.

High grades, very intelligent,

president of his class, actually.

And he was a little bit crazy.

One time we were riding in the car.

There was a nun walking down the street,

and Ronnie stuck his ass out the window

and he mooned her. So, he mooned a nun.

He was a bit of a rebel.

He had a gang called The Angels.

Stole a car here and there and got in some trouble.

It could have escalated,

but I think not in that family background.

It wasn't just his father.

There was his grandmother, and there are pictures of her.

She doesn't look like the kind of lady

anybody would want to cross.

I think for him, can you imagine in the '50s,

how conservative times were?

Like most musicians,

he realized music was a route out of that.

This was a road to good times.

And what blows me away, as a fan,

when I discovered that Ronnie James Dio,

best metal voice you ever heard,

he was singing in the '50s, before the Beatles.

How is that possible? Like, that's fascinating.

Other than wine and weed.

Everybody has their things.

Some people like to go to football games.

Some people like to bowl. I collect Ronnie James Dio.

I was a radio guy.

So I came out of Syracuse radio in the early '60s.

Ronnie first started in bands back in... around 1958,

playing trumpets and horns and bass at the time.

It was earlier than the Beatles.

So, it was Bill Haley. It was Elvis Presley.

It was all those rockers.

That's what the inspiration was.

So, Ronnie was born Ronald James Padavona.

But when he was in bands and stuff,

it was too long a name and not hip enough for him.

Ronnie got his name, Dio,

famously from a real-life Mafia mob guy

called Johnny Dio.

Ronnie was like "This is evil, but it's cool."

And so he decided "That's gonna be my name."

And that was it.

I was the guy who didn't want to do anything but play the music.

I didn't want to sing.

But everyone tried, and everyone kind of fell by the wayside,

and they finally said "OK, it's your turn."

The training as a horn player

was so absolutely perfect as a singer.

You play from the same place as you sing from,

from your diaphragm.

In my mind, my voice was a trumpet.

In the Red Caps, Ronnie* was so clean * His voice.

and could hit any note he was looking for.

You could tell this guy is professional already,

and he's only 18.

The Red Caps eventually became The Prophets,

and through the years The Prophets,

they formed something special.

He really had the passion to do the best he can

with the abilities that he was God-given.

Ronnie got the dream,

so we used to talk about that all the time.

Ronnie was gonna be the lead singer,

star of the show.

And then I was going to be his lead guitar player.

Nicky was gonna be the leader of any orchestration

or the band.

Nick Pantas was Ronnie's kind of

musical soulmate at that point,

that he writes with, builds bands with,

builds dreams with.

Even from those very, very early days

you can tell his mission in life was to be a singer.

You can tell it.

One of the problems that we really had back then,

we could not find the genre

that would fit Ronnie perfectly.

He was capable of singing anything, basically.

He would be doing songs by

Ronnie did a version of "The Way of Love"

that Cher had a big hit on,

before Cher recorded it. It's phenomenal.

I got in the band.

I was just out of high school in 1965, '66.

We had a manager at the time from Ithaca,

and he was pushing Ronnie

into following that Tom Jones road.

Careers go in different directions.

In those days it wasn't fashionable to be in rock 'n' roll

in order to want to pursue that as a career.

It really made no sense at all to do.

I loved it so much

that it was going to make sense for me to do.

We found a way to be discovered

All these series of pictures were taken

in my parents' basement.

We took rolls of tinfoil, we hung it up in the back.

And that's when the Beatles first came out,

so everybody started to grow their hair long.

We decided to change the name to The Electric Elves.

We used to have a van that said "Electric Elves" on it.

They thought we were electrical contractors.

"My house needs wiring. Call The Electric Elves over.

They're small. They can get into the crawl space really easily."

And at that time, playing clubs,

you're doing cover songs.

When a Beatles album came out, we learned the whole album.

Because Ronnie could sing the whole album.

We were doing so well from a playing standpoint,

going from Maine to North Carolina to Detroit.

We wanted to be better musically

and wanted to be something special.

1968 I had been out of the band for a while,

and Ronnie was playing clubs,

like they were always playing clubs,

and they were called The Electric Elves.

We played in...

I think it was Waterbury, Connecticut, for a week.

We decided not to stay overnight the last night.

Our gear was in the back of the van - we all rode in the van.

So we decided to drive home that night

rather than stay another night.

And a drunk driver ends up crossing the lane

and hits us head-on.

I woke up in a hospital bed with Ronnie next to me in the other bed.

We looked like zombies. Ronnie hit the windshield.

His whole scalp was torn back.

He had over a hundred stitches in his scalp.

Nicky was driving, and it impacted the front,

pinned him in the steering wheel,

and he actually bled to death.

It was really hard to believe,

to understand that that could happen.

This is such a catastrophe,

not just, obviously, for Nick and his family,

but for Ronnie it becomes a moment of:

"Is this time to throw in the towel? Is this a sign?

Is this just not meant to be?"

That's a slide, that's one slide of Ronnie's.

You can see it's after the accident,

when his hair was just starting to grow in.

Ronnie, when he was a kid, succeeded really greatly

as far as academics. * Math etc.

At some point he started college and he was taking pharmacy.

So, after the accident, he could have chosen anything,

any avenue to go to.

I remember the moment when I said

"We gonna put this thing back together?"

And he said "We're gonna put this thing back together."

In our minds we were wanting to go to Led Zeppelin, The Who.

We idolized Deep Purple.

Deep Purple, that's what was heaviest.

[Speed King] "Good golly!" said Little Miss Molly

As she was rockin' in the house of blue light

And we just said "OK, that's what we wanna do."

And the death of Nick Pantas,

that terrible crash

that could have easily dissuaded lesser men,

just to say "You know what? I'm done."

Ronnie decides "No, I'm not done.

In fact, I'm only just getting started."

He decides to build this

into something more contemporary

with a shit ton of power.

There's just a power and a presence.

It's remarkable when you think that a man

of such small stature

had the biggest voice you're ever going to hear.

Eventually, we became Elf.

We were very small and all kinds of hair and beards

and the whole deal. We'd walk out on stage,

and actually people started to chuckle.

But when we hit the first note, it was like

jaws dropped.

And suddenly you've got not just a new band

but a new sound, a new attitude.

And the beginnings of the Ronnie James Dio

that would become famous.

We came up with those songs,

and that's what ended up getting us an audition

with Columbia.

Elf were auditioning for the famous Clive Davis

who discovered everybody, just everybody.

And we were gonna audition for him, wow!

At the time Roger Glover and Ian Paice from Deep Purple,

out of the blue, for some reason

they wanted to become producers.

So, somehow they got involved in coming to this audition.

We were told just at the last moment

that Roger and Ian were coming.

That put us in quite a turmoil

because two of our heroes? My Lord!

"My God. Like, two people from Deep Purple are gonna be here."

And I idolized the band.

Some chairs set up, and Clive comes in,

and a couple people with him.

And then Roger and Ian come in.

There were probably, I don't know,

15 or 20 suits in the room.

Clive Davis, et cetera,

all these people and white wine,

and it's all "Thank you very much."

And then

these four midgets walked out.

And I go "What's this? A circus act or something?"

Standing there and playing in front of, like,

record executives,

and not to mention two guys in Deep Purple.

And you have to try to sell yourself.

It was like a big deal.

We played the songs,

and it was like "Alright, that's enough.

We don't need to hear any more songs."

And everybody gets up.

We couldn't hear what they were talking about.

And everybody leaves.

We don't know if they hated it or if they loved it.

We were knocked out. Absolutely knocked out.

We said "We'll do this."

And we flew down to Atlanta and recorded the album.

Then we got to go on tour with Deep Purple.

So we went from playing bars to playing arenas.

We really felt like we made it at that time.

Little did we know there's a long way to go

before you really make it.

I always had places that I wanted to get to.

Deep Purple were my favorite band.

We must have done probably 8 full tours with the band.

So, Elf took upon the world.

that was the beginning, certainly for me.

Baby, you know, I'm comin' back for you

Over the course of the next couple of years touring,

Ronnie was always around us.

I fell in love with the sound of his voice,

then I fell in love with his personality,

then I fell in love with him as a human being.

He was great. He was funny, strong-willed.

And he believed in what he did.

Go for what you believe in, and that's what Ronnie was.

