Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Ronnie James Dio‘s widow and long-time manager Wendy Dio discussed the present state of the legally sanctioned Dio tribute band Dio Disciples in a recent interview with Argentinean rock journalist Lucas H. Gordon, who now lives in California, as per Blabbermouth.
I’m excited about the new Dio lineup… So we’re going to take Dio and the Dio band out again… I don’t know if it’s gonna be [called] Dio Disciples or it’s gonna be Dio And The Disciples, or Dio… We don’t know yet. The name is not there. But it will be Ronnie, and not in a hologram, not in A.I., but we’re gonna do real Ronnie in Ronnie video. So we have Ronnie video, and he will sing with the band about four songs
Wendy responded as follows when asked who would be in the new Dio band.
The new lineup will be with Simon Wright [on drums], as usual, Bjorn Englen on bass, as usual, Scott Warren on keyboards, as usual, and the two vocalists will be Oni Logan, who used to be in Lynch Mob, and Robin McAuley, who was in Michael Schenker’s band. And on guitar will be Rowan Robertson, who used to play in the Dio band, with [the] ‘Lock Up The Wolves’ [album]. And we’re very excited about it. Hopefully we’ll do some dates in the fall in the U.S., and then next year we’re hoping to tour the whole of Europe and South America.
Wendy also discussed a number of ongoing Dio-related initiatives, including unreleased content that hasn’t yet been made public.
We have some more things. And plus I’m trying to put together… I wanted to put together a bunch of songs that Ronnie did with other people that a lot of people don’t know. Like he did two songs with Kerry Livgren, and he did a rendition of ‘Dream On’, and he did one of a Alice Cooper track. He did, of course, ‘I Could Have Been A Dreamer’. He performed with the philharmonic orchestra and Deep Purple. And then he did something with a bunch of different bands or different things, and he did that Christmas thing. I was thinking to put them all together, of things that maybe fans are not aware of or would like to hear them again. He did a track with Girlschool. He did a track with a bunch of different people and different things, so I think it’d be interesting to [put them all out on one collection]… Plus I have a couple of unreleased tracks that I would like to put out. We have a show, a live show, that I’m working on right now that was done in the ’80s, a Dio live show [that’s] never been out before. I think it’s from Seattle. It’s from ’83, I think. It’s a live show that’s never been out. But there’s a lot of different things. There’s a couple of love songs that Ronnie wrote for me and recorded that’s never been out. He’d probably kill me if I put those out. [Laughs] He never wrote love songs, [but] he wrote a couple of love songs for me and recorded them. And I think they’re pretty good… So, yeah, it’s an exciting time, I think. I’m doing lots and lots of different things.
