DIO "Lovers" The Mode Of Dress!

DIO "Lovers" The Mode Of Dress!

FEATURES

Sylvie Simmons

Listening to metal singers is like scratching a severed leg. A lot of them, anyway. Voices so thin that only the best of micrometers can register them. But not Ronnie James Dio. Uh-uh. Little man, big voice. Such a big voice he was wooed by Blackmore, Black Sabbath, and all sorts of good stuff with “Black” in it. Such a little man, Sabbath’s road crew used to stick a box in front of his mike-stand during soundchecks to wind him up. And it worked. Ronnie James Dio does not like being referred to as “small,” “tiny,” “dwarf-like,” “piccolo” or anything denoting a lack of height. I’ve never found it a problem myself, and can’t see how it would bother anyone else—so long as they don’t have a Kevin DuBrow hair problem. And as my Italian nurse used to say, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and if that means you have to cook your pizza on top of the iron, be sure not to get cheese on your underwear.

Ronnie James Dio has been called all sorts of things, from little genius to “little Hitler,” and from an interview it’s hard to confirm either view except to say yes, he’s little. The truth, as it usually does, swings back and forth between the extremes: a democratic dictator, a modest egotist, a man who sings about helping damsels in distress while at the same time employing strong women as his manager and publicist, a man who’s extremely articulate in conversation yet often amazingly banal in lyrics, the only child of a working-class. East Coast family who seems more “in touch with” himself than any middle-class, shrink-hopping Los Angeleno. Singer, band leader, producer, performer, hypnotist, intellectual, charity-worker, White Knight On A Shetland Pony. A man who says he chose the name “Dio” for himself before he was even old enough to know it meant '‘God,” though it’s only appropriate for one who talks about “my love of creation in all shapes and forms.”

So which is the real Dio?

“I think there are a lot of misconceptions about me,” says Dio, reasonably, politely, professional as always, “for the good and the bad. Same as about anybody in the public eye. I guess the greatest misconception about me is that I’m some kind of evil person. Because I’m really a lovable person, normally shy and retiring when I’m not onstage. I’m just a normal person.”

He once said his major flaw was intolerance, but he’s done nothing to eradicate it; it helps get the job done. He sets goals for himself, he says, “goals such as always having to be the best possible. My standards are very, very, very high. And I think the intolerant thing about me is I expect everyone else to have the same standards and the same ability to overcome any problems to reach that goal. I can’t abide lazy people.’’ This is a man who only allows himself five hours sleep a night; I allow myself that every afternoon!

“It’s not fair for me to judge everyone else by my own life, lack of sleep, lack of eating, and caring so much about what I do,’’ he admits. “Still, I’d say I was less an intolerant person than an aggressive and demanding person."

The sort of person, in fact, who would make a perfect charity worker—Bob Geldof, in spite of the halo, will never be sainted for tolerance and patience—so no surprise to find him firmly in the vanguard of Hear 'N Aid, carrying the banner for H.M. famine relief.

“That’s true. The most important part of the Hear 'N Aid project is to have whoever is at the fore of it someone who has the respect of all the other great talent who came to do it. If not, nothing would be done. I know if / went in with a producer with no talent or who I didn’t respect, I probably would make it very difficult for him or her and the job wouldn’t get done. With the long track record of sucess I’ve had and all the people I've worked with, the people in that session realized I was going to do the best job I could for the product and everyone was going to look good in the eyes of the public.”

Everyone includes Yngwie Malmsteen, Ted Nugent, and members of Motley Crue. W.A.S.P., Dokken, Judas Priest, Quiet Riot, Blue Oyster Cult, Night Ranger, Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister, Journey and Spinal Tap—most of them drummed up on the phone by Hear 'N Aid’s instigators Jimmy Bain and Vivian Campbell, Dio bass player and guitarist respectively (“I’m notoriously bad on the phone; if it were up to me, Alexander Bell or whoever really did invent the telephone would be changing tires somewhere! I hate phones!’’) and brought into the studio for two recording sessions.

Hardly a man among them that doesn’t wear his ego bulging out like some neoncolored spandex-stuffing sock; so how did Dio keep it under control?