He was a hard fist coming at you.

I loved the guy.

I just genuinely loved him.

It was born into him from generations of eons

of lifetimes ago

to be... kind.

Growing up a Deep Purple fan,

it's just, like, they were the biggest

and the fucking baddest of all the musicians on the planet.

And fucking Blackmore! My fucking God!

He's like the "Deep" in Deep Purple.

He's a mystery within a riddle.

He's not the easiest man to get on with.

I barely saw Ritchie in Deep Purple

when I was in the band.

Ritchie was an isolator, and this is in the days

where there was no separate dressing rooms.

He had his own dressing room.

He stayed at different hotels, basically.

And he never partook in any group endeavors.

No after-dinner parties...

Blackmore left Purple

because they were going in a more funk direction.

I was going to leave Deep Purple no matter what

because I didn't respect that type of music

that we were getting into,

but luckily at the same time I met Ronnie.

Ritchie and I really had

the same kind of musical feelings.

We were engrossed in the classical kind of music,

Bach especially.

And we felt that there was a great place in music

to kind of revive that mystical, magical aura

and put it into today's kind of context.

Ritchie left and went to start

putting Rainbow together with the guys in Elf,

pretty much.

By the time Rainbow gets going,

you got the Mount Rushmore of heavy rock:

Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin.

All of them shared a common denominator

in the sense that they were all coming from the blues.

Ronnie James Dio and Ritchie Blackmore wanted

to explore this kind of neoclassical heavy rock music

that is something way beyond.

So Rainbow is taking this spaceship to a new place.

As a teenager, I came from an abusive family,

physically and verbally abusive,

in and out of hospitals, and stitches and surgeries.

So, music was extremely important to me

because I had no one.

I remember I was in a car. Deep Purple had just broken up.

Disco was starting to make its scene.

The world was upside down.

And all of a sudden

"Man on the Silver Mountain" comes on the radio.

And I was like...

all fired up.

Ritchie Blackmore was back!

Then I first heard Ronnie James Dio's voice

and I was like "Who the hell is that?"

He was like a whole universe

that was concealed within one man.

And so at one point the world was upside down,

and it turned it right side up again.

This is not just another rock band.

It's gonna take what we used to call heavy rock

into a whole vista that really hasn't existed before.

And it was all about this dynamic

between this incredible guitarist

and this extraordinary singer

that almost everybody had never heard of.

I remember going to Munich to do an album,

and Ritchie was in the same studio.

And he said "I gotta play you a song."

"Stargazer", full blast.

I was blown away. That was like a masterpiece.

Ronnie sang about mystical, magical stars

and universe and dreams.

That's what I do with my music. I'm a narrator.

I give people avenues which they can go down.

Safe avenues.

I don't shove it down their throats.

They're your dreams to try to attain.

I don't tell them this is what they must do.

So, a narrator is what I am.

In the "Runaways" days I would put on "Stargazer".

All my dreams and all my hopes would come out.

That gave me all the strength

and all the power I ever needed

in guitar playing and music

and just my everyday shit.

Even though Ronnie could really sing blues

if he wanted to,

lyrically, he was never the victim in his lyrics.

It was more of a sage.

You can see, but you're blind

Someone turned the sun around

But you can see in your mind

The gates of Babylon

And the things we wrote were so different.

That was the band I wanted to be in forever.

That was my chance to do what I was born to do,

which is to write classically oriented, fantasy kind of music.

Ronnie was now firmly embedded into

the Gothic and medieval rock of Rainbow.

He'd found his niche. He'd found his new character.

The famous Rainbow Bar and Grill.

Land of fruits and nuts, * Gays and crazies.

and they always used to say that.

It still is the place to be on Sunset Strip.

I came to Los Angeles in around '74.

I got a job in a diner,

and then I was doing a little bit of acting.

I didn't mean to do acting, actually.

I went with a girlfriend of mine,

and we went there as

stand-in, what do you call it?

Extras?

We went in as extras.

It was a movie called...

And this guy that I had to rub

his shoulders and stuff, he was telling me that

he had written a movie and it was gonna be a big time.

And I thought "Right, whatever."

It actually turned out to be Sylvester Stallone.

You schmuck.

And then I met a girl at a party and she said

"Why don't you get a job at The Rainbow?"

We had everyone in here...

Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Who.

Anyone you could possibly think of was in here.

So this is the table where it all happened.

This is where I met Ronnie with Ritchie,

and he introduced me to Ronnie.

And they invited me to go to a party afterwards

up at their house, and so I went up there.

We talked, and he followed me around a lot.

I said "He's too short for me."

But then he talked to me more,

and we talked on the phone, and Ronnie being Ronnie,

he's a very personal person, he was so interesting

and such a very wonderful person

who loved animals as I did.

He loved to talk about books, movies, everything.

I think I fell in love with his brain, actually,

and the way he was, his graciousness.

You felt the same way

And then he went on tour with Rainbow.

And then he asked me to go on the road with him.

I'd only known him for a few weeks, and I said

"I can't quit my job.

I'll come for a couple of days."

Which ended up being a couple of months,

which ended up being for the rest of my life.

We were both young when we were experiencing the road.

And it was fun for a while,

and then it got a little bit tense.

Rainbow are enormous in Japan.

Rainbow are bigger in Japan than The Stones.

Rainbow are huge in Britain and Europe.

Rainbow are not huge in America.

In America Rainbow never got there

with Ronnie as the singer,

and I know that that bothered Blackmore tremendously.

And he was consumed

with getting Rainbow on US radio.

"Long Live Rock 'n' Roll" was the last Rainbow album.

They're working on the next one, early stages.

Ritchie decided it was time to get a hit.

I was staying at Bruce's house one day.

And he played me a song...

He said "Ritchie wants to do it."

I said "Get outta here!

After what he's done?!"

You know what we'll do?

how could he want to do this? * Still, Roger joined Rainbow soon.

Ronnie spent

the first 10-15 years of his career

putting on a suit, looking for the hit song.

This is something he'd left behind

many years ago

and believed that the unique selling point of Rainbow

had nothing to do with "Since You Been Gone, Baby".

And Ronnie spoke up.

He stayed true to himself,

and I think it really pissed off a few people.

It got very tense,

and so Ronnie was actually fired.

That was the time

where Rainbow did get airplay in America.

It wasn't with Ronnie.

For Ronnie on a personal level it was a disaster.

He and Wendy were in a situation

where the house they lived in

was owned by the band.

Ronnie didn't even see any royalties.

This is a guy who co-wrote all the big songs.

Ronnie didn't get any royalties from Rainbow

until after he died.

So they had no money.

Ronnie was a very, very proud man.

He didn't want to admit that he'd been hurt by this.

He didn't want to admit that maybe he'd blown it.

I was a young Sabbath fan. I remember watching

Don Kirshner's rock concerts, seeing them do

"Never Say Die" live without lip-syncing.

You could tell that Ozzy was sounding a little rough

and kind of just doing that penguin clap,

just running around,

looked like a wind-up toy after a while.

Black Sabbath is pretty much yesterday's news

in the late '70s.

The original Black Sabbath

is some of the greatest metal ever made.

No one was disputing that.

But at that point, ten years into the business,

coming off a couple lackluster records,

beat up from the road, it was a mess at that time.

Things weren't working out at the end of the '70s for us.

I think it was probably a lot of different things.

Disarray. Maybe "disillusionment" might be a better word.

We'd been in rock 'n' roll for years, man.

All of them were very badly riddled

with drug problems.

Ozzy was considered, like, a huge mess and can't sing,

can't write, can't do this.

He was just a crazy dude from Birmingham,

like a juvenile delinquent.

He was never a professional,

and that's what was great about him.

And Ozzy's a sweetheart. We all know that.

But he was crazy in the '70s.

One night at the Rainbow

he set himself on fire at a booth in the Rainbow.

Fire extinguisher came out. He could have died.

He's laughing his ass off.

And Oz, he came to such a place,

he needed to leave.

Ozzy leaves, and everybody was just like...

"OK, so that's it, they're done.

Black Sabbath is just done."

So, by the end of the '70s

Ronnie and Wendy take off for LA.

Ronnie would not go down

the "Baby, let's have a hit" route.

He's already in his 30s.

He's already been around the block* a zillion times. * In the industry.

