Heaven and Hell, a Black Sabbath incarnation, which plays Rexall tonight, features Tony Iommi, left, Geezer Butler, Ronnie James Dio and Vinnie Appice. "We're kind of like locusts,'' says Ronnie James Dio who, in 1979, replaced Ozzy Osbourne as the front man in Black Sabbath. "We see each other just about every 12 years.
After we broke up the first time, 12 years later we got back together again. And now, this is just about pushing 13 years. But it has this cyclical thing.
" Speaking from his home in Los Angeles, Dio's referring to Black Sabbath: The Dio Years. The album has spawned a reunion of the Dio-led incarnation working under the title of the group's most popular album, Heaven and Hell. A nine-month tour has been carefully planned, says the singer who's ensured his age is famously unknown, bringing the metal band to Rexall Place tonight.
"We wanted to have a little bit of a fresher approach on what was, is and always will be called Black Sabbath. You can disguise it and call us Barney's Beanery if you want to and they'll go, 'Oh Sabbath's in town. Who's Barney's Beanery?
' " Dio says, although the Ozzy incarnation is still actively playing as Black Sabbath. "I don't really care what it's called. All I know is it's going to be a great band and a great show, as it always was.
" When Dio left the band for the second time in the early '90s, it was a messy split and he never intended to play with his old bandmates, Tony Iommi, Vinnie Appice and Geezer Butler, again. But management at Rhino/Warner Bros. began compiling material from his time with Black Sabbath and eventually approached Iommi and Dio to pen a couple new tracks for the album.
"I went to England on a couple different occasions and Tony and I wrote three songs. "We were only supposed to write two, but it went so well and so easily as it always did with Tony and I, that we wrote three. And, of course, the germ of an idea came up .
.. that it might be good if we toured with this,'' says Dio, who is still working with his own band, simply called Dio.
"It would help the album and at the same time it would make a lot of money, too, wouldn't it? After all, this is our work. "It's a matter of doing what we're going to do and kind of securing our legacy more than anything else.
It has been a long time since we played together and now we're doing it right. Not like the last time we toured with the Dehumanizer album where everything fell apart. This has been planned very well.
" Recently inducted onto Hollywood's Rock Walk, Dio says everyone has other priorities they'll return to once the tour wraps in December. And until then, they guys are just enjoying each other's company once again. "It's just like we never stopped.
When you work with people who are that good, when you work with professionals and you're one yourself, then it's all going to be good at the end of the day. But you know, it's funny too. We screw up, people make mistakes and we all stop and laugh at each other and point fingers like little kids again," says Dio, who admits leaving Black Sabbath was hard.
"The things that happened, a lot of them were very hurtful to me. I really cared a lot about that band, and some of the ways things went down I like to think were because of youthful inexperience. "But when you get back together, three times now, I guess that means there must've been some bond there.
That we didn't hate each other that much or we wouldn't have been doing this at all.
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