Ronnie James Dio and Craig Goldy of Dio:
Talk About "MAGICA"
— by David L. Wilson

Ronnie James Dio put hammer to stamp decades ago leaving one of the most prominent and indelible marks on the metal scene possible. First, in the seventies as frontman for Rainbow and then in the eighties and nineties with Black Sabbath, Dio amassed a body of work that few, if any, would dare compare with their own portfolio. In his time away from Black Sabbath, Dio led his own band, Dio, to the highest commercial and artistic peaks imaginable with timeless albums like "Holy Diver" and "The Last In Line." "Legend" is not near grand enough a term for what Dio's voice and vision have brought to the scene, and what's more, the recent release of "Magica" proves that he isn't quite done, yet.

"Magica" is Dio's first concept record and it doesn't take but a single listen to assert that this just may be Dio's magnum opus. Returning to the Dio band for this record and tour are Craig Goldy, guitarist on the epic "Dream Evil" record; Simon Wright, former of AC/DC and Dio's "Lock Up The Wolves" disc; Jimmy Bain who Dio first worked with in Rainbow; and stalwart keyboardist Scott Warren. The chemistry with this band is brilliant and reminds one of the group's eighties sound while still retaining the brutality of the more industrial sounding Dio of the nineties. A new day has dawned for Dio and the forecast is definitely sunnier than it has been in some time.

David:  To steal your own phrase, there is a great deal of magic between the two of you on this album that is really nice to hear again.

Ronnie:  Thank you.

David:  Since I did get the chance to pick your brain about the album already, Ronnie, I was wondering what Craig's thoughts were?

Craig:  It is so great. It gives me a chance to operate at my fullest potential and to give what I can towards whatever the song needs. Ronnie, as a producer, is so brilliant that it is a wonderful challenge to try and come up to that level. I mean, I am not trying to blow smoke just because we are in an interview, he does have a brilliant mind and it is a great challenge to come up to that level of performance and to try and match the ideas and vision that he has. It has been wonderful to be back. I have missed it a lot.

David:  Personally, the "Dream Evil" record happened for me at a very important time in my life.

Ronnie:  Mine, too!

Craig:  And mine, too!

David:  When I had heard that the greater center of that line–up was coming back, the word that I immediately thought of was, "magic!" And then I see that the album is to be called "Magica," so I guess I have a strong bias towards falling completely in love with this project and have, in fact. When the two of you did reunite, were their ideas from the "Dream Evil" period that were unfinished at that time but became alive again for this record?

Ronnie:  Not from me. I don't think that there were any for Craig. We always work in a way, at least my work method is and it effects everyone around me obviously, is that I write for the project itself. So, if you need to have twelve songs on an album, we write twelve songs. There are a lot of bands that will say, "We have fifty–five songs for this album and we have to choose fourteen." Well, they must be some pretty crappy songs if you have fifty–five pieces of disjointed crap. So, I have always written for the project and whatever was written for "Dream Evil" was finished and done, nothing left over. There were no pie crusts left over so that we could make little tarts and things, so the answer to your question is "no." There was nothing left over from then. I am not sure if there was for Craig, if he hoarded anything that I didn't know about, but if he did, then I am sure that he used it for himself later on because he has had a lot of things that he has done from the end of the "Dream Evil" era to this time.

Craig:  Yeah, this project was definitely fresh in my mind, too.

David:  When it was decided that there would be a single running theme to the album, did that force you to write any differently than, say, if you were trying to write singles?

Ronnie:  In my case, it was all predicated on the story. The story was going to make the concept work. Once the story was in place, we followed the outline of what that story was, which made it so much easier for me to write than any other time I have ever written before, because subject matter was already there, we didn't have to do it by tempos. For me, it was no problem at all and what we did was to write each song per the story, and then we write connector parts to connect them all together, that was probably the hardest part of it all.

David:  Did you take a concept for the music or a piece of music itself to Craig and the rest of the band to flesh out?

Ronnie:  It depends. I had written three of the pieces before Craig had come into the picture. I had written those pieces with the thought that it was going to be Tracy that was going to be the guitar player. And when I made the decision that that just wasn't going to work for me, I called Craig. Craig was going to come in as another guitar player, not the second guitar player, but one of the two. And then when Tracy said that he just couldn't play with another guitar player, then the obvious choice and the easiest choice was to have Craig. It wasn't because Tracy didn't like Craig, it wasn't a personal thing and I understood where he came from because some can and some can't. I didn't want to just shove Tracy to the side because he is my friend and I believe in him as a guitar player, but he just happened to be the wrong one for this band. So, I had already written these three tunes without Tracy being involved, so when I presented them to Craig, luckily for me, he said, "Wow, these are great!" And that is just what I needed. I needed someone to say to me that they were great songs and, "I can't wait to get started on them!" You need that kind of support, you really do, and Craig was there.