He's got no career.

"What the fuck am I gonna do?"

But The Rainbow seems to have been

such a lucky place for him.

He meets Wendy in The Rainbow.

And now who does he meet in The Rainbow one night?

Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath.

Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath who has just sacked Ozzy.

At the Rainbow Bar and Grill I met Tony.

Saw him and I went to the rehearsal place.

I only went up there just to say hello.

He came over to the house and

I played him a bit of the stuff,

some of the riffs I got.

And he said "Let me have a go at that."

Went off to the other room and wrote

the beginning and a verse to a song called

"Children the Sea".

He'd walk out and just sing.

This voice would come out.

He was just unbelievable.

When he first got offered the job

in Black Sabbath, he was like

"I don't know if I like this music or not."

And I said "We have $800 left in the bank.

You love this music."

He joined the band, and he did love the music.

This was going into a band that to me

had been the heavy metal band,

a band that didn't apologize for coming to town.

It just stepped on buildings when it came to town.

And to be included in that band was very special to me.

Takin' over for Ozzy in Sabbath?

Can you imagine the pressure?

To replace a singer is really...

It can go either way.

And then putting Ronnie in a tough spot, really.

Again, I'm a very positive person.

I said to them "They're never gonna say anything bad about you.

They're only gonna say something bad about the new guy who came in.

And my shoulders are big enough to take it.

You know what we'll do? We're gonna write some great songs.

Don't worry about it, mate. I'll take care of it."

At this point I'm working for the biggest

rock and heavy metal PR company in the UK.

Suddenly it comes 'round: "Sabbath have sacked Ozzy,

but they're gonna bring Ronnie James Dio in."

And there was a lot of blowback.

"Where's Ozzy? This guy can't be Ozzy."

From the outside looking in,

it doesn't sound promising.

They had to rise above and create an album

that was far above anything

that they had done in the past.

You could think it's good, you could think it's bad,

but you don't know until the audience, the fans,

they're going to tell you if it's good or not.

As a fan you're established to the singer,

the drummer, the guitar player, whoever,

that's the band.

And if there's something that's different...

"What's going on?"

Is it even gonna work? Is it even gonna connect?

Now, of course, there's always gonna be a lot of, like,

die-hard Sabbath followers who are like

"No, there's only one singer of Black Sabbath."

And then, all of a sudden, here comes Ronnie James Dio.

I think it's a creation that happened many realms ago

that Ronnie would be the singer in Sabbath.

It's all been written in stone.

He was supposed to be there.

He was supposed to replace Ozzy.

He was supposed to take that microphone.

He was supposed to write "Heaven and Hell".

When it actually starts to blast out through the speakers,

and it's like "Let's see what you got, dude."

Do me a wrong You're a bringer of evil

And then when everybody saw what Ronnie had got...

That was just like

"This is what I have always wanted to hear

were those Black Sabbath riffs, with Ronnie's voice."

Everything about it was great.

"Heaven and Hell" is probably to this day

my favorite Sabbath record.

It's a masterpiece in a lot of ways.

And it's a very, very important record.

One of the best albums ever. Period.

Ronnie was a big dreamer,

but he wasn't afraid to tell you:

"If you're gonna fall, you can't be frightened.

You've got to get up and do it again."

I made the statement that was

that I've always wanted to make,

which was "The world is full of kings and queens

who blind your eyes and steal your dreams."

And that all means they're your dreams.

If you have those dreams,

don't let anyone rob you of those wonderful ideas.

That statement has been something that I've tried to live with in my life.

This is Ronnie's very iconic white blouse.

He wore this when he was...

the first round of Black Sabbath in the '80s.

He loved this shirt. He loved...

always loved these sleeves, these medieval sleeves.

Going into Sabbath with the sleeves

and the drama,

he was able to captivate people with an amazing presence.

It did become more mystical.

And we built up the stage show,

basically around the image of...

He had got this theatrical way about him.

I was always a little bit intimidated by Ronnie

because of not only his voice,

but everything else around him.

He projected something.

"My God, there's Dio?"

But on those occasions that we did get a chance

to sit and talk, he was just a very comforting,

welcoming kind of a guy in every aspect.

Every time I was with him, we'd laugh.

We would laugh our asses off.

Clownish behavior, boyish.

And that behavior was very rampant. * Playfully wild.

He was just Ronnie. He was just mellow.

But when he sang, he became a character.

'Cause Dio, not Ronnie and Ronnie James,

Dio was a huge character.

Ozzy Osbourne, obviously, was there before me,

was throwing the peace sign around everywhere.

I felt something else was

needed to incorporate me

into my own thing with that band.

I worked with Dio in Sabbath

as his publicist.

And I'll never forget this.

Ronnie said "I thought about this thing

and I think it could be a bridge between Ozzy and me."

He said "What do you think of this?"

I said "What's that?"

He goes "I'm thinking it's like Ozzy,

spirit of Ozzy is still here.

This is still Black Sabbath, but it's me now."

I went "That's brilliant."

It was iconic as soon as you saw it.

Even if you didn't know what it meant, it was iconic.

What's he doing?

It became a trademark for him to do that.

And the fans attached to that.

Now, in a situation which is not even involving metal

you see crowds, and they're like...

Even today you go on Facebook,

and there's all these kind of middle-aged women going...

When you see somebody do that,

you know where it came from,

who originated that.

People think this means something

other than what it really is.

If you'd all join us, I'll tell you what it means.

Ronnie had always...

He'd grown up in an Italian family, of course.

He'd walk around with his grandmother.

And his grandmother was very superstitious

and she would walk around going like this...

to ward off evil or give the evil eye

or ward the evil eye off, which is called the Malocchio*. * Evil eye in Italian.

So, this, what we now call the devil horns,

that is Ronnie James Dio, and it was something

his fierce-looking grandmother used to do.

It means "Long live rock 'n' roll." Put 'em up!

And suddenly, by the end of every show,

the whole audience was doing it back.

And again it was another one of those moments,

I thought "This is interesting shit here.

This is really interesting.

He's gonna work this until it's just his band."

And that's exactly what he did.

So come with me, I'll give you the desire

But first you're gonna burn in fire

The rest, as they say, is history.

I'm not the only person who's ever used it, of course,

but I must say

I've been the one who's used it most

and probably the most known for it now.

It's only meant as a connection

between the music that we play,

which is hard and heavy and pretty damn evil.

So, that's what that's all about, anyway.

The whole thing was difficult for me.

And Ronnie knew that I was

feeling uncomfortable with certain things.

I really missed Oz.

I felt like I'd lost the best friend.

And so I was grieving there,

and my drinking had accelerated.

And that plays a huge part in my departure

from Black Sabbath.

But Ronnie was supportive towards me

as a person throughout.

That's how I first met Ronnie,

and we hit it off right away.

'Cause he's from upstate New York, Cortland,

and I'm from Brooklyn, New York.

And Tony and Geezer...

I couldn't understand them very well.

I was pretty young,

and they were kind of scary-looking

with the mustaches and... "These are the guys."

And they talk to me and I go

"Ronnie, what did they say?"

I'd keep asking Ronnie.

"What'd he say? What does that mean? 'Blimey'?" * A mild British curse.

So Sabbath follows "Heaven and Hell"

with "Mob Rules".

"Mob Rules" is an unbelievable record.

"Sign of the Southern Cross"! Look at my arms.

Just saying the name of the song does this* to me. * Goosebumps.

Alright!

We finished the "Mob Rules",

the tour was fantastic, so everything's going great.

Then I don't know what happened,

but it's business between those guys, three of 'em.

A lot of times success breeds problems,

and that happened.

I felt that that really did happen,

that all of the bad things

that could be used were used,

from drug abuse to mental abuse.

I'm not sure what happened.

We were all doing

quite a bit of nose powder at the time.

This is the era of cocaine. Everybody in the music business

is doing too much cocaine, but not at all Ronnie Dio.

It was never his thing, and they clashed.

Sorry.

It got difficult for him behind the scenes.

Egos getting involved.

We recorded the "Live Evil" album,

and the mixing of that record became a problem.

When we're doing the live album,

he did get sort of... upset about things.

Ronnie could be fierce, very fierce.

He cared about every single detail.

