Special report by Martin Popoff:

RONNIE JAMES DIO finishes off for BW&BK; his trio of talks upon the lyrical content of the three new songs appearing on the upcoming BLACK SABBATH: The Dio Years album, the record that will accompany HEAVEN AND HELL - Dio (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar - BLACK SABBATH), Geezer Butler (bass - Black Sabbath) and Vinnie Appice (drums) - on the big, bog-blasting tour of ’07. Apologies if we didn’t gather the gist of this exactly right, but you get the idea – and a fairly amusing one it is!

“The last song is called ‘The Devil Cries’. I don't look upon Hell as everybody else does. I look upon Hell as probably a little world down there where the same things are going on here. There's a structure, there's a devil who is like the president or king or a ruler, ultimate ruler in that case. But people talk down there. There's a lot of suffering going on, I guess. But they do converse and they have days… I'm getting too far into this; it doesn't say this in the song. But I'm just trying to give you my perspective. The first line of the song is, 'One fine day in Hell.' and that will set you up pretty well, I think. And on this day, the devil gathers everyone together and he tells a story. Because as I say, things happen down there. Everybody gets a chance not to suffer for a while, and they listen to the story. And he says, one guy he knew lied to him so well about… whatever he lied to him about - I don't go into it on this one - that he made the devil cry, so he sent him back to Heaven. So now the guy realizes that if you get an appointment with the devil, and you can make him cry, he'll send you back to Heaven. I think it's only happened the one time I mention. So he finally gets an appointment, and he says to the devil, he tells him about how hard his life has been, and all the pain he had been through, and all these horrible things that he felt horrible. And the devil smiled and was just about to laugh and then the guy said, ‘Then I told him that I loved you,’ and then the devil cried. You're talking about a guy who got out of it because he was in love with somebody who was so despicable that even the devil couldn't believe how bad he was, so he cried and sent him back to Heaven.”

As previously reported, Heaven And Hell will be commencing their World Tour in Vancouver, BC on March 3rd and they will play at least seven shows across Canada, ending in Toronto. Other possible stops include South America, Japan, Korea, Australia and Europe before returning to North America for a US tour in August.

Watch for a massive Heaven And Hell feature in BW&BK; #102 ... out in February 2007!