When Ronnie James Dio left Rainbow in 1979, he didn’t wallow in self-pity or rest on his laurels. Instead, he replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath and further solidified his place as one of the genre’s greatest singers via 1980’s Heaven and Hell and 1981’s Mob Rules.
He then faced a similar crossroads post-Mob Rules when he parted ways with Black Sabbath. Rather than front someone else’s band yet again, however, he took the opportunity to spearhead his own project – Dio – and set the heavy metal world aflame with the quartet’s landmark first album, Holy Diver, which arrived on May 25th, 1983.
Forty years later, Holy Diver remains one of the genre’s superlative debuts and most legendary collections.
Regarding why Dio – and new drummer Vinny Appice – quit Black Sabbath so soon after arriving, Appice told Sonic Perspectives in 2022: “Tony [Iommi], Ronnie, and Geezer [Butler] weren’t seeing eye to eye anymore.” So, Dio decided to leave, and he asked Appice to come along.
“I could’ve stayed with Sabbath,” Appice explained. “I loved Tony and Geezer . . . but I thought that this would be pretty exciting, starting a band with Ronnie.”
In an interview for the 2005 remaster of Holy Diver, Dio reflected that the new group was born from “a lot of frustration,” adding: “I decided that I better take control of my own life. . . . [Holy Diver] gave me a chance to choose the people that I want[ed] to play with and make the kind of music that I want[ed] to make.”
While that desire might imply that he wanted to be the star of the show, he really didn’t. In the same conversation, he expounded: “It never was a solo project to me. It had my name on it, which I thought was clever from a business standpoint. Coming out of Sabbath and Rainbow, people knew who I was. . . . [Holy Diver] was a total package put on by the four of us . . . they did such a great job.”
Speaking of those other two members – guitarist Vivian Campbell and bassist/keyboardist Jimmy Bain – Dio knew exactly what he was looking for once he and Appice got together.
First, he decided that he “wanted an English [guitarist]” because he needed someone “who had . . . romance in his solo and beauty in his playing and could write.” After futilely scouring London for a few days, he phoned former Rainbow bandmate Bain to see if he could suggest anyone.
Dio reflected, “[Bain] came to the hotel with two tapes: one with Vin Campbell and one with John Sykes. We liked John’s playing but there was something special about what Vin did. . . . [W]e got a rehearsal room and Jimmy came down with his bass. . . . We played ‘Holy Diver’ and ‘Don’t Talk to Strangers’ and they were magic. We decided we wanted to do it and that was that.”
Indeed, Dio already had “Holy Diver” and “Don’t Talk to Strangers” written. In fact, his widow Wendy Dio revealed in 2022 that both were initially meant for Black Sabbath but came with him when he left.
Overall, Holy Diver was written without a central concept in mind. Instead, the foursome spotlighted an unconnected mix of private, moral, and fictional inspirations.