When he knew it was going to be a concept, he was excited. Each day he would come to my house, that is where we did the pre–production, and I would write a little bit more of the story and I would read it to him and I was excited to read it to him because he was so excited and so supportive of it all. It went along that way until we got it all written and the rest was all musical content. I think that because I had already had in place the conceptual idea to do this piece and the stories that led it all to where it was going to go, that made it easy for both of us. Craig came in and did what he did and he was thinking in the same classical way that I did, which lent itself so perfectly to this.

You mentioned the magic of it all and that is really it. From the fact that Craig and I got together and were able to write this thing so quickly. And because we worked so hard and it was easy to do because we were both on the same page. And then Jimmy coming into the picture when we didn't expect him. We didn't know who was going to be the bass player. Right down the line, it all worked out just fine. Every puzzle piece just kind of fit together. That is the way that I felt about it, so now, you can say (speaking to Craig) what you have got to say!

Craig:  Ditto! No, when I first heard those three songs I did get excited because they were so good and I could just see it. Sometimes you can just see. When you hear music for the first time, you can almost see what it is destined to become. I could just tell that this was going to be a great record and it was so exciting and a lot of fun. I looked forward to it every single day, every day.

Ronnie:  Me too.

David:  What were the three songs?

Ronnie:  The "Magica Theme," "Fever Dreams," and "Lord Of The Last Day."

David:  For me this record operates so perfectly as a whole, and to take a piece out of it would diminish it. And I have noticed, via the internet, that you are playing the album straight through live. Was that a hard decision to make given that the audience is going to be screaming for the classics?

Ronnie:  No, no. I think that the great fear would be that we began the tour on the same day that the product was released, so you think to yourself, "Nobody knows what this is and we are going to do fifty–five minutes of a piece that nobody knows anything about." We knew that they would probably be there expecting things like "Don't Talk To Strangers" and "Holy Diver" and etc., etc., which is the case most of the time. But what happened is that this is a piece that we are really proud of and we knew that we were really going to have to play it. We had choices, we really could have done it as individual songs, it was written so that the individual songs could stand on their own and songs could be snatched out of it. If you look at it as a conceptual piece, only then you may think, "Oh, this shouldn't happen." But we did write it so that each song could be a single piece of material. But we were so proud of it and we felt that it was such a good piece of work and so reminiscent of things from "Holy Diver," from "The Last In Line," from "Dream Evil," from Rainbow times, and from Sabbath times that. Even if you didn't know it, you are going to be going, "Oh, I know that song. I have heard that one before!" That is what happens, but it is a lot for people to absorb. I say to them (the audience) before we announce what we are going to do, "We want to thank you in advance for your patience for listening to this which I am sure that many of you have not heard. Some of you may have, but for those of you who haven't, please bear with us, you are gonna love it!"

Whenever we play, they do love it because it is just such a good piece of work, it really is. That is not a pat on our own backs, but it just happens to be a good piece of work that does accomplish what it is supposed to accomplish live. So, it wasn't a problem. But there was that slight fear of, "Well, are they going to be able to indulge us for fifty–five minutes to listen to something that they have never heard before?"

David:  Or will they head to the bar?

Ronnie:  Yeah, that would be what you would think, but they don't. Dio fans are not like that. Dio fans are just so manic about this band and all of the things that I have done before with Sabbath and with Rainbow or Sabbath again, luckily for me. They have just been so behind my career and that is why I can do this, because of those people out there. I mean, you see the same faces in every city. Well you see a lot of new faces, of course you do, but in the front, it is the same faces that have been with me for twenty–five years, some of them. That is something that you just can't buy. Sometimes if there are 2000 people behind those people in the front, you can only see their faces anyway going "Yeah, Magica!" So, you think that everyone must love this. Again, because of our audience and the fact that they are so manic and so supportive of what we have done all of our lives, I didn't think it would be a problem. If I did, I would probably bitch them out anyway, knowing me!

David:  Well, the proof to that is in the pudding because you are sold out here tonight. Has it been a similar story elsewhere?

