How and Why I Fell in Love with Ronnie James Dio

By Null August 4th 2010 With Ronnie James Dio’s death on May 16th, 2010 I was filled with great trepidation. I thought “Who will be the keeper of the gate? Who will protect the world from untold evil?” Don’t be surprised if you begin to see unearthly demonic incarnations walking down the streets of your town soon. I cover my dread and sadness at the loss of Dio with slightly funny anecdotes like this because I truly feel that the world of music not only lost an incredibly unique vocalist but also a seemingly kind, generous and driven human being. I believe as well, that outside the circle of his hardcore fans he is very misunderstood. As I was never into metal, my first memories and impressions of Dio came from a few hit videos he had in the 1980’s. He was that guy that walked around in dungeons with a big sword, dressed like a medieval page boy or jester. It was hard to take him seriously. However, I always secretly harbored a love for the catchy keyboards in “Rainbow in the Dark”. In some ways Dio represented everything I hated about metal: those tiny guitars, masturbatory guitar solos that seemed to have no relation to the song, that laborious and uninventive drumming and the overwrought theatrics. Why would someone make their guitars sound that way? As I moved toward socially conscious punk rock I venomously turned away from what I thought was meaningless music that only seemed to serve as background music for stoners to getting wasted and have sex with their teenage girlfriends. Little did I know. Iron Maiden and other metal acts opened me up to more complex ideas about metal; Maiden didn’t sing about getting laid and getting fucked up. Then several years ago I watched a great documentary by Sam Dunn called Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey (2005) and I fell in love with a very little man. There he was, the little medieval jester man. I was not only struck by how small he was but how nice and polite he seemed. What a sweet guy! The following weeks were filled with reassessing who Ronnie James Dio really was. I obsessed on getting to the bottom of this mysterious little man. I watched several interviews and picked up many Cds, some from the 80’s and his more recent work; Master of the Moon (2004), Killing the Dragon (2002). In this way, I approached Dio’s solo work in reverse. I found myself loving his newer records and in succession finding a new appreciation for his older stuff. I went back though his catalog and found that each album has an incredible consistency. This guy was very focused, he made music that he wanted to make and didn’t seem to fall into various trends or “tastes on the times.” I was struck by his authenticity. You see, I tend to fall in love with artists that have a unique vision and voice all their own…it is just how I roll. I get an incredible joy out of trying to understand what an artist’s perspective is by studying their body of work. Through this type of investigation one is able to recognize and appreciate an entire body of work and even the weaker aspects of an artists work can have significant meaning as the journey is perceived as a whole. Thus grew my Dio obsession. Not only did his music sound refreshing and different than most other things in my music library but I found his albums fascinating on many different levels. In one interview Dio said that he saw himself primarily as a political writer. What?… Enter the world of Dio and the mysterious riddles of his mystical words. What is readily apparent is that Dio is incredibly serious about what he does. This is one of the most interesting and constantly fascinating things about him. I must admit that I love him for his seriousness but I also must admit that he is often funny. Now, this doesn’t mean that I laugh out loud when listening to him…no. But I often smirk when he belts out some of his linguistic riddles, this duality I experience with Dio is one of the endearing aspects of my love for him. His lyrics are often some of the most twisted run-on sentences all wrapped up in “metal speak.” In his unique world everything “happens at night” with lots of mysterious and haunting “eyes…in the night…of the gypsy moon….with people of the night…watching eyes…of the dragon.” I mean, sometimes I don’t know what the fuck he is going on about. For instance, take the famous line from “Holy Diver” - “Ride the tiger, You can see his stripes but you know he's clean, Oh don't you see what I mean”…no, I’m not sure what he means. Still, I have no doubt that Dio knew exactly what he meant. However, one can see how Dio perceived himself as a political writer when one takes into account a song like “Children of the Sea” (which is about humankind’s endless destruction of the natural world -still delivered in “metal speak“) and there is a continuous theme of the individual against great powerful odds in his work, in the chivalrous heroic sense. Besides Dio’s overwhelming sense of purpose one also has to realize that he has been belting the shit out since 1957. (I won’t mention all the bands he has been in, as most of you already know and if you don’t know then look it up). That voice, that fucking wail of a voice. One can recognize that amazing voice in only a few short seconds and unlike many heavy metal singers Dio was able to project an incredible dichotomy, a juxtaposition between a blood curdling scream and a soulful tenderness that would erupt from his mini-frame. He could howl like the dogs of Hades and sing in a soft vulnerable voice that seemed to speak of a tender humanity that is often lacking in metal vocalists. (Speaking of which, I am sad I did not see the day when Bruce Dickinson and Dio sang a duet power ballad, preferably a venomous anti-war song…but I digress.) One of the most unfortunate things about Dio’s untimely death is that I believe he was at his creative peak when he died. I enjoy all of Dio’s work but I must say (and many of you may disagree) that in the last five years of his life he made his greatest albums. When he reconnected with Geezer, Tony and Vinny to tour and write with Black Sabbath (version II) in 2006 all four members reached a creative peak and made some of the best music in their entire careers. The 3 new songs on the Black Sabbath : The Dio Years collection (2007) were fucking mind-blowing heavy and sonically gorgeous. Finally, when the renamed Black Sabbath (fuck you sharon and ozzy) - Heaven & Hell’s The Devil You Know came out in 2009 I listened to it for weeks on end. That is a fucking GREAT record. The band created a world of the slowest, heaviest and most rockin’ riffs in the fucking world and Dio’s vocal performance is astonishing! Although I prefer $15 punk rock shows, when I found Heaven & Hell were coming to Red Rocks on August 15th 2009 I threw down an incredible $89 for 4th row tickets. In the back of my mind I knew these guys were getting up there in age and I wanted to catch them while they were still able to tour. It was worth every penny. They had more energy and focus then most of these little twerp rock bands. Oh my god…and Dio was belting the shit out like there was no tomorrow and he was 66 years old! He was humble and very appreciative between songs. I was right there - 15 or 20 feet away from the little fucker! Ten months later Dio was dead. Listening to a pod cast of a radio show a few days after his death I realized I wasn’t the only person that thought Dio seemed like such a nice guy. The calls to the radio show were from people that knew and worked with him. They unanimously told stories of his generosity and kindness whether it was giving friends a place to sleep or buying groceries for fellow metal heads that had no money…he seemed to be a binding agent for a community that exists in a dog eat dog music industry. These stories add to the context of Dio’s legacy. I find the essence of the man in the song “The Devil Cried,” that Dio recorded with Heaven & Hell in 2006. The premise of the song is that everyone is in hell and there is only one way out; if you can make the Devil cry you can get out of hell. Dio is the only one that figures out how this can be done, through empathy. He makes the devil cry by telling the beast that he loves him. Thus, he escapes hell through compassion and empathy. Is this not also true for all of us? Fucking brilliant. In some ways this song sums up Dio’s overlooked humanity. And let us not forget that Dio is the one that gave us the universally accepted sign of metal: the devil horns. This gesture or hand sign was not a celebration of evil or the devil but a sign used by his grandmother to ward off evil. In an interview Dio said that he didn’t believe in heaven or hell but only what we make here, in this life. We can make heaven or we can make hell. When I listen to his albums now I not only hear stories of dragons and fire and mysterious fogs engulfing rock ’n roll children and strangely phrased riddles but also a humanity. It is a strange mixture and a complex picture. Yes, Dio was often cheesy and sometimes ridiculous looking (what was up with the rhinestone purple jester outfit?) and he did torture the world with the Hear n’ Aid project (his metal version of “We Are The World” and “Band Aid”) but his heart was in the right place. He was married to Wendy Dio for a long time (she helps run an organization that fights teenage prostitution and also served as Dio‘s manager) and he was never in the news with the boring rock clichés of drunk driving or drug abuse…he was too serious for that shit, he had a fucking job to do….he was the keeper of the gate.