I've heard a lot of rumors

that I'm a control freak, and

that, of course, led to

"I think we should let Tony mix this album."

In other words,

"Your services are not required anymore."

Dio joined the band

and he turned it into something incredible.

But don't forget, Tony's still thinking

"But I built this band for ten years

before you came along and I offered you the gig."

Another gram of coke, and it gets even worse than that.

Two more grams, and "I don't even know who the fuck you are.

Why don't you fuck off and back where you came from?"

It just got to the point where

Ronnie wasn't happy anymore.

It was his choice to leave 'em and he left.

Lonely is the word

He had been through Rainbow,

and even when he found the sweet smell of success,

it turned sour so quick.

And then he does it again with Sabbath,

and it turned sour so quick.

It was a very traumatic time for me.

You don't go from being

in one of the biggest bands in the world

to not having a job anymore. And what do you do?

To me, it's always what comes next

and what your ideas are,

how many chances you want to take.

I had no one. So I thought

"Better get off your ass and go out

and start writing songs on your own."

I had a garage in the back, and off the side of the garage

was this tiny little shed kind of thing.

And so I went in there and went to Radio Shack* * A chain of stores for electronic supplies.

and put all these little boxes and plugged things

into my little reel-to-reel tape recorder,

and that sounded so terrible but I loved it.

I woke up and I went out in that horrible little place

that I set up as a little living room.

"I can do this!"

And so for me it was like a real genesis.

I was a wife then. I wasn't a manager.

And then he said, "OK, so now you're managing me."

This is like "Wait a minute.

I manage your affairs,

but I don't know about managing a band."

But I figured if he's got confidence in me,

then I'll do the best I can.

In fact, I think it was Ritchie who said

"She just wants to make him a star."

I did. Yeah, that was my goal.

One night Ronnie goes

"Look, I'm gonna put my own band together. You want to join me?" I went...

When we put it together, it was just me and him.

He's playing bass. We played "Holy Diver".

Ronnie had written a bunch of material,

and they begin the search for the hotshot guitar player

which everybody had to have at that time.

So we went to London.

Vinny and I went, going around the clubs.

"Here's a band playing. Let's go see them."

We went to all these different clubs.

And I knew the kind of player I wanted.

I didn't like the style of playing

that American guitar players were using at the time.

They all wanted to be as fast as Eddie Van Halen.

After having played with Tony and with Ritchie,

I wanted someone who could be fast,

but had to have romance in his soul.

I said "You know what?

I'm gonna give Jimmy a call, Jimmy Bain."

Because of course, Jimmy had played with me in Rainbow.

And I thought "Who better to know guitar players than Jimmy?"

So the call was only to ask him if he knew guitar players.

Jimmy just assumed that he was gonna be the bass player.

So, he was.

Jimmy called this guitar player's house

at two in the morning, a young shredder* from Ireland, * Fast guitarist.

this guy Vivian Campbell.

And the thing that sold Ronnie:

we were jammin', and then Viv was all out of things to play,

so he played, like, a Chuck Berry thing.

Just this little section. That was it.

The missing ingredient was Vivian Campbell,

the guitar hero.

So, now we've become a family in a band, Dio.

* Note 'rehearsal' misspelt.

These are tapes that I found that are...

from the beginning.

I haven't heard this stuff.

"Jam".

Let's see what's on here.

Jam!

So, we needed a place to rehearse,

so Ronnie got this place called "Sound City".

It was like every night at seven o'clock

going to the boys club. They let us do anything there.

They had candy machines.

We'd go in... "You want some candy?"

Till all the candy fell out.

Pinball games.

We got to make little ramps so you never lost a ball.

Had some drinks and smoked some pot.

And we were playing. Life was fantastic.

So, he's singing that in the room.

You go "Holy shit."

What was the feeling like with the band back then?

It was great.

It was such a wonderful family atmosphere,

just that magical situation

where everybody loved being in that room,

playing. And we experimented.

So, this one's a version of "Rainbow in the Dark".

There's no keyboard part in it.

Ronnie's still testing the waters

where the vocals should go.

When there's lightning

It always breaks me down

We had "Rainbow in the Dark".

We're playing it back.

And Jimmy's got a cigarette in his mouth,

with a big ash ready to fall,

and a Jim Beam and Coke.

And he goes over to this little shitty keyboard

of Ronnie's and he goes...

And he wrote that part without the ash fallin'.

What? That's killer, dude.

...it's a song that I really disliked.

And when it was finished,

I announced to everyone that I was going

to take a razor blade and just cut the tape up.

And so I went for the razor blade.

And they all went "No. Don't."

And I didn't do that,

and I thanked them over and over.

Kudos to them forever and ever.

We were just having time of our life,

and the roadies used to go

"This is going platinum, dude."

"Never."

At that time, you had vinyl records,

so, on the first, "Holy Diver",

we both wanted to push the edges,

and the record company were not that happy about it,

but we've got this idea.

We know what we want.

In the '80s I was working, with Ronnie and Wendy,

on pictures and just in general

doing stuff that they wanted me to do, and everything.

I get a phone call from this guy named Gene Hunter.

He says "Wendy gave me your phone number.

And do you know of a good cove to go to?"

I said "Cove?"

We ended up down at a place called Paradise Cove.

So we get down there,

and he's got this wetsuit 'cause it's really cold.

And on the top is a priest outfit,

and he's got the shitload of chains, a lot of chains.

I'm going "What's he doin'?"

He found a spot,

and he's trying to drag these chains

into this middle of this little cove.

It looked like he was standing on a slippery rock or something

but he kept bobbing up and down.

I'm not taking pictures.

He said "Take the fucking picture.

Take pictures!"

'Cause he's bobbing and going up and down.

So, I'm taking 'snap, snap'.

"Are you alright? Are you coming back up?

Crap. Are you OK?"

"Take the pic..." So he's... glug-glug.

I don't know if I took more than a roll and a half

before it's like "This is not good.

This is now bad."

Because it's like he's trying to breathe.

And he's trying to throw me the chain

to bring him in, but he can't lift it.

So I'm slipping. He's drowning or falling

and going under again, and it's like...

So, somehow I yank him. He pulls and he gets up.

He's like half-drowned.

I got the pictures developed and I turned them over to him,

and he said "I'm working on the cover

for this Holy Diver record."

So after the record came out, I'm like

"That's what we were doing."

That was him. He was literally fighting the waves.

And I was like "This is so beyond awesome."

So Ronnie now, he's been the singer

of two of the biggest heavy metal bands in history.

Now, they say three times a charm, but not in music.

This doesn't happen, man.

But this was Dio.

He's determined that either he goes down in flames

or he finds glory.

Ronnie and Wendy have got enough money

to make this album, put together a tour,

pay for it themselves.

They bet the farm* on it. They really did. * Everything.

Huge risk. We didn't know what was going to happen.

We actually mortgaged our house

to take the first tour out.

He had to start the whole circuit of playing anywhere.

The first show was Antioch, California. It was a barn.

He played Bronco Bowl in Dallas,

which is a bowling alley.

So we'd like to do a song for you called

"Rainbow in the Dark". Let's go!

It was just crazy. You could feel it, the excitement.

The radio stations here was playing the shit out of that first record,

and you just heard it every 10 minutes.

We did Santa Monica Civic, sold out in,

I think, in an hour, and then they did an in-store after that,

where they smashed through the window,

there was so many fans.

I think, because of the introduction of a new band,

just under Ronnie's name,

with a new, young, hotshot guitar player...

Dio, the band, it was an introduction for him

to a whole new world, a whole new start for him,

this rising scene, at the time, of heavy metal.

This is where we'd always sit,

and there's pictures of Ronnie and Rainbow there.

How young we were.

So young, babyface. They're all babyfaces.

There were some of these songs that I think

reflect my own trauma at the time as well.

I had some personal things

that were going on that bothered me quite a bit.

In the beginning

it was like a normal relationship.

Everything was hunky-dory.

And then things changed between Wendy and Ronnie.

Obviously it's very hard being married to a musician, for a start,

and managing him as well is very hard.

Ronnie was a wonderful, sweet, loving,

giving person, but he was a perfectionist.

He had dreams and he was gonna fulfill them.

And if you were not to his standard,

you were going to get it.

He would give it to his crew, his band, to me.

So, we had a lot of fights, a lot of...

