RONNIE JAMES DIO On HEAVEN AND HELL: 'It's Just Like We Never Stopped'

Jenny Feniak of Sun Media recently conducted an interview with legendary heavy metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio (HEAVEN AND HELL, DIO, BLACK SABBATH, RAINBOW). A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On his HEAVEN AND HELL bandmates:

"We're kind of like locusts. 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."

"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?' 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."

On "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years":

"I went to England on a couple different occasions and Tony [Iommi] and I wrote three [new] songs [to add to the compilation]. 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. 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."

On 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."

"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."