HEAVEN AND HELL World Tour To Kick Off In Vancouver

December 15, 2006

Jon Wiederhorn of MTV.com recently conducted an interview with Ronnie James Dio about the upcoming BLACK SABBATH best-of album, "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years", and the world tour alongside guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Vinny Appice under the band name HEAVEN AND HELL.

"It's going to be a lot of fun to get back in front of fans and perform these songs again," Dio said. "I think this is something a lot of people have been waiting a long time for."

According to Dio, the HEAVEN AND HELL tour will kick off in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 3 and play at least seven shows across Canada, ending in Toronto. Then the band will likely play South America, Japan, Korea, Australia and Europe before returning to North America for a U.S. tour in August or September.

Though Dio is thrilled to be able to revisit his past with SABBATH, he hasn't lain awake at night longing for a reunion. And while Iommi and Butler have wondered over the years what it would be like to play again with Dio, it was Warner Music subsidiary Rhino Records that first brought up the idea by making plans to release "The Dio Years". The label contacted Iommi's manager and said it would like to include some previously unreleased songs. Since there was nothing worthwhile in the vault that hadn't been used, Iommi contacted Dio and suggested they consider getting together to write some new material.

"About four months ago, I went over to England to Tony's house, where he has a studio," Dio said. "We started to work together, and it was really so enjoyable. After long spaces of time not working with people, you forget how good they are or how much you liked being around them."

The band isn't yet ready to announce the titles of the three new songs, but that doesn't mean Dio isn't eager to talk about them. One, he says, will be slow and doomy, the second will be midtempo and the third will be a scorcher.

"They're the perfect blend, [given] the limitations of only doing three tracks," he said. "I feel like we covered all the bases, and it's all guitar, bass, drums and voice. There are no keyboards, and it sounds excellent. And the lyrics are pretty weird. Whenever I get back with SABBATH, I seem to have this leash taken off me and I can write as weird as I want to."

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