How did you come to work with Ronnie James Dio?
I met him at a party at the Rainbow Bar and Grill in LA and it had got to a point where it wasn’t working with Ozzy. I phoned Ronnie up to see if he wanted to come up for a jam and he said, “Yeah” so he came over to the house in LA and we had all the gear set up and went into the studio and that was it! Black Sabbath sound rejuvenated on ‘Heaven and Hell’. Was Ronnie’s presence a case of the remaining Sabbath members being on their best behaviour to impress the new boy and deliver the goods? I think that’s true. For us, it was so frustrating for those 11 months where we hadn’t done anything it was such a great relief when somebody comes along and these things were working finally. And that’s no disrespect to Ozzy; he just wasn’t in the right state of mind then. Ronnie James Dio’s lyrics were different from what Black Sabbath had done before. Did you have any editorial input or did you just let him get on with it? Originally [bassist] Geezer [Butler] did a lot of the lyrics but Geezer s
