THE SACRED HEART OF RONNIE JAMES DIO

THE SACRED HEART OF RONNIE JAMES DIO

FEATURES

Moira McCormick

"I want people to know,” says Ronnie James Dio, “that all albums have positive values. I care about people, I really do, as individuals and as collective society. If I can help just one person, in any way, shape, or form, through my music, then I’ve done what was put on this earth to do.”

Dio is one guy who takes rock ’n’ roll, and his position therein, very seriously. Especially now, as we’re teetering on the brink of congressional witchhunts for "morally undesirably” rock performers, RJD feels the urgent need to emphasize rock’s contructive side.

His latest album, Sacred Heart, promotes ideas of personal triumph over adversity, healthy relationships, usefulness in society, all that fun stuff. In characteristic Dio Fashion, it’s delivered with the gut-crunching force of a Panzer division, highlighted by Ronnie’s clarion vocals—but it most certainly could be described as metal with a message.

"I feel a great responsibility,” Dio says, "especially now with what’s going on [with the censorship efforts of Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC)]. Because I do realize the power a person like myself does have, I try to be as positive as is possible for me to be, within the realm of the people I do it for.”

Dio’s been on the scene, in one form or another, since the ’60s, and has distinct ideas on the way things ought to be. To Ronnie, heavy metal today is nothing but a grotesque doppleganger of its former self. Seems like metal took a few wrong turns from the time it flourished in those halcyon days of the early 70s, with the likes of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, and a still-developing Led Zeppelin. And Dio ought to know, having put in time with the best of ’em..

Here’s a quick historical recap for the uninitiated: The former Ronald James Pandovana, a native of Portsmouth, N.H., changes his surname to Dio while a pre-teenager. (Dio means “God” in Italian, a fact Ronnie’s gone on record as saying he was unaware of at the time.)

While performing with his headbanging band Elf in Binghampton, N.Y., some years later, Dio is discovered by a CBS Records rep, who invites the band to audition in New York City for then-president Clive Davis. Tryout culminates in a CBS contract, with a debut album produced by Deep Purple’s Ian Paice and Roger Glover.

Elf is some time thereafter transformed into Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, when the Deep Purple guitarist breaks ranks in 1975 and makes them his band. By 1978, four albums and numerous personnel changes later, Dio has signed on as Ozzy Osbourne’s replacement in Black Sabbath.

That association lasts until 1982, during which time the new, improved Sabs release their much-hailed Heaven And Hell LP. However, a storm of controversy surrounding subsequent album Live Evil is the final straw in an apparently tempestuous interband relationship, and Dio leaves to go solo.

He recruits drummer Vinny Appice from the latterday Sabs, bassist Jimmy Bain from a previous incarnation of Rainbow, and guitarist Vivian Campbell, a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Bain’s recommendation. “I had wanted a young guitar player, preferably British,” Dio recalls. “They’re not so much clones of Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhoads; they play with a lot more emotion, as opposed to speed for speed’s sake.”

The quartet records Dio’s critically lauded debut, Holy Diver, and on subsequent release The Last In Line is joined by keyboardist Claude Schnell.

With Sacred Heart, Dio and his band launched their most ambitious project to date. The road tour began August 10 in Tokyo, and won’t conclude until February, when Dio plays a string of Australian dates.

This particular jaunt is costing Dio a cool million, thanks to an elaborate stage set up resembling a Middle Ages kingdom.

Dio’s always been partial to things medieval, which has been reflected in his songwriting clear back to Rainbow days. The Sacred Heart set is a depiction of all his knights-in-armor fantasies come to life.

During the late ’70s, when rock ’n’ roll was at its most wretched peak of excess, extravagant stages were de rigeur. More often than that, they looked overblown and foolish, and added nothing to the show’s impact.

Dio’s setup, on the contrary, even has jaded old hands like this writer gaping with wonder. (Except, next time around, take it easy on the flashpots, wouldja, Ron?) If Disneyland had a ride called “Dungeons and Dragons,” Dio’s stage is what it would look like.

The whole thing’s set up like a castle, with drawbridge, turrets, and staircases. An 18-foot dragon spews dry ice and laser beams tower over the set, eventually doing battle with a pair of mechanized knights with laser swords. At one point, a six-foot crystal ball floats down from the rafters, revealing images of Ronnie and assorted holographic splashes. Lasers shoot all over the place, fountains of sparks shoot off—and then there are those damned flashpots, but the kids love ’em.

The overall effect is, to borrow an expression from childhood, really neat. Far from being lost in the glare of pyrotechnics, the band comes off as a vital, driving, teeth-rattling unit.

As far as Ronnie’s fascination with the Middle Ages goes, he says, “I’m a voracious reader, and I’ve read almost everything that’s ever been written involved with myth and legend at that time. My favorite book has been and always will be The Once And Future King.

“King Arthur, the Round Table, Camelot, all seem misted in legend; maybe I’m escaping, but it’s a nice form of escaping. You find excellent values that apply to everyday life.”

Dio says he constructed the stage show around the album, which according to him illustrates those values. “The title Sacred Heart," he begins, “sounds religious, but it’s not meant to be. Religion is something I don’t deal with, because it’s something which you can never get a conclusion from. It’s too intangible; it has to be in the heart and mind of the individual.

“The sacred heart is the truth you find about yourself. You have to face trials, tribulations, and awful things in life, and those are represented by a dragon. The dragon can be a very fearsome thing; in this particular case, because I know it so well, it’s not very fearsome to me. (The mythical beast has, in fact, been affectionately dubbed “Dean” by members of the Dio tour.)

