WENDY DIO Says RONNIE JAMES DIO Always Wrote Songs While Watching Baseball Or Football Games On TV

During an appearance on the latest episode of the "100 Songs That Define Heavy Metal" podcast, hosted by Metal Blade Records CEO Brian Slagel, Ronnie James Dio's widow and longtime manager Wendy Dio spoke about the legendary heavy metal singer's decision to leave BLACK SABBATH in 1982 and put out his legendary debut solo effort, "Holy Diver" — released under the DIO banner — in 1983.

"Well, I had gotten him a recording deal while he was with BLACK SABBATH," Wendy said. "And he was not intending to leave but to maybe do something in between when they weren't working. But then it came that he left the band. And, yeah, he had written two songs, actually, 'Holy Diver' and 'Don't Talk To Strangers', that were written for BLACK SABBATH, while he was in BLACK SABBATH. But then they became his beginning of the DIO years."

Asked if Ronnie was writing just the lyrics or if he wrote the music as well, or a bit of both, Wendy said: "Oh, yeah, everything. People think that Ronnie's just a lyricist. He's not; he writes music as well. He played trumpet for many, many, many years. He played guitar, played bass — well, he played bass in ELF. He would sit and write songs, watching sports with his guitar, his acoustic guitar, on his lap. And he would always write watching baseball or football, because he said that that gave him inspiration, but it wasn't stealing somebody else's music."

Regarding Ronnie's lyric-writing approach, Wendy said: "He used to read a lot of science-fiction books. And I don't know — he'd just come up. I mean, things like [lyrics from 'Holy Diver'], 'Ride the tiger. You can see his stripes, but you know he's clean'. I mean, whatever he was writing about, it was always like that somebody could interpret their own feeling of what the song was about… He knew what the song was about, but he would like people to interpret what they thought."

After departing BLACK SABBATH in early 1982, Dio began composing songs that would eventually appear on "Holy Diver". After writing both "Holy Diver" and "Don't Talk To Strangers", Dio then assembled an amazing group of musicians, two familiar faces and one fresh recruit, with drummer Vinny Appice (Dio's BLACK SABBATH bandmate),bassist/keyboardist Jimmy Bain (Dio's RAINBOW bandmate) and guitarist Vivian Campbell joining him to record the "Holy Diver" album.

"Holy Diver" was a platinum-certified smash and one of the late singer-songwriter's most groundbreaking achievements.

In 2022, Rhino revisited this epic metal moment on "Holy Diver: Super Deluxe Edition", available as a four-CD boxed set and digitally. The collection came with two versions of "Holy Diver". The first was a new mix of the album made by Joe Barresi (TOOL, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, SLIPKNOT). He used the original analog tapes to remix all nine tracks on the album. The second was a newly remastered version of the original 1983 mix. The Super Deluxe Edition also featured unreleased live performances and outtakes, along with a selection of rarities from the era.

Critically acclaimed and a commercial success, "Holy Diver" contributed two timeless classics to the heavy metal canon — "Rainbow In The Dark" and its title track. The album also ranks No. 16 on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time".