“The erroneous message that was passed down from 'Music For Africa,’ which was ‘leave your egos at the door,’ got blown out of all proportion. From what I understand there were no ego problems there, and there were certainly no ego problems within ours. The people came because they were proud to do it and they wanted to be involved in it. I found every one of them to be caring and warm and open and loving and incredibly talented, not egotists, and that’s proven by the fact that the project is finished.”

But it took its time. Dio was talking about Hear ’N Aid a year ago.

“I thought it was going to be a lot easier,” he says gravely. “Here’s an album of tracks incredibly talented people have done and it’s for a good cause; now which one of you record company people would like it? We thought the doors would be broken down by people wanting to release it. But that didn’t happen. A lot said: ‘We don’t want to get involved; it will cost us too much money and time.’ We took time—about three weeks, a great big chunk right in the middle of recording our last album—to write the song, record the backing track and then do the two super-sessions. And I thought, if we could do that—which is almost taking your career in jeopardy—I thought everyone in the world would want to get involved. So it took a long time to find a record company who would do a proper job.

“And we’ve been let down by a lot of people, people who were very important to this project, people who could push it right over the top as a money-making venture. They let us down like a cheap pair of tights. I’m not in the business of mentioning their names; they have to live with themselves and they know who they are.

I think most of the problems were down to managers rather than the artists themselves, who are usually very open, as most childlike musicians are.

“I’ve given my time and my talent and my energy and a lot of my own money to this project, but we’re not looking for accolades. The credit we want is to see the hand raised to the mouth.”

But what of a new Dio album? This is usually the time of year when the band’s working away in the studio.

“We’re planning on doing one in the fall. We probably would have done one sooner, but we have a long touring schedule this year.” Having come up with what he considers their best stage show yet—based around Sacred Heart's coverdragon; the Egyptian motif has joined Iron Maiden’s in Pyramid Heaven—he reckons it would be stupid to just tour the States with it and pension it off, so they’re off to Europe, Australia, Japan, then back to the U.S. again, “and then we’ll think about going into the studio.”

It’s hard thinking up new stuff on the road when you’re playing the old stuff night after night. “We don’t write on the road,” he says. “For me, being on the road is a job in itself. I don’t have the time, the energy, or the relaxed moments that enable me to create. Some people are just very prolific—Stevie Wonder writes when he sleeps! He writes between songs in the show! The man’s just a walking music machine! I just don’t happen to be like that; then again I’m not foolish enough to equate myself with a genius like Stevie Wonder.”

Still, general plans for the next album are taking shape already.

“I want the music that we make to be continually more progressive in nature— not progressive to the point where we lose the boundaries of hard rock, heavy metal music, but there are some great technological advances, especially keyboard and computer-operated things, and anyone not smart enough to take advantage of these new things around us is a fool. And I’m not a fool.

“What I want to do is take the confines of heavy metal and expand them a bit, allow it to grow. I think we’ll be one of the bands that people will always count on for the growth of hard rock music. You will hear the same sledge-hammer that comes down on your head every time you hear a Dio album, but you’ll hear it perhaps in a little more progressive manner.”

Reading between the lines in the interviews he did for the last album, I got the impression he wasn’t as pleased as he might have been with Sacred Heart.

“I’m not disappointed in the album— except I’m always disappointed with everything I do. I never listen to them once they’re done. But if you spend your entire life in the studio trying to make it better, you lose the naturalness, the edge.

“What was a little disappointing maybe was the whole band didn’t have the same aggression we had for the first two albums. But then that’s normal. You start getting complacent. You start thinking, ‘Oh, we really don’t have to work so hard, we’re successful, everybody’s going to buy our product.’ But as far as the music goes, one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written is on that album: ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Children.’”

Other than the odd lapse in aggressiveness, is he still happy with the band? Are they still, for that matter, happy with him?

“Oh,” a laugh, “I don’t know about that. I’m happy most of the time. It would be wonderful if this band could last forever. But people grow in different ways. I’m not talking about chucking anyone out at the moment, I’m just being intelligent enough not to say yeah, everything’s wonderful and it’s going to continue to be wonderful. Rainbow, Sabbath,” he muses, “I thought both of those things were going to last forever. I thought when I put that band together with Ritchie that at this moment I’d be talking to you about Rainbow...”

Instead he sings about rainbows. Lots of rainbows. And “heaven” and “touching the stars,” and “dreams,” and “being free.”

