O Dio Mio

Or, enjoying thumb fun with Ronnie James Dio

The late, great Ronnie James Dio was all kinds of awesome, but I have to admit that I was a belated convert to his particular brand of dark magic.

I didn’t get into his Rainbow stuff until he’d already fallen out with Ritchie Blackmore, and I didn’t really give him a fair shot when he replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath. But mostly, I just found his whole “Evil RenFaire Dwarf” schtick completely absurd — until I saw him live in 1992, on Black Sabbath’s Dehumanizer tour, and realized that it was actually absurdly wonderful. Maybe it was the pot brownies I’d ingested before the show, but as he leapt about the stage singing “The Mob Rules,” my overwhelming thought was, “No, Dio — you rule!”

You could laugh at Dio (and I certainly did — hell, several friends of mine and I still riff on the giant robotic spider that croaked “I’ll get you, Dio!” at him on the Dream Evil tour), but you couldn’t fault the freakish power of his pipes, or the sheer commitment he brought to his music and his live performances. And as I found out the lone time I interviewed him, he also had a pretty healthy sense of humor about who he was and what he did for a living.

This short interview occurred in the fall of 2003, after word got out that one of Dio’s thumbs had been chopped off by a falling garden gnome — truly, in the immortal words of Spinal Tap, a bizarre gardening accident. My assignment for Revolver was to phone him up at his home in the Valley and see how the healing was going; I was frankly a little nervous about it, because a) I didn’t know how touchy he was going to be on the subject, and b) I didn’t want to piss him off and cause him to cast a warlock’s spell cast on me or some shit.

But Dio put me at ease almost immediately; a well-timed John Wayne Bobbitt joke let me know where he was coming from, and the fact that his speaking voice actually sounded a lot like Jerry Stiller’s rendered him far less intimidating than I’d expected. Here’s our conversation, in full…

Hey, Ronnie — It’s Dan Epstein from Revolver Magazine. How are you doing?

I’m doin’ fine, yeah. Obviously you’re referring to my thumb thing.

I am, indeed.

It was pretty scary in the beginning, because it looked like there was a chance that I would lose the top of it. At least, that’s what they told me in the emergency room, in their comforting kind of way — “Yeah, just go ahead and put an ice pack on that, but I don’t think that can be put back on again.” And I’m thinkin’ to myself, “They can sew guys’ dicks back on, but they can’t sew on this little thumb part?” I know it’s a different organ, but… [laughs]

Luckily, they were able to save it. It wasn’t the whole thumb; it was the top of it, about an inch of it. It’s goin’ on a month now, and it’s doin’ really well. It’s gonna be fine. Unless people know the truth, it gets blown a little out of proportion; according to some people, they were able to save the thumb, but they lost me! [laughs]

That’s why I’m calling you — to get the story straight.

Yeah, it’s a sad thing to say, but it really was one of those “bizarre gardening accidents,” you know? That’s what it would have to be called. I’ve got a lot of rock gardens on my property, with some hills here and there. I wanted to put a garden gnome that weighed about eighty pounds up on one of the hills, but where I put it wasn’t level enough. The ground was wet, and I started to slide down the hill, and the gnome came chasing me down the hill as well. I put my hands up to stop it from hitting me in the head; it came down on a rock, and that’s when it crushed the top of my thumb off.

It was pretty horrific — I mean, the first thoughts going through my mind were, “How am I gonna deal with my life, now? How am I gonna be able to hold a guitar pick? What’s it gonna look like when I give my devil horn sign and it looks half my thumb’s off? That won’t work!” All these weird things were going through my mind! But luckily, like I said, it’s okay. But it was truly bizarre.

Did the gnome pay for his insolence?

No I didn’t punish the gnome; he’s still hanging out in my garden. He’s not on the hill any more, but every time I look at him, he looks at me like, “Ah ha! How’d ya like that? I told you I didn’t want to go up on that hill!” [laughs]

I have to say, it seems oddly appropriate that you were injured by a garden gnome.

Oh yeah, especially with my history! It’s absolutely perfect. I don’t know how much you wanna beat that one to death, Dan, but don’t make me look too bad! [laughs]

The first thing that went through my mind when I’d heard you lost a thumb is that you’d probably lopped it off with a broadsword, or something.

Yeah, I’m sure! [laughs] I don’t think anyone thought it  was gonna be a bizarre gardening accident; I don’t really sound like the gardening type. But I guess it proves that I have a life away from being a rather evil being onstage…

Were you working on the new record when it happened? [Note: In retrospect, the accident preceded what would turn out to be Dio the band’s final album, 2004’s Master of the Moon.]

We were just about to start, as a matter of fact. I think it happened two days before we were gonna start. But I’m not one to lay about, so as soon as I got to the point where I could learn to use my other hand — it happened on my right hand, and I am right-handed — I got to work. I still can’t play left-handed — I can barely play right-handed! [laughs] — but at least I’ve been able to get by. Craig [Goldy] and I have been working on songs; luckily, he can play all those instruments a hell of a lot better than me! It’s been an easy process, because I did have a lot of ideas before the gnome crashed down on me. I should be able to play again in a couple months.

When will you start recording?

I’m sure it will be after the first of the year, probably in February. I’m sure we’re looking at a release sometime before June, and then going on tour.

Thanks for your time, Ronnie. I’m really glad to hear that you’re doing well.

Yeah, put it this way — I’ll be able to hitch-hike with no problem. [laughs] The puns have been flying furiously around me; I think we’ve exhausted all the thumb references by now. But you have to take life as it comes…

[One final note to this story: I took Dio’s “don’t make me look too bad” request to heart and played it pretty straight when I wrote the resulting piece. However, the artist that Revolver hired to illustrate it drew a hilariously cartoonish tableau of the garden gnome and a fire-breathing dragon laughing hysterically at the blood gushing from Dio’s severed thumb. I hoped Dio would see the humor in it, but I’m guessing he probably did. You have to take life as it comes, after all…]

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