I'll leave for a while, come back for a while,

back and forth and back and forth during our relationship.

Their relationship was unique. Let's face it.

It wasn't traditional by any means.

It wasn't just an artist-manager relationship,

and it wasn't just a husband-and-wife relationship.

It was a lot of very complex things.

Any relationship has ups and downs,

and we had many ups and downs,

but we were always a team.

I had his back, he had my back,

so we were gonna fight to the end together.

In the early '80s

Los Angeles was just the most exciting place on Earth.

The early '80s were badass. They were badass.

It was magic. All of a sudden the Strip came alive.

Rock bands everywhere, and there were parties every night,

but everybody was into music.

Everybody was also kind of into recreational things

that perhaps weren't as healthy for you.

Most of all, there was just all this great rock music

and all these great bands.

And my distinct memory is Ronnie kind of being

in the center of all that.

He fit in in a different way.

Ronnie wasn't a guy that was like

"Let's go out and chase chicks."

Always the conversation seemed to go to the same thing, music.

I think he acted more like a role model.

There was this whole undercurrent of metal bands

around LA that looked up to him,

and he was aware of that

and he was very nurturing to everybody.

"Are you doing your best?

Are you doing the greatest thing

you could possibly be doing?"

Globally, metal was thriving,

was getting on the radio, it was selling.

And it's getting introduced to a lot of people

on what was a new thing at the time called MTV.

The advantages of the MTV video explosion,

you can't understate it, really,

'cause it had a lot of value.

When I was in Quiet Riot, "Cum On Feel the Noise"

was on every half-hour. It's timing.

Ronnie had just put together the Dio band,

and all of a sudden he's getting the MTV exposure.

"Rainbow in the Dark" became the one that MTV played all the time.

Ronnie loved that one 'cause it made him look really tall.

Him in the white boots on the roof walking around,

I was like "I want white boots like that."

Record companies would dump all this money

into the music videos.

Now if you had to look back, you could probably

do something way better with your cellphone.

It's true.

So, he was at the forefront of that, but he looked mean,

he looked tough.

He was one of the very few artists

that actually had that metal image going.

Look at Dokken, "Breaking the Chains".

They got me chained down in a kimono and I'm like

"Oh boy." And then you cut to Dio...

That was a totally different vibe.

Ronnie was pretty much all about just going out there

and being as metal as you could ever be.

I got this mysterious phone call from these producers

that wanted me to come over to Warner Bros.

They told me that they had had great success

with "Holy Diver", and they wanted to do something epic

to launch "The Last in Line".

So, Jeff, the Warner Bros. executive, popped a cassette in,

and I'm going "This is kind of cool."

And there's this moment in that song where...

"We are coming"

And then Ronnie uncorks his amazing voice.

And I'm not going to try to even imitate it.

A chill goes down my spine, and I thought

"OK, there could be a video of this song."

Jeff pitched me an idea.

He wanted to have a video about teenagers in hell.

So the studio wants to do a video about teenagers in hell,

and Ronnie had a much more philosophical take on it.

And he basically told me "From birth to death

we're all in a line.

And imagine if you're the last in line."

And then he says "And of course,

you've got to put Murray in it."

"Murray? Who's Murray?"

You'd think his name would be Damien or fucking Lucifer.

Ronnie one day said Murray. So, he became...

And so, I basically came up

with this slightly wonky idea which is about

a normal teenage kid.

He's going around.

He's got his delivery, and he goes into the elevator,

and he pushes the button.

And I kind of took The Wizard of Oz motif

of being swept up in a tornado and inverted it.

I got the teenagers in hell, and I got the line

and Murray in the distance.

All the elements of Ronnie's career seem

to come together with Dio,

the culmination of his extraordinary presence

and extraordinary ability to write songs.

They weren't top 40 songs, but the key factor

is that he knew how to connect.

That was the key, that very direct connection

with his audience, which fans felt.

Is that good? Is that in focus?

You got that shit?

Where I really came online as a metal head,

'80s, that period was real, like,

devil-heavy.

Faceless creatures in robes, from my study,

symbolize Druids, which, of course,

you go back to Satan worship.

It was Satan. There was something extra seductive

and powerful about that.

Looking back on it now, there is some humor.

Alright now, now you're going to play this backwards?

Right. And then you'll hear there's power in Satan.

Did y'all hear that? I heard it!

My mom was a little concerned

with my consumption of Devil music.

And she gave me this tape that was a preacher

who was talking about evil music.

Daily, young people are bombarded

by distorted visual images and twisted music messages.

It was supposed to, like, turn me away from the evil ways...

It was just sort of this rad tape that turned me on

to new music that I hadn't listened to before.

It had the opposite effect of what it was supposed to do.

Dio had some Devil.

Dio's Devil was a little more theatrical,

like a Shakespearean Devil.

It's the thing that makes all great stories interesting

is, like, how good is your villain?

What's Star Wars without Darth Vader?

How good is the Bible without the Devil?

Dude, no spice*. * Appeal.

There was blowback of people thinking,

"He's just some sort of demonic guy."

I'm sure the evangelical church, for instance

in the States, isn't too happy about what you do.

Not too pleased, no.

They think that I'm the Devil

or this particular sign means

I'm putting a curse on you.

And what does that sign mean, with two fingers?

I just cursed you, and you're gonna die in hell.

There's a myth that the Dio logo says devil

when turned upside down.

That's not true at all. Not at all.

Christians ruin everything.

I'm an ordained minister.

I believe in God and Jesus and all that stuff.

They just ruin everything. They're idiots.

You want it to be dark. You want it to be scary.

You want it to be powerful. You want it to be intense.

For Ronnie it was a tool. He knew how to communicate.

I don't believe in either heaven or hell

as a place to go to.

At the end of the day, if we all just believe in the same thing,

that we've got a choice between good and evil,

OK, make your choice. That's all it's about to me.

The whole good and evil thing,

it came from a very deep place within him

where he wanted to empower people.

He authentically believed that the weaker guy

needs to stand up for himself.

You can accomplish anything without people

influencing you to do stuff that you don't want to do.

As a kid, I just remember how strong

and resonant and powerful it was.

I've always felt to be somewhat of a spokesman

for people who may be lonely,

maybe have been looked down upon.

His heart was for the downtrodden

and the black sheep of the globe.

He was our voice because that's how he saw himself.

Climb the rainbow

You're a star

We are forever you and I

We're stars

At the time they were doing "We are the World".

Ronnie had wanted to be part of that,

but we were nasty, heavy metal, dirty people.

We are fire and stone

And we all want to touch a rainbow

Often metal is marginalized

and thought of as lowbrow or whatever.

So many times those artists are not invited

to the charity events and the charity recordings.

So Ronnie decided to do his own heavy-metal

"We are the World", and it was awesome.

This project came about because of a radio-thon

that the station KLOS held for 2 days.

Our bass player, Jimmy Bain,

and guitar player, Vivian Campbell,

noticed the lack of people

representing our genre of music, our kind of stuff.

Ronnie just wanted to show that...

we want to help, too,

but do something that's a little bit different.

Every single musician that made it in the '80s,

We grew up listening to Ronnie.

So anytime Ronnie would say "Listen, I need you guys",

we would say "Yes, we're there",

because we wanted to be like him.

He was a hero to all of us.

You can think about anybody who was anybody

on top at that time, and they were there.

Do you know a lot of the people involved with it?

I'm meeting them out there, aren't I?

I met the Yngwie Malmsteen person. He's great.

I like the way he puts "Yngwie J. Malmsteen" on his album,

so you don't confuse him with all the other Yngwie Malmsteens in the business.

You've got all of these people.

We all know about each other

and what we're famous for doing or not doing.

Ronnie was the captain of the ship, and he steered us

through what could have been an absolute catastrophe.

But singers and songs will never change it alone

You can do better than that.

Everybody's giving a thousand percent. You can't...

"It's just a couple of notes."

You can't do that because there's Ronnie Dio,

and he's the boss.

'Cause we are fire

And I have to say, I admit it.

I was scared shitless.

"I'm playing with Ronnie James Dio."

Does "Dokken" really rhyme with "rockin'"?

There's some debate in here,

but we'll sort that out later. OK, here we go.

I'm just nervous, man.

Fuckin' Ronnie James Dio producin', I'm standing out here. Goddamn.

