Tony Iommi explains why Ronnie James Dio gave Black Sabbath a “new lease of life”
The Ronnie James Dio fronted periods of Black Sabbath have always been a point of contention. The former Elf and Rainbow frontman had enormous boots to fill in the eyes of some Sabbath fans after he replaced the outgoing Ozzy Osbourne in 1979. Accordingly, when the new-look lineup released their first studio effort in 1980, Heaven and Hell – a highly theatrical departure from their blues-heavy early period – it hurt many listeners.
Whilst some longtime lovers of the band look with disdain on this period, objectively, it revitalised them for the next decade after the classic lineup gradually fell apart between 1972 and Osbourne’s departure. Following Heaven and Hell, the Dio-fronted Sabbath released the critical and commercial success of Mob Rules in 1981, before he departed in 1982 to form the platinum-selling act Dio. He then briefly returned to the fold in 1992 for the successful Dehumanizer.
Indicative of how people view Dio’s time in Sabbath are comments from Ozzy Osbourne’s wife, Sharon, when appearing on the Wild Ride! with Steve-O podcast in July 2020. Whilst noting that Dio was a “great” musician and that the band’s albums with him were “good hit albums”, she felt his dramatic style wasn’t right for them. “Ronnie had a great voice but to change a band that had a kind of bluesy type vocal, real gritty bluesy vocal to a rock opera vocal, it was so different,” she said. “I always looked at Ronnie as a Rock opera type singer. Ozzy had such a bluesy voice, I never got it.”
Despite the criticisms from some elements of the Sabbath fanbase, guitarist Tony Iommi fully believed in what the band were doing with Dio during the early 1980s. After Mob Rules was given a deluxe reissue, he spoke with Kerrang! in 2022 and glowingly looked back on the immediate post-Osbourne period. Of the 1981 record, he said: “We believed in it, and that’s why it worked, I think. It was different to how it was before, but it sounded great, and we were able to do new things.” It was also during this interview that he outlined how the switch from Osbourne to Dio gave the group “a new lease of life”.
Asked how Osbourne’s departure and Dio’s arrival changed their approach, Iommi recalled: “Well, I mean, the whole thing was different for us. Because obviously, when Ronnie got involved, the writing became different because of the different sort of way he’s approached. And it was a really exciting period for us, because it was a nine-year challenge, because we were doing something new for us, a different thing. It sort of boosted us up. It was a bit of a challenge, but we enjoyed it.”
It was put to the guitarist that the last Ozzy album of their first chapter, 1978’s Never Say Die!, was a challenging time. Because of this, they asked Iommi whether the frontman change helped the group rediscover their enthusiasm. “Absolutely”, Iommi replied. “It gave us a new lease of life. And it also gave us that challenge. Because, obviously Sabbath has been around a while, we knew we could go out and do certain gigs and sell out certain places or whatever. But it was nice, because we had to prove something.”
He continued: “You’re trying to bring a different singer into the band, which is very difficult, and he’s got to get accepted, and he’s got to prove himself. And we have to sort of prove ourselves that it was working, and that we liked it. And I believed in what we’d got, I really did. I really liked what we what we had with Ronnie at that point.”
