Former Dio and current Dio Disciples guitarist Craig Goldy recently weighed in on how Vivian Campbell was fired from Dio, saying that Vivian was “very disrespectful to Ronnie [James Dio] on many occasions.”
Ronnie, Vivian, drummer Vinny Appice and bassist Jimmy Bain had collaborated on the first three Dio albums — 1983’s “Holy Diver”, 1984’s “The Last In Line” and 1985’s “Sacred Heart” — before Irishman Campbell left to join Whitesnake in 1987.
Vivian later publicly spoke aobut Ronnie’s need for total control of the band, claiming that finances played a major part in the bad blood that preceded his exit. Specifically, Campbell said that “it had become increasingly clear” to him that Ronnie’s wife and manager Wendy “was determined to separate Ronnie from the band. She didn’t see DIO as one creative unit. Ronnie knew better, but I suspect that in an effort to win back Wendy’s love” after the couple split, “he was willing to bend to her whims. Thus began the beginning of the end for the original DioO band.” He also said that Ronnie failed to deliver on his early promise that by the third Dio album “it would be an equity situation” between all the band members.
Goldy discussed Campbell’s split with Dio in a recent interview with Shane Bennett of Totem Paul Radio. He said: “Ronnie picked [Vivian, Vinny and Jimmy for his band] for a reason — not just because Jimmy was in Rainbow with him and Vinny was in Sabbath with him, but there was a reason why they were in Rainbow and Sabbath. And Viv was ferocious, man. That guy, they created a really good… I remember reading a comment the other day is that people felt like maybe ‘Holy Diver’ set the bar too high. ‘Cause even ‘Last In Line’ — I love ‘Last In Line’ and ‘Sacred Heart’, but by ‘Sacred Heart’, the songs weren’t that great because Ronnie knew that the guys weren’t really giving it their all. And unfortunately — I was there; I mean, I was at Ronnie’s house all the time. I know when it went down. And at the time there was talk about them being an equal-share band by the third album. But they took it literally, like, ‘On the day of the third album, we’re going to be a equal-share band.’ [Ronnie] said ‘around the third album’. And he explained it to me one time. He said, he goes, ‘Even though Jimmy and Vinny are kind of stars already because of Rainbow and Black Sabbath, they’re kind of there already. Once everybody becomes about as famous as I am, that’s when we should be at equal share. It should happen around the third album because those guys are so good.’ And on every record deal, you have a solo album option. And so if you pick up your solo album option, that tells the guy, the main guy — whoever it is — that you’re now his equal, because the record company has picked up your solo album option. That’s all they had to do, and they didn’t, ’cause they knew they couldn’t. And It all came down to this: money.”
Referencing the fact that both Vinny and Jimmy had publicly stated that they shared Vivian’s opinion on how things were handled in terms of the way the money was split within the Dio band, Craig further added:
“There was no united front — it was Viv. I mean, Vinny says they all felt the same way Viv did, but where was the united stand? Where was the united front? Why didn’t all those guys go together? Why wasn’t it four people confronting Ronnie? Why was it just Viv? Why was it just right on — like [Vivian] set his alarm clock and the alarm went off, and he said, ‘Okay, now it’s time [to confront Ronnie].’ And he was very disrespectful to Ronnie on many occasions. Many times me and Ronnie would be at the bar together when I was still in Rough Cutt, and he was perplexed because he didn’t know what to do about Viv because Viv was being so disrespectful to him because he had such a sense of entitlement. He didn’t earn it… They went from opening act to headliner very quickly, and Viv didn’t earn it like Jimmy and Vinny and Ronnie did. And he had a sense of entitlement. He was a good guy; he really was. A lot of fans will tell you that he was a really good guy. And he was — he was a nice guy; he was a gentleman. Most of the time he was a gentleman to me…
“But anyways, that was the problem,” Craig added.
“Viv had a sense of entitlement and was very disrespectful to Ronnie from time to time. And I saw it once in a while too. And it hurt my heart, a lot of times being at the bar with him, being so perplexed by that. A lot of people think it was Wendy’s influence. It wasn’t Wendy’s influence. I’ve seen Ronnie go after Wendy like a ravening wolf… That had nothing to do with it. It was respect. And Ronnie was tired of being disrespected.”
Craig went on to say that Vivian, Vinny and Jimmy actually “got a raise” during the later years of the original Dio band while “Ronnie took a pay cut during [the] ‘Sacred Heart'” touring cycle.
“There was so much money being spent [on the road],” Craig explained. “There was, like, seven semi-trucks that would follow, that would go, ’cause they had to bring their lighting crew, they had to bring the P.A., because back in those days, the P.A.s that were in the coliseums weren’t big enough to handle the kind of stuff that they were doing and the sound that they were doing, ’cause there was big drums and big bass and explosions and all sorts of stuff. So they had to hire a company to bring in to add to the existing P.A. system that’s there and add to the sound desk that’s there and add to the stage set and add to the lighting. They were adding all this — they were bringing all this stuff. So when they complain about the lighting director getting more money than they got, it wasn’t because of Ronnie; it was because of the company that Ronnie had to hire in order to get that P.A. system to sound the way it did and the lighting the way it did. That company set the salary for the lighting director — not Ronnie. And there was an 18-foot fire-breathing dragon. I’ll bet you a million dollars if those guys were all equal-share members, that would have never happened, because the money would have been more important. I guarantee you. Not only that, because I heard each and every one of them say it — they would have rather gotten the money than an 18-foot fire-breathing dragon. But Ronnie did it for the fans and he didn’t hike up the ticket prices. But that is still being talked [about] to this day. I highly doubt that Vinny Appice’s bank account’s gonna be talked about as much as the 18-foot fire-breathing dragon.”
