Ronnie James Dio’s fight with cancer has been pretty well documented by the metal community over the past year. Obviously there was utter shock when the news broke, then there was some relief when he made a public appearance at the Golden Gods Awards and he looked pretty good. Then the Heaven and Hell tour got canceled and now we have the official news from his wife and manager that Dio has in fact, passed away.

“Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.” Love, Wendy

So, to say that it’s been a roller-coaster of good news and bad news out of the Dio camp is putting it lightly.

My experience with Dio started subtlety back in high school in the early 90’s. On a family visit to my Uncle’s house one day, I did as most teenagers did at family gatherings and started wandering around the house. When I got to my Uncle’s room I saw that he had the movie “Heavy Metal” and a bunch of guitar picks sitting on his dresser, a few of which happened to say Dio embossed in red letters. At the time I had no idea who Dio even was, let alone how my uncle got all those guitar picks, but I thought the letters looked cool and so I took a few of them and put them in my pocket.

I brought the picks with me to school the next day and gave one of them to my friend, who was in a punk rock band. He looked at the pick and kind of snidely said, “Ha, Dio. Cool, thanks.” I guess Dio isn’t very punk, but my friend had heard of Dio and knew something about him – or at least enough to have an opinion on him. I think he was just afraid to admit that Dio was pretty awesome.

After high school I got more into metal and made it a point to start collecting every album by classic bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. So, around 19 years old I got my first Dio album – Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell. That album rocked back then and it rocks now. I can still remember blasting Neon Knights driving to work, and trying to learn Children of the Sea on guitar. Shoot, I even liked Lady Evil.

Of course it was hard to miss seeing Dio on VH1 after that. By that time, MTV had basically fucked over metal and VH1 made the smart move of playing the classic metal videos and having the “regular” metal guys like Alice Cooper, Vinnie Paul, Ronnie Dio and Dee Snider as guests on various shows. But when Dio’s Holy Diver video came on it was more or less impossible to look away:

Dio became a kind of a legendary character amongst my metal friends, rather than just another front man in another metal band. You had this short, Italian-looking man wearing a ridiculous barbarian wardrobe while ripping out killer vocals about steel and fire and tigers. If there was a better way to make a metal legend then I haven’t heard of it.

From then on out, whenever we heard a Dio song come on it was both humor and inspiration, mixed with a bit of idolization and a lot of rocking out. Whenever someone new came along that knew who Dio was, or that knew the words to a Dio song, he was pretty much accepted as family.

I was lucky to watch Dio perform at a concert in 2003 with Iron Maiden and Motorhead (now that I think about it, that was the first time I saw Iron Maiden and Motorhead as well). Dio was as epic as I had imagined him being. Throwing the horns and holding up the fist while belting out the words “fire” or “lightning”, it was classic Dio. I think really that’s all he knew how to be, just classic in every way.

When he joined Heaven and Hell a few years ago I was totally looking forward to getting some more live Dio experiences under my belt. I never had the chance though, and now many people like me never will have the opportunity.

Dio was the epitome of metal. Sure, bands these days are more likely to list Meshuggah, Metallica or Slayer as influences, but if you ask any one of those bands who influenced them, or who they thought was an iconic metal front man, you’re likely to get Dio mentioned more than once.

Dio was true to himself, true to the music and true to the fans, and he will be missed.

RIP Ronnie James Dio.

07/10/1942 – 05/16/2010.