Never in my wildest dreams have I thought this would ever happen to me.

Good man.

Great. Right. Nice job. I'm proud of you.

Mark.

We should have... - Rhymes with "rockin'".

The Hear 'N Aid song is about 8 minutes long

in its full-length version,

and I think about 6 and a half of those minutes

are guitar-soloing going back and forth,

'cause there's about 15 players taking different sections.

But I don't know.

I'm such a fan that I love every note of it.

I'm totally down with it to this day.

And I love that it showed that just

'cause you're into metal, it doesn't mean you're a moron.

You can still have social issues.

You can still care about things.

You can still care about people.

After you stop listening to this, to this record,

to what I say, people will still be starving,

and only you can change it.

So, if this is the vehicle to make you think,

to make you help another human being, then so be it.

We've done our part.

We actually made, I don't know, it was like over

a million dollars that we got to send to Africa.

It's easy to look back on that stuff

with a snicker now, but at that time

that was the coolest thing in the world.

I can't name all the rock stars

who were in that video. Rock 'n' roll was king.

MTV was king. This was our prime.

We're about to embark on our Sacred Heart tour.

It's a show that we feel is the most spectacular

that we've ever produced.

And when we get to your town, we're hoping to transport you

back to the days of knights and dragons,

damsels in distress, crystal balls,

and lots and lots of magic.

We feel we've got a great show for you.

I hope to see all of you really soon.

The original Dio band made a 3rd record

called Sacred Heart, and the music videos got bigger,

the stage show got bigger.

He knew how to dream, make that dream materialize,

and it just kept growing and growing and growing.

He wanted a bigger stage set, bigger and more,

and it cost a fortune, but he wanted it.

We had this huge 18-foot fire-breathing dragon with lasers.

He had this thing about dragons,

dragons and rainbows. What a great thing!

I've got leather studs and whips and chains,

and Ronnie's got dragons and rainbows.

I wish we could flip.

He would slay the dragon

with a laser sword at the end.

It was absolutely like going to Disneyland.

Greetings, my children.

Come with me now and discover the magic

that lies beyond the sea of dreams.

At that point, Ronnie had reinvented himself fully

as being the caretaker of the name "Dio".

1986, Sacred Heart tour.

I remember bumping into him on that tour.

I'd never seen him so full of joy.

I'd never seen him so fulfilled.

He knew, I think, that he'd done something remarkable

with his career at this point.

But it's taken Ronnie, what,

nearly 40 years to get there.

And Ronnie defeating the dragon becomes

a kind of metaphor for the man.

His whole life had been a battle.

Everything Ronnie had, he'd had to work for,

fight for, earn.

He's like Muhammad Ali,

the guy that became world champion 3 times.

And every time Ronnie slew that dragon,

that was heavy metal is all about, authenticity.

Here he is, top of the mountain,

and he'd done it by not writing the hit single.

He'd done it by not kowtowing*. * Doing someone's bidding.

He stuck to his guns, come what may.

We've had about five offices, I think,

and I've always had "Holy Diver",

which is very, very precious to me.

The original artwork of the Holy Diver.

I've always had that hanging above my desk.

And of course, gold records is just something

you always hang in your office and things I'm proud of.

Ronnie didn't care.

In our house we never had one gold record hanging, not one.

He was a humble person. He thought that was showing off,

so I showed off for him in my office.

This is his first gold record that Ronnie ever got

in 1975 for "Love is All", which is a song he performed

on The Butterfly Ball.

And then I found a scrapbook.

I think his mum might have made it.

This is all Rainbow.

Black Sabbath here. This is Black Sabbath now.

A lot of press releases here on Dio.

Those were fun days, real fun days.

It was a great time in our lives.

That's the end of that book.

Now, the entertainment.

Tonight, we got for you,

you know him, you love him. He's a neighborhood boy,

Ronnie James Dio and the Dioski brothers!

At this point with Ronnie's career,

he'd been following his own path since he was a kid

and reached a kind of new pinnacle with Dio.

We had a lot of fun on the first two records,

by the time we were doing the Sacred Heart album,

it was a very dark record for us to make.

It was really, really difficult.

All those fun times we had at Sound City,

it was a great atmosphere.

It wasn't such a business. * More fun than business.

And then the business end of this

started getting really frustrating.

And Viv was the one that would point it out after a while.

The promise was made to us that by the third album,

it would be more of an equitable situation,

and I was a squeaky wheel.

The third album came, and I was the one going...

Vivian had just told me that he wanted more money.

From Ronnie's perspective, when I'd bring it up to him,

he looked at it as a young kid, who he found

and put on the map, that was being ungrateful

and pulling the leverage play.

You should get paid for what you do.

And when Sacred Heart came around, I said

"What do you got, Viv*? We've had four months off." * Any new material - riffs, tunes for the record.

"Nothing." "Really?" "Nope, not a thing."

"I guess I didn't pay you enough, then, did I?"

Money is not what music is all about.

Ronnie had years and years of banging

on the doors, and Elf and Rainbow and everything else.

You can't just have somebody come in at the door

and go "I'm as important as you."

The band was called Dio

for a reason.

He understands that whether he likes it or not,

this time I'm the Blackmore, I'm the Iommi.

He's the boss.

After a while Ronnie got tired of it and said

"We're going to get rid of him and get somebody else."

And I'm like "Are you crazy?"

Back in those days losing a band member was a huge deal,

especially a guy that was a budding guitar hero

in Vivian Campbell.

Yes, it was magical. It was great in the beginning,

but people have to go sometimes.

Vivian Campbell had to go.

It was Ronnie's band.

You sometimes get very trapped

by your own existence, you must maintain.

When you get to a certain success plateau,

the only thing you can do is to either try to maintain it

or reach above that.

When I got the call to join...

Headlining 20,000-seat arenas every night,

I was like...

And so back then heavy metal was going strong.

And that was during the time that bands came to LA

to find their fame and fortune,

and they all got their hair run up to

ten feet and tons of makeup.

This is the reason I am a rock 'n' roll drummer, see?

Because girls like this hang out with guys like me!

Can you believe it?

Motley Crue, Skid Row, we looked like girls.

Not just us, but you know, all that look was huge.

And I'll always say it that the rock scene of the '80s,

we were our own undoing.

It became more important about their look

and not the songs... Bands like Poison...

Ronnie couldn't write "Unskinny Bop" bop if they put a gun to his head.

Dio, he was never a part of that hair-metal thing.

He wasn't singing about getting laid and doing drugs

and crap like that.

The music was rubbish,

and they destroyed what the rest of us created.

There's "Sacred Heart", and what's the other one?

"Dream Evil"? I don't know.

Was there another one after that? I don't know.

Sales, they started going down.

And MTV, that was built upon heavy metal music,

suddenly went "No more of that."

120 minutes.

Right here,

the 2nd of tonight's 2 world premiere videos.

It's from the Seattle band, Nirvana.

Here is the planet's first look at

"Smells like Teen Spirit".

Basically, right after Nirvana had their first play

of "Teen Spirit", it changed everything.

It needed it.

The MTV toilet needed to be flushed

and clean up

and get something else in there.

You're talking to a guy

who worked in rock radio for decades.

I literally saw the day the program director comes in

and says "All of these CDs - in a box, no more.

Here's what we're playing now."

There's a big misconception that the birth of Nirvana

and all that took down the "hair bands",

and it certainly did.

But it didn't discriminate to just that.

It took down everything. Everybody got hit with that.

I don't care if you were Black Sabbath,

Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, whoever you were, across the board.

It was one of the most harsh, abrupt things

I've ever seen in my life.

All of this goes away, and all of this is suddenly uncool.

It was like that cut and dry.

Dio and the box? - Dio was in the box.

The '90s were the darkest period

because he got dropped from Warner Bros.

Losing a record deal was devastating.

Absolutely devastating.

The music industry at that time, it was like

"We don't care about you anymore."

For someone like Ronnie,

it did get a little awkward in the '90s.

Nu metal and Grunge became what the public face

of metal was depicted as.

Underground, Death metal, Grindcore,

Black metal got more intense.

The point being that stuff like Ronnie James Dio,

people just kind of maybe said

"We don't need any of that stuff. That's dinosaur shit."

Bands like Dio find it very difficult.

