Wendy Dio, the wife/manager of legendary heavy metal singer RONNIE JAMES DIO, will guest on WJCU’s Metal On Metal radio program tonight (Friday, March 28th) at 7 PM, EST.

Wendy will discuss her Ronnie James Dio tribute album, This Is Your Life, which includes contributions by such metal heavyweights as METALLICA, MOTÖRHEAD, SCORPIONS, ANTHRAX, and ROB HALFORD, as well as appearances by many of the musicians who performed with Dio over the years. 100% of proceeds from the album will go to the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund. This Is Your Life CDs and a limited-edition autographed cover art poster will be given away on the air during the interview.

Metal On Metal, hosted by Bill Peters, can be heard live at 88.7 FM in the Cleveland, Ohio area or streamed worldwide via the Internet at WJCU.org.

“Ronnie James Dio has been one of my all-time favorite singers ever since I can remember”, says Peters. “It’s still hard for me to believe he is not here with us.”
“The first time I saw him perform live was with RAINBOW in 1978 on the ‘Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll’ tour. The first time I met him was in 1984 on his DIO band’s ‘Last In Line’ tour. I was working for Warner Bros. in Cleveland at the time. Funny story about our first encounter is our Warner Bros. regional manager Larry Bole took me backstage to meet him after the show. Ronnie was sitting in a chair in the dressing room with his back to us as we approached. After Larry introduced me as his biggest fan in our office, Ronnie slowly turned around and started scanning me up and down with piercing eyes in an angry, unsettling sort of way. He never said a word. Finally after what seemed like minutes but was in reality only seconds he broke the silence with his first words to me: ‘What’s wrong? Weren’t our shirts good enough for you?’ I was wearing a RAVEN ‘Live At The Inferno’ tour t-shirt. I did not know how to respond. I nervously stuttered, ‘I would have bought a shirt but I did not have enough money’, which in fact was true. He slowly turned back around in his chair, crossed his arms and didn’t say another word. He appeared to be upset with me. Disillusioned, I started to walk towards the dressing room door to leave feeling very depressed and rejected. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I was crushed! Right before I got to the door I heard laughter behind me. I turned around and there was Ronnie standing up out of his chair with a big smile on his face waving for me to come back. He said, ‘Where you going kid? Get back here!’ He was playing a joke on me. I had no idea. I totally fell for it hook, line and sinker!??

“I got my revenge fifteen years or so later while still working at Warner. I wore the exact same RAVEN shirt to a big after-show meet and greet party we were hosting with him. He laughed so hard and was practically in tears when he saw the shirt on me after I opened my black leather jacket in front of him just before the signing session started. I was surprised he remembered. I have a lot of great memories of Ronnie while working at Warner for parts of three decades. He always treated his fans and label reps excellent. Our Cleveland Reprise rep Barb Balchick was one of his favorites. He was a first class individual to work with.”