BLACK SABBATH/HEAVEN & HELL guitar legend Tony Iommi spoke with Julian Marszalek from Spinner.ca recently about the Ronnie James Dio-era of the band. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Spinner.ca: How did you come to work with Ronnie James Dio?

Iommi: "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!"

Spinner.ca: 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?

Iommi: "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."

Spinner.ca: You were riding the crest of a wave in a very short space of time (1980 – 82) and it all seemed to come apart just as quickly. What happened?

Iommi: "The live album (Live Evil). We'd worked so much and we'd been everywhere, non-stop work for years and then we recorded the live album and I say that loosely because of instead of being involved with it and listening to the sound in the [mobile recording] truck, it was recorded that quick at these gigs and we were more concerned with the gig than getting involved in the recording side.

When we got the (live recordings) in the studio, they were just bloody awful. It was so badly recorded that we had a big problem with it. We were pretty tired and our nerves were on edge and it just led to a bad feeling in the band.

And then to top it all, the engineer that was working with us was drinking more and more during these sessions and getting more and more pissed. One day, me and Geezer said, 'It sounds different from how we left it last night' - and this was going on for weeks – and the engineer said, 'I can't take this any more! Ronnie's been coming in and adjusting everything and then you lot come in and adjust and then he comes in and adjusts it again and I just don't know what to do!"

And we said, 'You're kidding?' and we broke up because of that! And of course, it was all hearsay and I don't really believe (what the engineer said) now but we did at the time."

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The deluxe re-issues of Heaven And Hell, Mob Rules and Live Evil are out this month.