It's only really alternate rock that seems

to be getting most of the attention.

Where is it going? God knows.

A lot of that has to do with

its acceptance, really.

It'll go as far as people allow us to go.

The mid-'90s, I remember he came over

to London to do interviews to promote his latest album.

I had to beg, borrow, and steal to try and get someone

to interview Ronnie James Dio.

I couldn't get anybody interested in interviewing him.

That was a really down time for him.

He didn't feel loved anymore.

Because it's a world that...

it's not a very happy place.

It's a world we live in... it's just really depressing.

And it couldn't allow me to talk about dreams

that everything's going to be wonderful, and the world will be happy.

"Just work hard, and your dreams will come true."

Shit. I look at the world around me now

and I see that that's pretty impossible to happen.

So I couldn't, in my conscience,

write about dreams and happiness.

I didn't really start going to his house until the '90s.

I remember going and taking photos of him,

and that's when everything was changing.

He noticed it,

because he wasn't selling out arenas anymore.

I got here because I believed in the music I made,

and somebody liked it. So, I got a nice house.

As I told you many times before,

I don't give a damn about this house.

What do I care about this?

I could sleep on this table. I could sleep on the floor.

It's not important. It's all about playing.

It's all about playing to people.

It's the only thing that matters to me.

So, through the hard times, love what you do.

He's one of those guys I don't think would have ever retired,

'cause when you're an artist, you're an artist.

That's what you do forever.

Till you die.

You've got such a long career.

You haven't had any breaks.

No, I never... I haven't taken vacations.

I don't. I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

What am I gonna do? Lie on a beach?

That's a waste of my life.

Eating, sleeping, and vacations are a waste of my life.

You only got so many years, you may as well get

all you can out of it. Just grind it out,

bring it out, go for it

because I got a lot more to do yet.

Start with this one. Title track of Dio LP #2.

This is called "The Last in Line".

It was very much a different thing from the '80s.

For you we especially do this one.

It's called "The Last in Line".

But he would go to the ends of the Earth to play in front of people.

And I'd be the one going "Christ, I don't know.

You should think about this."

He didn't care if 80 people showed up to a show or 80,000.

He never lost sight of the guy

from Cortland, New York, who... music was his salvation.

He never lost sight of that.

Ronnie never, ever complained.

He never phoned* it in. * Showed.

He couldn't do that. It was impossible.

The enthusiasm and the hunger and the conviction,

it was unbreakable.

Hard rock was out of favor. MTV was gone.

We got record deals on smaller labels.

Ronnie just continued to keep making records

and keep creating, putting together some great bands.

There were some great lineups, * The "Lock Up the Wolves" sessions (1990).

people that were in and out of Dio. * This is for "Strange Highways" (1993).

They still did some great work during that time.

Whether it sold anything or anybody acknowledged it,

Ronnie just kept going.

Think about the miles that are on that voice.

And I always felt maybe he would have sort of started

to relax a little bit,

but we did four whole albums, maybe five DVDs,

and he would be here every minute

of every day for every part of it. * This must be for "Killing the Dragon" (2004).

Being in the studio with Ronnie,

it was un-fucking-believable.

He was on a level that some people never get to

in their prime when they're 21.

He would sing with the band

while they were cutting all day long, every time.

I told him a hundred times and said

"We could just use the vocal you just sang

every time they go through it,

you don't have to keep singing it."

He said "No, I'm singing with the band."

He's such a remarkable person.

There're certain people out there, people with conviction,

people who have it here.

"This is what I want to do, and I'm doing it.

And that's all that should fucking matter."

Forever.

I must say I'm not going to go away.

No matter what happens.

I'm gonna be here again to haunt you next year, too.

Perhaps the year after that and the year after that.

I love to do what I do very much, and as long as people

will accept me for what I am, I'll still be back

year after year after year, doing this, and hopefully

getting better at it if I can.

There was always that hardcore faction of fans

who'd always be there,

and he felt immensely grateful for that.

Dio, the best!

I told him to say that.

If there was 200 people or one person,

he'd treat them as if he was their long lost friend.

And sometimes we used to argue about that

because he'd be, like,

talking to two fans till about three in the morning.

We'd be going "Come on, Ronnie, it's time to leave,

we gotta get on the bus to the next gig."

He's going "Yeah, just a minute."

He had this remarkable way of remembering people

and what they were about. He'd see somebody

ten years later and he'd go

"Hi, Mary, how's your mother doing?"

"Larry, how you doing?

How's your cousin Bill?"

And he would rattle all these names.

He would say "Wait a minute, your dad was sick

last time I saw you. How's he doing?"

And the look on fans' faces

would be like "He remembered that?!"

He fed off that energy, that direct connection

with every single fan:

you know they've got the records,

they got the dreams.

That's living in the face of career death, if you like. * Your work may not bring much money, but the emotional reward makes up for it.

In the movie "The Pick of Destiny" -

it's the origin story of my band, Tenacious D -

we took some creative liberties,

but it starts off at the beginning,

when I'm a kid and

my parents disapprove of my rocking.

You gotta praise the Lord when you're in my home

And I pray to Ronnie James Dio to please show me the way.

And then he, like, comes to life in the poster,

and he delivers the advice.

Escape your father's clutches

In this oppressive neighborhood

On a journey you must go

To find the land of Hollywood

A lot of people say it's the best part of the whole movie,

which is awesome and a little bit sad,

'cause me and Kyle aren't even in it.

It's Dio, Meat Loaf, and a little kid that looks like me.

We had to record all the songs

before we started filming the movie.

Can you play it for me from the end

of "Now, go my son and rock" into the softer bit?

So he came over to the studio, and he brought a microphone

still, like, attached to a stand, with a cord.

And he was like "I brought my mic."

And we're like "Awesome, but you know,

we're at John King's studio. He's a Dust Brother.

They've got, like, the best mics in the world here.

Let's try it on the "Sennheiser 5000" first."

He was like "Sure, whatever you want to do."

And this sounds like I'm making this up,

but dude laid down such a heavy vocal,

it, like, was distorting.

We're all just like "Holy fuck, turn down the levels."

"I did turn down the levels!"

And so then he said "Let's take out the Sennheiser 5000,

bring in the "Robotron 6000".

We went through, like, three different,

state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, "bleeding-edge" microphones.

And he was just, like, too big a voice

for these fucking microphones.

And he's like "I kind of told you guys. That's why I bring my own mic."

And they plugged in his mic, and it was like "ding".

And it was like... it just sounded like Dio.

Now, go, my son

And rock

I just can't believe this is really happening.

I just felt an obligation to thank him

for gracing us with his gift of his singing

and music ability and inspiration.

It was deeply moving to me.

You've been down too long in the midnight sea

What's becoming of me

Look out

Ride the tiger

You can see his stripes, but you know he's clean

Don't you see what I mean

Whatever happens, wherever you are,

as a musician, you have to play through it.

Let the music push through and play through,

and still stay strong.

The music industry and music,

everything has a season.

People missed that kind of music again.

I'll never forget it: I was married to a woman,

she had two boys, and they had a ball because they were

kicking my ass in Guitar Hero with "Holy Diver".

I was getting my ass kicked on Guitar Hero

by these two nine-year-olds on a Dio song,

and I was in Dio, for fuck's sake!

Suddenly, rock and heavy metal,

people are starting to dig it. It's not a passing fad.

It's something much deeper than that.

And sure enough, within a few years,

the whole classic rock market has matured.

And it's the ones that really, really mean

something to people that will always endure.

And we got a phone call from the record label.

And they're going to re-release the Dio years with Sabbath.

And I don't know, out of the blue, Ronnie goes

"Maybe we should just write a couple of songs."

We worked on these songs to go into the box set

and we really enjoyed it. We really enjoyed doing it.

When we got together,

it was like old friends meeting again.

I don't know, just a certain vibe that you get

that just feels right.

And we said "Let's get together,

let's make another album and go on tours

and get the band back together."

And they decided they were not going to call it

Black Sabbath this time.

They were going to call it Heaven & Hell.

Alright, let's check this out, guys.

For God's sakes, my eyes suck.

Can you tell me which?..

God, I'm all jittery from coffee.

Here's one thing that is true.

I think that Ronnie James Dio's best-ever song

was his very last song, which was called "Bible Black",

off the Heaven & Hell record.

