THE SACRED HEART INTERVIEW

THIS INTERVIEW TAKEN BY CREEM MAGAZINE 

(Pages 66 to 70-1984) Photos by Ross Marino

Envision...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 dammed 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 its 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 e 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 albums' 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 are 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 chose to displace themselves from 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 ur 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 and her congressionally connected cronies might seem. Dio says soberly, "I think it's about time we all take them seriously. They're gona wreck our world if we let them." Dio is all to aware that heavy metal has long been regarded as the black sheep of rock-n-roll family, first denied air play 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 outa 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 "f*ck" 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 day," 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. 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 I to them."  How one wonders, did metal ever get to this deplorable state? The good ones just didn't care enough about being god any more," Ronnie opines. "Deep Purple went in 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 Blake Lawlesses and Vince Niels and other déclassé types. It's no wonder some parents are raising the roof about their kid's musical tastes, no?

Dio and wife/manager Wendy are childless themselves, but Ronnie feels he knows how he'd handle this metal crisis were there any junior Dio's 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 trying 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 t o you. It's not right and its not a good attitude for you to grow up with. But I want you t be aware of it. Then you make up your mind." That's what I would do as a parent."

Dio's hoping that metals 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 WASP and Motley Crue-the Dio band, and Michael Schenker and Yngwie Malmsteen. The single's due for release in January, along with the accompanying video. In addition a full scale LP is being discussed. 

Although the new 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."