“That’s the theme I’ve incorporated in most of the things I’ve written—rainbows and heaven—especially in bands where I’ve had the space and the opportunity to do whatever I want to do. In Black Sabbath I couldn’t really get so dose to humanity and individuals because it needed to be this big plodding entity talking about the dark side of life.

“I think I've made my statement now in these three albums. I will continue to talk in positive terms and be the champion of those who are either lonely or outcasts. But I think it’s time I started entering into a few new subjects. In some of the publications I’ve read, people have started getting annoyed at me for using ‘rainbow’ so much. I guess I’ll have to erase that word from my vocabulary.

“But I won’t erase it! After all, I have to write from the bottom of my soul, and this is the way I feel. I’m a great believer in imagination and dreams and people. Without people I wouldn’t be where I am.”

And if he wasn’t where he is he’d like to be in Medieval times, holding hands with Arthur and Lancelot around the table. Funny how all those dastardly Death Metal bands share the same love for that ole Medieval Worlde; history makes strange bedfellows.

“The things I found wonderful about it were things like chivalry—which is still a wonderful idea, only now the woman helps the man as much—but aside from that, the attitudes of those days: it was the White Knight protecting the damsel in distress from the dragon, slaying the dragon, and the whole thing of Good triumphing over Evil. And the fact that there was a round table, not a square table—everyone was close and equal, all together, holding hands.

“Of course I love the mode of dress.

I love the idea that nobody really knows what happened—Arthur, Lancelot, Excalibar, it’s a fantasy, which is again where I come from. And it leaves us to make our own judgements, which is something I like to do—I don't like to shove my opinions down people’s throats.

“I don’t like there being no running water or toilets; I wouldn't have liked having to squat in a corner by the castle somewhere. But then we have to take some of the bad with the good.

“The Death Metal people take it the other way. To them the values were good because there was always a Black Knight and a dragon out there. The Black Knight is their symbol, the White Knight is mine.

“I don’t agree with what they do because I think they’re only preaching anarchy and fascism and all the horrible things that I abhor and all sensible people abhor. But music is music and they have a right to do whatever they want, and I’ll defend that right forever and ever. Still, I don’t think the subject matter is a positive force in these troubled times.”

Ronnie James Dio is a hypnotist—a pretty skilled one, from what I’ve heard, taking some of his colleagues back into previous incarnations, though “never back to Medieval times. I had a piano player who I was able to take back to just before his birth and to another life before that, but he would always poop out on me at the point where he saw these beautiful white sands, and that was it. One of the other band members I’ve taken back to Christ’s time. He said he was there when Christ was giving his sermon on the mountain, feeding people with the fishes and loaves.” Dio didn’t learn too much, except that Jesus apparently looked like a criminal and didn’t strike the onlooker as anyone fab.

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In rock ’n’ roll circles, does Dio consider himself an intellectual?

“I think so, yes. I’m very bright and I’ve got a good sense of common sense. That’s the best thing anyone can have. I don’t think your IQ number makes you intelligent. There are a lot of very, very smart fools, a lot of intelligent idiots. I know a lot of them; I’ve worked with quite a few of them.

“I’m a good dealer with people. I know how to manipulate people very well, but I never manipulate them to a bad end. I try and use my intelligence as much as I can, and I think I do that partly because I want to be an example for people who think that heavy metal people are monosyllabic and stupid.”

So what else then? Oh yes, the last record he bought was the Mr. Mister album. Why? “Because it’s a great piece of product. They’ve just really honed in on what is happening in the pop world today. I’m not saying it’s the kind of music I’m going to write, but it’s a great album and a good band.” What he has been writing for the past year has been a fantasy movie about a young guitar player. “The interest is very, very high. The story is almost completely written and just about ready to go to the scriptman, so it’ll probably happen about a year from now.” A busy man. You’ll note I didn’t say busy little man.

“I’m constantly railed at in the press for being small—captions about my being ‘dwarf-like’ or whatever. That’s always annoyed me very much. In fact I’m getting annoyed now and I’ve forgotten the question!

“I know what I am and I’ve always known what I am. I know how tall I am and how short I am and how talented I am and how talented I’m not. I know all my weaknesses and strengths.”