Ronnie:  It certainly has. It has been phenomenal; it really has. We went from the last tour that we did and we did a modicum of business here and there. In some places the band would walk in and we would go, "Well, we just doubled the crowd!" No, it was never that bad, but this has been almost like it used to be with the exception that we are not at Joe Louis Arena tonight, but the places that we have played have been sold out and we have had to turn people away and I think that speaks volumes. Not only for us, but I think that it speaks volumes for how this music has kind of resurrected itself. The music in general, heavy rock music has resurrected itself in a lot of ways and I think that it has happened to a lot of people out there. We are not the only ones enjoying the benefit of this. And I hate to use the word "resurgence" because that has not happened at all, but the attention that has been given to it again, radio stations have gotten a little bit more important again and there are some "classic rock" stations that will not only play classic rock, but they will touch upon some newer things as well. So, that new format has helped a lot of us, too. At the end of the day, if you make good music, no matter how old you are or young you are, they are going to want to come and listen to it.

David:  This is often asked of musicians who have had their fair share of time in and it is always interesting to know what an artist think of their own work, but if you had to assemble a primer of material that best represented you, what would you include?

Craig:  This album is such a highlight for me. My whole life really. When I left the band after "Dream Evil," I was making a mistake and didn't realize it. I wasn't as mature as I thought I was and this second chance gives me the opportunity to do what I should have been able to do the first time. I enjoyed being in the band the first time but cloaked behind a few layers of just being immature for my age were a few things that are now gone.

David:  Issues that have been resolved through time?

Craig:  Yeah, so this is really exciting for me. This album is really the highlight of my entire life, really, because it does sound a lot like some of the older Dio things and Sabbath and Rainbow which I listened to. Long before I ever met Ronnie, I was a fan. It is quite a thing for me.

David:  So, "Magica" is it in a nutshell for you then?

Craig:  Well yeah, I mean, "Dream Evil" was also like a mark on my "dreams come true" bedpost and then the video that came out, "Sacred Heart." I mean, it was good that the solo albums did what they did and that feels good, but ultimately they didn't set the world on fire, not like this has.

Ronnie:  This is just our own particular works that you are talking about?

David:  Yeah.

Ronnie:  Well, it is really pretty obvious, you could probably do this for me.

David:  I could tell you what my favorites would be but I am infinitely more interested in what your favorite works have been.

Ronnie:  Well, I think that the first Elf album will always be one of my favorite albums because it was the first one that I ever did that had an opportunity to give me a window to the rest of the world, not just my tiny little hometown. In fact, here in Detroit, they loved Elf in Detroit and I don't know why. We were a great little band, but they just loved us here. We played here with Deep Purple, the theater was called the Olympia Theater and as I say, we were opening for Purple and nobody knew who we were, I didn't think, but there was a banner up in the balcony that read, "Detroit Loves Elves!" This banner was huge. It was probably like about fifteen feet long and four feet high. After the show, the guys with the banner came back and we were like, "Hey guys, whatever you want!" Anybody that pays you any attention when you are starting out like that. So, the first Elf album is one. The others led me to a point, but they weren't my favorites. The first was my favorite of the Elf products.

So, there is that one, the first Rainbow album; not the second, the first. Absolutely, the first album, I thought, was head and shoulders above the second one. I really did. It was a different kind of album and all of the guys on that album, except for Ritchie, were the guys in Elf, so it was very special to me. That album contained "Man On The Silver Mountain," which has become my signature song in a lot of ways. I thought that it just had such wonderful songs on it. I thought that "Rainbow Rising," aside from the first side of it and perhaps some of "Stargazer," was an exercise in self indulgence by Ritchie and Cozy, especially "Light In The Black." I mean, I just don't understand things like that. "Who are we making this album for? The drum guys and the guitar guys? This is a band and that is what it is supposed to be." You will hear that on every Dio album, you will hear that it is a band, you don't hear me taking off on some stupendous aria somewhere so that I can say, "Oh, what a wonderful guy I am and screw the rest of the band." It doesn't work that way. So, that one as well, the first Rainbow album.

Both "Holy Diver" and "The Last In Line," but especially "Holy Diver" of course. I liked the other albums, of course. We touched on "Dream Evil" before. "Dream Evil" was a very difficult time for me, a very difficult time. I saw the band busting up just like an ice–flow right in front of me, I really did. I just didn't see it going anywhere anymore after that and I was right! Looking back at it after all of these years, it happens to be a hell of a good album. I didn't realize how good it was at the time. It wasn't a happy time for me and when I am not happy, I don't think that I make very good product. "Sacred Heart" was the same way: the band was busting up right in front of my eyes. It had a couple of good songs on it, but it was a pain in the neck for me.

