The man has released no less than 15 solo studio albums, and another ten live albums on his own. He has also recorded and toured extensively with the likes of funk/rock pioneers Trapeze, and truly legendary acts such as Deep Purple, Gary Moore, Tony Iommi, Black Sabbath and many, many more, right up to his more recent work with rock supergroup Black Country Communion. It’s a back catalogue longer than both of the average AFL ruckman’s arms and one to be extremely proud of. Whereas most of the other great rock vocalists have been best known for their work in one or two great bands (and possibly three in Dio’s case), maybe it is that ‘journeyman’s’ path that he has always followed that has kept his career in a somewhat underrated state. He discussed that, and much more, recently from his home in Los Angeles.
“Yes, I’ve been a journeyman, but there was a period where I didn’t do anything because I was in one of the bedrooms in my house, looking through the window doing crack. But that’s all been spoken about many times in many documentaries on HBO and so forth. For me, the greatest part of my career was that I was able to pick myself up from death valley and move on with my life,” he says.
“We talk about the longevity of singers, how can one sing at 61 like they were doing at 25? I don’t know man, am I a freak? There’s a few of us from my generation and peer group that can still deliver, because we take care of ourselves. My exercises for my voice are very important, and I don’t drink and carry on and smoke cigarettes.”
He is bringing that legendary voice to Australia very shortly, both as part of the incredible Kings Of Chaos tour with several of the greats of rock music of the last four decades, and for a solo tour of his own. Surprisingly, the man has only visited our shores on four previous occasions in his four-and-a-half decade long career, and he plans of making it very special for his many fans in this country.
“I love it!” he enthuses. “Kings of Chaos are coming April 20. I was going to hang out in Australia for a little while, Steven Tyler invited me to go hang out on his boat on the Great Barrier Reef at the end of April. So I said, ‘Shit, if I’m going to stay in Australia, I should really think about doing some shows.’ And because of the timeframe, we thought it appropriate to play a few of the big cities and then we can do more shows later in the year when we have more time to promote. Hence we’re doing more intimate places where fans can come in, and I’ll do a retrospective of my career.
“Australia, for me, is a great market because it’s young and fresh, and the canvas is bare for me. I’ve always worked one fan at a time, that’s the way I’ve worked my whole career. So coming to Australia again and playing these intimate venues after playing Kings Of Chaos in that huge stadium will be wonderful! Because I love getting up close and personal with the fans, so they can see the toil and trouble that I go through.”
And with such a long and illustrious back catalogue behind him, it must be rather difficult to write a career retrospective setlist.
“I’ve got 380 songs published in my life,” he reveals. “People are going to hear a bit of everything, and hopefully they’re going to hear something that they want to hear. I’ll come onstage and do a few acoustic songs, and I might do a cover song. Then I’m going to hit them with some of my classic songs and a few songs that I really think are important to me as a person, spiritually, to talk about and sing about. And of course there’ll be some huge classics that people want to hear.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
