On Sunday, May 16th, I got so many condolences you would've thought I lost a friend or relative. But I didn't. I did, however, cry like a newborn baby denied the milk of its mother. On Sunday, May 16th, 2010, Ronnie James Dio died of complications due to stomach cancer. He was 67 years old. Normally, I don't cry so easily. And I sure as hell wanted to when I first heard about it. I officially got the news about 4 PM that day while I was at work, and it ruined that day for me. Things moved more slowly than they ever did before, the world in front of me seemed far less interesting and relevant than ever.
Dio's dead.
For several hours that night, those were only words. At about midnight or so the reality hit me and that was when the tears came. Mourning the loss of a celebrity can be tacky, it can be silly and it can be overblown, but this is probably the first time in my life where it honestly hit home and made me feel like I'd lost something.
When I was an awkward, uncool, lanky and scraggly fifteen-year-old I wasn't good at much. I struggled at running, school was boring and uninteresting, I couldn't play an instrument. I watched anime and listened to metal and fit in with a dozen or so different kids who were all "off" for different reasons. Social skills eluded me. Hell, I wasn't even cool enough to smoke weed. Escapism was my biggest joy. Music, video games, comic books, you name it, I was drawn into it.
Iron Maiden was my gateway drug. The larger than life persona of their mascot, Eddie, the over-the-top but still intelligent fantasy lyrics, the bombastic stage shows and power of their music sucked me into the world of heavy metal for life. This was about when file sharing really took off, and right before Napster became a pay service. I discovered AudioGalaxy, which had individual songs by every band I could think of. From there I slowly discovered other bands in the style, namely Black Sabbath.
Black Sabbath was what changed everything for me. Something about their earlier music seemed rawer and realer than anything I'd ever heard, still containing the escapism of Iron Maiden that I loved so much. I sucked up their earlier Ozzy-era records like a vacuum cleaner and still wanted more. The band's history was more convoluted than the Western world's. Someone on Iron Maiden's official messageboard clued me into the fact that the band's years with Ronnie James Dio would be a good place to go from there, and so one day, when I was at Exile on Main Street (my local record store) I saw two used copies of the band's Heaven and Hell and The Mob Rules albums. Without a second thought I dropped sixteen bucks on the CDs and let them take hold of my life.
Suddenly this new and exciting world of music was open to me. The Dio era of the band was able to marry the realness of the original Black Sabbath with the high fantasy, escapism and swords-and-sorcery atmosphere and fast tempos that I loved so much about Iron Maiden. Holding it all together was the little man with the big voice, Ronnie James Dio. His at times nonsensical imagery and lyrics bordering on the absurd, the two albums were exactly what my fifteen-year-old self demanded. Dio understood me, throwing himself a hundred percent into whatever flights of fancy he dreamed up, no matter how ridiculous they were.
Fifteen-year-old me wanted to be cool. He wanted to fit in, be understood and loved and a part of something. Through the music and words of Ronnie James Dio, that fifteen-year-old eventually learned that even if you don't have all those things, the best thing a person can have is the ability and strength to be himself, no matter how derided or ridiculed he may be, no matter how much he may want to be someone else. Through his art and devotion to his fans, Dio taught us all that giving up is not an option, that the individual will triumph through hardships and carry on and be stronger for it.
Thank you, Ronnie.
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