DIO’S THIRD ALBUM IS “DIFFICULT” FOR FORMER BAND MEMBERS

Dio offshoot band Last In Line will play most of the band’s material from the first two albums but not as much of the third release, Sacred Heart, because the material carries too many bad memories.

Guitarist Vivian Campbell, now with Def Leppard, last week told Classic Rock he aimed to reclaim his heritage by playing songs he co-wrote for the first time since being fired by Ronnie James Dio in 1986. But he’s not ready to extend that to the album he was touring at the time he was fired.

Campbell discusses the setlist with Talking Metal and says, “We haven’t completely finalized it yet, but it’s basically going to pick itself. There are only nine songs on Holy Diver and I think there’s only nine songs on the The Last In Line album.

The Sacred Heart album was very difficult for us all – that’s when things really started to go wrong with the band. No one wanted to be in the studio with Ronnie.

We would literally just come in and do our parts; we wouldn’t really hang, whereas with Holy Diver and Last In Line we were in the studio 24-7 and everyone was committed to making those records.

So the Sacred Heart record, we don’t look upon it as favorably. We probably won’t play too much from that.”

While Campbell and bandmates Vinnie Appice, Jimmy Bain and Claude Schnell used to perform some Black Sabbath and Rainbow tracks with Dio, the guitarist feels it wouldn’t be appropriate now they’re working with singer Andy Freeman.

“I don’t think it would be legitimate for us to do that,” says Campbell. “The original Dio band played Man On The Silver Mountain, Stargazer, Long Live Rock N’ Roll, Mob Rules, Heaven And Hell and Children Of The Sea. Those were legitimate enough for us to do because Ronnie was there and he’d been in those bands.

“But without Ronnie there, I don’t think it’s very legitimate to play Sabbath or Rainbow songs, so we won’t be doing that.”

additional source: classicrockmagazine.com