TONY IOMMI Talks About Upcoming RONNIE JAMES DIO Tribute Concert; Video Available

Surviving HEAVEN & HELL members Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice will play a very special tribute to their fallen bandmate, Ronnie James Dio, at this year's High Voltage festival on July 24 at Victoria Park in London, England. The musicians will be joined by legendary former DEEP PURPLE and BLACK SABBATH man Glenn Hughes and Norwegian vocalist Jorn Lande, who sings for power metallers MASTERPLAN and is about to release his own tribute to Ronnie.

Proceeds from this performance will go to the Ronnie James Dio "Stand Up And Shout" Cancer Fund.

Video footage of Iommi talking about the upcoming tribute concert during this year's Kawasaki Golden Gods Awards (formerly Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards),which was held last night (Monday, June 14) at the IndigO2 venue in South London, England, can be viewed below.

"This will be the first and only tribute we're doing to Ronnie," Iommi said. "Not that that's wrong, but we feel that it would be really nice to do this for him. And he'd really like that, I know he would. And Glenn Hughes has also been a part of the family for many years — he was a really good friend of Ronnie's; they were very close, and he was very close with us — so we think it would be apt to use Glenn. And Glenn's a great vocalist. And Jorn Lande, of course — I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's also a very big fan of Ronnie's and a great singer."

Q: Are you hoping to add on more [singers] for the tribute show?

Iommi: "Well, we don't know yet. We're gonna start rehearsals a week before and see what happens. After this, we'll see what happens and who comes forward. It's difficult because it's something we just wanna do for Ronnie. It's not a thing to say, 'Well , here we are.' We wanna do something for him and focus on him. And we want the best singers that [are] gonna sing and produce as close as what Ronnie would. We wanna do it for the fans, because it was sort of a sudden exit, really, because we were supposed to have been doing a tour. I was talking to Ronnie two weeks ago, and he said, 'I've gotta have this new chemo, but I think it's working.' And that was the real big shock of it, because within a week of that, he had passed away. So it was a big shock for all of us, because we built ourselves up to do it and, of course, we didn't expect to lose... Ronnie was always a person you thought would always be there — very strong, great within the band; we had a great relationship. [He was] a fantastic person, [and he] loved his fans. And that's why we wanna do this show, because we owe it to the fans to do this show. We're not cashing in — it's all for charity. It all goes to charity. We just wanna do it for him and the fans. I know Ronnie would be behind us in whatever we do — he's that sort of person. And he would love for his music to be played. That's what he lived for — he lived for his fans and his music and his friends. It's a closure for us as well. Unfortunately, it's a shame it's not with him, but... that's it."

Q: Musically-wise, what will be able to expect [at the High Voltage show]?

Iommi: "I don't know yet. I don't know. We're gonna play a selection of stuff we'd done with Ronnie. Again, it's wide open, because we don't know who's gonna sing what and we haven't got there yet. It's all relatively new; we've only just decided to do this. So we're doing a list of songs that we think people would like to hear. And we've only got an hour so we can't do a fat lot, unless they can push it a bit. But we'd like to do that — we'd like to play two hours, but it's down to... ZZ TOP are gonna be on [after us], so they wouldn't appreciate that. But we'll see. We were really looking forward to doing it with Ronnie, and I think it will be a great festival to be at; there are some great acts. Yeah, absolutely come along."