I think that "Heaven And Hell " will probably always be the most important album I have ever done. It is just chock full of great songs at a time when I really wanted to succeed with them as a band. I really wanted them to succeed as a band because they were down and out, they had been counted completely out. I mean, they counted to twelve, not just ten at that point. It was my pride to help bring that band back together again, to the fore again and I realized all the time that it was never really my band. It was Black Sabbath and they created it and I like to think that they liked me enough and embraced me enough to make me a part of that. But then you just find out at the end of the day that just doesn't happen and it didn't happen. I was proud of that album because it was only really Tony and I who wrote that album, just as it was Craig and I who wrote "Magica." Though, you will see writing credits for everybody on that album ("Heaven And Hell "). Hell, Geezer wasn't even there until we started recording it. The songs were already written. That was this band that grew up together and loved each other. Well, they didn't love each other and they said, "Well, you can have credit for something that I busted my ass for," and that annoyed me very much. The album was a great album and it did succeed.

Another album for me was "Dehumanizer," which I think was one of the best albums that Sabbath had ever done. Another album that was done under great stress, incredible stress. Sometimes you will find that stress works for you in that way. The problem was that I am always the guy on the outside because it was always "Sabbath and me," but I think it was a great album.

Then I would follow that by "Magica" which I think is absolutely incredible. That one goes for me like this: "Heaven And Hell," "Magica," and "Holy Diver," and not necessarily in that order. I think that those three are really the most important things that I have done and that would really be the primer, I think. But I have to mention the others because they were important albums for me.

David:  Great, what a package that would make. Okay, last question before you have to get ready for the show. Today, the saga of the Cuban castaway, Elian Gonzalas, came to a head with the government having to go in and physically take him home to his father. Because we are all the children of immigrants, I wondered if you had any thoughts on that whole situation?

Ronnie:  I have thoughts on everything! I watched all of that go down. I am second generation: my mom and dad were born here, my grandparents came here. But that has no bearing at all on what is happening here. I mean, my grandparents came from Italy, but I mean, the most horrible part is that you have got this little child stuck in the middle of all of this that is eventually going to come back and haunt that little guy so badly that he is going to be traumatized for such a long time. That, of course, is always my first concern, for the child. You look in his face and you see his little ears sticking out and you think, "Oh, well he is going to be okay." But he is not, he is not going to even come close to being okay. This kid has been ripped away from his mother at sea, she died, and he was taken to a family that tried to nurture him and then ripped away from them as well. And then he finally gets to see his father and all the time he has got the same little smile and the same cute little ears.

What my feeling about it all is this. The crap that has gone on in Miami and with those people who said, "We are going to start fires because you went in there and ripped this kid away from his family," well, here is what it is really all about: we have laws in this world, laws in this country, laws that also apply to Americans who have been kidnapped. We have Americans who have been taken by their mothers to other countries and there are extradition laws, and if we let that happen then maybe someone that you know who has been kidnapped will never come back. Are we going to be an example? We have to be an example and I think that it is complete and utter crap that that family just kept hedging and hedging and hedging. And will it do the child any good? No, because at the end of the day, that is his father. You don't take a child away from his parent, either one of them, and that is what that family was doing.

That is just my feeling about it and I think that Janet Reno did the right thing, and now, I am so annoyed that it has become this political football. Every time you see a politician on t.v. now and he is bitching and moaning about it, you can look down to his name and it has a big "R" next to it and the "R," of course, stands for "Republican" and "rancid," as far as I am concerned. This should not be a political issue. They should be concerned with the Constitution of this country, not about their own political agenda. So, I am behind what happened 1,000 percent. What other method could they have possibly have used? What other method? Could we have used less stormtroopers? They are the INS. That is what their job is.

I saw the picture of the guy with the rifle. He didn't have his finger on the trigger, it wasn't pointed at the kid, and if they were so willing to give that boy up, then why was he hiding in the closet with a fisherman? Those people are full of shit and they should all be slapped around their faces and sent right the fuck back to Cuba! But I don't have any opinion! It really annoys me. It really, really annoys me when I see that. And then, and then here is the American flag wrapped in a garbage bag in the front of that house. This is okay? This is my country and screw you because that is not okay. They should have taken the stormtroopers and gone in and said, "See what you have done with the flag? You are under arrest, and you are under arrest and this is what we do to people who disrespect our flag in our country!" That is all on that one.

Craig:  Ditto!

David:  Well, I am glad that I thought to end this on that happy note! Thank you for the hospitality. I am excited to see how "Magica" comes off tonight.

Ronnie:  As are we!