How many artists can say that

their last single was among the best?

To me it's the best. I love that song.

Thank God, I remembered to say that on here

because it's totally true. You can put it on.

Thank me later.

How heavy is that?!

The fact that Ronnie got back together

with Tony and Geezer and Vinnie,

I've never known him quite so "Zen".

This was exactly the way it was supposed to be.

Just like the early days, just like "Heaven and Hell" again.

And it was just so much fun. It was just...

Everybody was absolutely kickin' arse, being friends.

Everybody was having such an amazing time together.

You could tell.

Even Iommi would smile occasionally.

It was really great because we've gone through

a lot together over the years.

And you get to appreciate things a lot.

Sometimes you can't see it when you're involved in it,

but later on you think "That was great!"

We seemed to have grown out of all our miserable days.

Life's too short now. You realize as you get older,

you go "Why carry a grudge or be unhappy?"

You realize you don't get

this kind of friendships, really good,

strong friendships. They're so hard to get.

So, this is a wonderful, wonderful time

of all of our lives.

Heaven & Hell has made great difference

in just my attitude as a human being now.

Heaven & Hell took off. It was killer.

Got a great reception. The album did really well.

Heaven & Hell embodied a time when the big,

major, important heavy metal stars were authentic.

They didn't learn it from the bands that came before.

They didn't learn it from MTV. They invented it.

Heaven & Hell is an important band

because they came along at a time

when you need a kick in the ass.

And there's this man all these years later,

still loving what he loves to do as a legendary singer.

That's remarkable considering we go all the way back

to The Red Caps.

It was like all the chickens were coming home to roost,

and Heaven & Hell was as much

about the culmination of his journey, his music,

his universe, the love he gave out every night

he walked on stage.

It seemed to me that Heaven & Hell

was the encompassment of all that good stuff.

It was awesome. I went to a couple of different shows.

There he was in a 20,000-seat arena again.

And it was like "You're back home, man!"

It was absolutely fantastic.

Everybody was enjoying what we were doing.

And I remember sitting with Ronnie and saying

"Do you fancy doing another album?"

He said "I'd be up for that."

But of course, we never did.

This is Damian with BlackSabbath.com here,

backstage with Ronnie James Dio

after performing the last show on the tour.

Ronnie, sum up the tour for us. How was it?

It was tiring.

Every show was great, as always.

This band is never not great.

It was very productive.

We've been on the road for such a long, long time.

The music made all the difference,

the shows we did made all the difference.

And that's all why we do it.

So, I guess, I don't know,

I'll give it 9.5 out of 10.

And is that half point because of a little bit of sadness

that now the tour is ending?

Or is this actually the beginning,

the start of something new?

You always say "Gee, maybe. Oh I'm going home!

What am I gonna do when I get home?

Maybe we should have done more."

Of course, there's always sadness for that.

But we will do, we'll do more,

and we'll probably do another album,

and I'm sure we'll certainly do another tour.

And for me, I know nothing else other than to play.

It was on the last, we didn't know

it was the last tour at the time - Heaven & Hell.

And before he was going on stage, he'd be, like,

doubled up some nights - terrible pain in the stomach.

And we're going "Come on, Ronnie, go and see a doctor."

And he's going, "No, it will pass. "

And he'd go on as if nothing was going on when he got on stage.

He was just the usual Ronnie.

He wouldn't let it interfere with him.

And then he'd come off and he'd be doubled up in pain.

He'd had problems for about a year

of indigestion. So he did a blood test.

The doctor called me

and he said "It's not good news."

When we first found out that he had cancer,

the two of us cried all night.

My life fell apart then.

Actually, Ronnie was comforting me.

That night, when we both cried, he was comforting me

'cause I was hysterically crying. I couldn't...

I just couldn't think of life without Ronnie.

I just couldn't think of life without Ronnie at all.

And he was comforting me, telling me

"It's gonna be OK."

Every time I tried to express concern and direct

the conversation towards what he was dealing with

and let him know that I loved him and I cared for him

and I was there for him, if I could do anything for him,

a lot of the conversation was about him lifting me up

and making me feel good.

Where I was supposed to be doing that to him,

as much as I tried, that kept coming back to me.

Ronnie lost the eyesight in one of his eyes.

Also his hands started shaking as well.

Did he lose his voice?

No. Never lost his voice.

That would have killed him.

A heavy metal music icon is in Houston

dealing with some serious health issues.

The staff are just so wonderful.

They just are the best people, as you can see.

This is the Ronnie James Dio

few people have ever seen.

He's a bit soft-spoken. He's relaxed.

Dio has stomach cancer.

I've been poked and prodded in holes

I didn't know I had before, and they probably

made a few new ones. I don't even know where they are.

I'm lucky that I am a very

hard person and strong within my beliefs.

Dio calls this experience

"Something to roll with*." * Accept.

I refuse to be beaten in any way, shape or form,

so I'm going to beat this, too.

I just want to get better.

I just want to be cured.

They were trying a lot of experimental drugs on him.

His eyesight came completely back.

His hands stopped shaking.

Wendy Dio is always with him.

The treatment seems to be working.

She says the tumor in his stomach is getting smaller.

We used to call it "killing the dragon."

We used to skip down the halls going

"We're killing the dragon.

We're coming to kill the dragon."

And the Golden God goes to...

About the Golden Gods, I remember very much that

because that was the night that we thought

"This is it, he's back on track."

It's great to be back amongst people again.

It's been a little while since I've been able to do that,

but I feel pretty good.

Can't wait to get back on the stage again. Thank you.

I love everybody. Thanks a lot.

They were chanting

because I think that they also were being as positive as I was.

It's all going to be over.

It's all going to be a bad dream.

During "Angry Machines",

the first record I ever made with him,

the record was done,

and he came in and he said "I wanna do one more song."

And I thought "Really? You mean, so..."

I thought he meant bring the whole band in.

And he said "No, it's just gonna be

just me and some piano."

And I thought "OK, cool."

And he just went out and sang that song,

"This Is Your Life".

There are people in this world that are...

There are people that make the world a better place.

Who cares what came before?

We were only starlight

One day, then nevermore

And he was one of them.

Because we're whispers in the wind

He was in the hospital. Everybody left.

I slept on the bed with him, holding his hand.

It was like 7:15 in the morning,

and he just, like, shot up and looked at me.

And I was calling the nurse. "It's fine.

Like, what's happened?" And then he died.

It was like, almost like he said goodbye.

This is your life This is your time

What if the flame won't last forever?

Ronnie and I had a mutual friend that called me,

and I heard him in tears,

and he just said to me "He's gone."

Let it be magical!

Sorry, 'cause it's still...

Ronnie was that special, man.

All these years later it can still hit ya.

He was the heart and soul of so many things,

so much music.

You don't always see that while it's happening

because you feel like there's gonna be more.

When Ronnie died, there wasn't more.

There's not more Ronnies out there.

He was the real deal. That's who he was... is.

To me it's all about "is".

Ronnie still is in my head,

in my ears, in my heart.

Most importantly, the music is what lets us know

that Ronnie is alive and living with us.

Ronnie's beautiful messages in his songs,

they're lifting people.

They're helping people get through their own challenges.

These are the beautiful elements of Ronnie that will live forever.

That's why he's everlasting.

And that's one of the things he once said to me.

He said "The important thing is it isn't just what you do

and what you learn." He said "You gotta pass it on.

Then you've lived a life worth living."

And now he passed his message on to millions of us.

The message is if you do put your heart and soul into something,

no one can take that away from you.

If you really have something to say,

if you have that love in your heart,

that really is the most important thing.

There's a quote that I live by

that Ronnie definitely nailed,

is from Horace Mann, the educator.

He said "Be ashamed to die

until you've won some victory for mankind."

Ronnie ought not be ashamed.

I still talk to him, but it's not like talking to him.

I miss him.

The fans are still there.

I'm sure Ronnie would love to know that.

He would love to know that his memory is still there.

He's not forgotten. He'll never be forgotten.

I will never allow him to be forgotten as long as I live.

I believe in reincarnation.

I think you have to be the ultimate being

before you get to that point.

You have to keep coming back till you get it right.

I think Ronnie got it right.

I really think he got it right.

tt11851698 8.4/1258