“And once you overcome the problems personified by the dragon, you’re able to find your sacred heart, which is the truth about your individualism and your place in society.”

Of all the album’s tracks, Dio says he feels the first single, “Rock ’n’ Roll Children,” most effectively encapsulates his philosophy. “It’s about two people,” he describes, “who are castigated because their hair’s too long and they like hard rock music, and they’re looked upon as abnormal.

“I would think, knowing the nature of the human beast, that to not be like everyone else, is more normal than putting yourself in the same little box as the rest.

‘‘So the kids choose to displace themselves frcm the society that’s attacking them—not by committing suicide or anything drastic—but by going away and being with each other, and living their lives the way they feel they should be lived. The inherent message is, to the people who opposed these kids: leave them alone. To others who find themselves in the same situation as the kids: you can make it on your own. Just believe in yourself, live your life the way you want to live it, the best that you can, without harming anyone along the way; and you’ll be happy.”

Dio’s appeal to individual strength is particularly poignant at this juncture, when the Big Brother tactics of the Washington wives and their PMRC threaten to wipe out freedom of expression in popular music. Ridiculous as upper-class twits like PMRC founder Tipper Gore (wife of Tennessee senator Albert Gore) and her congressionally connected cronies might seem, Dio says soberly, ‘‘I think it’s about time we all take them seriously. They’re gonna wreck our lives, they’re gonna wreck our world if we let them.”

Dio is all too aware that heavy metal has long been regarded as the black sheep of rock ’n’ roll family, first denied airplay and now cut off from MTV exposure. ‘‘Why should we have to be placed in more of an underground situation than we are already?” he laments. ‘‘This genre of music has always been attacked, but now to do it politically is just ripping off a freedom. Freedom of speech will go straight out the window.

‘‘And that will be the end of this country, as far as I’m concerned. (They’ve) taken away something that a lot of people have died for. If that’s allowed to happen, I’m gonna get the hell outta here. I won’t want to live in this country.”

If that sounds impassionate, it is. Dio’s dead serious about the rock censorship issue, and has taken it to the concert stage. At the urging of good buddy Frank Zappa, one of the most vocal anti-PMRC spokesman, Dio exhorts his fans to stand up for their rights, to listen to what they want.

‘‘There’s a great amount of people out there who love this kind of music,” Dio reasons. ‘‘If they register to vote, and will vote, then they can change it themselves.”

Not that Dio himself approves of the W.A.S.P.s and Motley Crues of the world—far from it. ‘‘I may disagree with the fact that they are using lyrics of the music I love,” he says, ‘‘to toss in sadistic, sexist statements— swearing for swearing’s sake. We’ve all heard the word ‘fuck,’ but it’s how it’s used in context. In this case, it’s used for shock value. I may not agree with it, but I defend their right to say it.”

Nevertheless, Dio does feel the current crop of metal mongers has by virtue of association given a bad name to the handful of hard rockers with any integrity.

“There’s too much rubbish these days,” he says, “calling itself [heavy metal]. It’s now almost impossible to weed out the really good bands from the majority.

“A lot of people feel, ‘I don’t like heavy metal, because heavy metal is Ratt, heavy metal is Quiet Riot. But it’s not. People like myself, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, have remained true to the musical genre that started that long ago. For me it’s easy, ’cause I started then too.

“And I love it; I’m proud of it. When I go on stage I can feel the energy, feel the buzz, I know they’ve come to see something special. And I’m going to give it to them.”

How, one wonders, did metal ever get to this deplorable state? “The good ones just didn’t care enough about being good any more,” Ronnie opines. “Deep Purple went all different directions. Now they’ve taken a lot of money and re-formed—and it’s not because they love each other and love their music. If they did, they would’ve stuck to it.

“Rainbow, after I left that band, became Foreigner in drag. Zeppelin started to become a reggae band. Robert (Plant) lost it—now there’s no reflection of Zeppelin’s (hard rock) legacy.”

Which leaves most of the metal world populated with Blackie Lawlesses and Vince Neils and other declasse types. It’s no wonder some parents are raising the roof about their kids’ musical tastes, no?

“Let’s face it, that’s what we’re after—selling a lot of product, making a lot of money, and putting it in the right place."

Dio and wife/manager Wendy are childless themselves, but Ronnie feels he knows how he’d handle this metal crisis were there any junior Dios of record-buying age.

“I would let them listen to anything that’s musical,” he says. “If it were something I thought would be detrimental, I would explain it to them first. I would listen to it with them. This is a band called W.A.S.P. What they’re going to say, they’re going to use words and phrases that people use in everyday life. They’re using them for shock value. I want you to listen to this and not pay attention to what it’s saying to you. It’s not right, and it’s not a good attitude for you to grow up with. But I want you to be aware of it. Then you make up your mind.’ That’s what I would do as a parent.”

Dio’s hoping metal’s ever-tarnishing image might brighten up via the Hear’n Aid project. This all-metal African famine relief effort encompasses a single entitled “Stars,” written by Dio and Jimmy Bain, and performed by members of Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, Night Ranger, Dokken, Quiet Riot, Spinal Tap—even W.A.S.P. and Motley Crue—the Dio band, and Michael Schenker and Yngwie Malmsteen.

The single’s due for release in January, along with accompanying video. In addition, a full-scale LP is being discussed.

Although the video was completed in October, Dio says release was delayed until January because, “They didn’t want the video to get ahead of the song. The song’s more important; you gotta reach more people and sell more product. Let’s face it, that’s what we’re after—selling a lot of product, making a lot of money, and putting it in the right place.

“Maybe,” Dio smiles, “they’ll realize that everybody involved in hard rock isn’t so bad after all.”