Dio: Dreamers never die (now on Showtime) is the long-awaited documentary about the greatest heavy metal singer who ever was or will be. Sorry Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Ozzy Osbourne and King Diamond – Ronnie James Dio had lungs like no other and you know it. Directors Don Argott and Demian Fenton – the duo behind another seminal heavy metal documentary, Last days here, about the roller-coaster life of Pentagram singer Bobby Liebling – you’ve put together this exuberant biography, authorized by Dio’s longtime wife and manager, Wendy Dio. It gives us an almost complete portrait of one of the true, honestly Lucifer greats of hard rock and metal, a one-of-a-kind man with a one-of-a-kind voice.
The essentials: SUBTITLE: 1983 (note: it’s not really 1983). A long haired teenager runs up the stairs and drops Dio’s ‘Holy Diver’ on the turntable and starts losing his shit. (He doesn’t actually lose his shit — he’s an actor in one of this doc’s cheesy-funny speculative reenactment scenes. But the boy looks like you or I did back when we were 14 and hella stoked to drop the needle on a new one metal album that would almost certainly drive our parents insane.) Get ready for some Dio praise: From funny singer/actor Jack Black, Judas Priest screamer Rob Halford, kickass rocker Lita Ford, veteran rock DJ Eddie Trunk and others. “There was just something about him,” says someone offscreen, and to that I say, yeah, of course, if there wasn’t anything about him there probably wouldn’t be a documentary about him and that something about him that was really something, definitely was HIS VOICE, an exquisitely marbled, snarling baritone that gives me goosebumps just thinking about hearing it.
But leave the deep dive into the intricacies of Dio’s vocal prowess to the opera singers who respond to crazy rock singers on YouTube. This documentary takes us to Dio’s house where his widow Wendy still lives. It’s filled with dark wood furnishings and carvings and sculptures befitting a man who wrote songs in which wild dreams, mystical rainbow arches and slain dragons were inspirational metaphors for living life to the fullest. Wendy pulls out a trumpet. It was Dios, of course, the same one he played long ago when he was Ronald James Padavona in little Cortland, New York. His Hardcase dad made him practice the horn three hours a day, which primed and trained his lungs and diaphragm to be a damn good singer. It was something he didn’t want to do at first, but the mic was handed to him and once he got going, that was it: the birth of A Voice.
We meet a mad Dio collector who I envy for having a bunch of early recordings of the man, from trumpet performances to Tom Jones-esque ballads. That was in the 1950s. Over the next decade, Dio toured with a cover band that learned entire Beatles albums for their repertoire before forming Elf, the beefy, blues-based rock band modeled after their heroes, Deep Purple. Fate would book Eleven as the opening act for Purple, and when the British stalwarts parted ways with wildly talented weirdo guitarist Richie Blackmore (Lita Ford sums him up perfectly: “F—ing Blackmore. Oh my damn god.‘), he recruited Dio to sing for Rainbow, who abandoned the blues for neoclassical influences, becoming your defining castle rock band. It was MAGIC.
Ultimately, however, Blackmore wanted to write hits for American radio, which was not Dio’s cup of tea. In fact, it was never Dio’s business. The world came to him. He didn’t agree to that. When he rose to the top of the heavy metal world in the mid-’80s, it was on his terms. Dio never sold out. But I’m going ahead here. I skipped how Dio came to the top of the band of gods of all gods whose name needs to be entered like this:
BLACK SABBATH
He replaced the seemingly irreplaceable Ozzy Osbourne and recorded two albums that are absolute cornerstones of all heavy metal eras. When personality conflicts ended this creative marriage, he formed his aptly named solo band Dio, wrote songs in the crappy little shed behind his house, and took out a mortgage to pay for his first tour. We see former Skid Row singer and living cartoon character Sebastian Bach singing along to a Dio record. We’re getting a great piece on the Dio-led Hear ‘N Aid project, which sees all the big names in metal getting together in one room to record a ‘We Are the World’ style charity single. We sit down with drummer and longtime Dio collaborator Vinny Appice as he digs through old Dio band rehearsal tapes – and there’s Dio’s voice, full and powerful even during a crappy old rehearsal, just roaring because he couldn’t help it could . F—ing Dio. Oh my damn god.
Which movies will it remind you of?: dreamers never die is a traditional talking heads retrospective and doesn’t have the fly-on-the-wall style of definitive metal bios like Anvil! The Story of Anvil! or Metallica: Some kind of monster. It’s leaning closer We are twisted sister or Joan Jett doc Bad reputationbut with more playful stylistic and tonal flourishes.
Notable performance: They can’t help but love highly animated gits like Bach, Ford, and Black as they share their enthusiasm for Dio. But speaking minds like Trunk and Dio biographer Mick Wall provide crucial context for the story of the man’s career.
Memorable dialogue: Black on why Dio sang songs with dark, evil themes: “How good is the Bible without the devil? Dude, no seasoning.”
gender and skin: none.
Our opinion: Dio has none behind the music Saga of Triumph and Tragedy – Aside from creative clashes with musical collaborators and some vague, briefly addressed marital issues with Wendy, Dio’s career hasn’t progressed in the usual sex-drugs-and-rock manner. Like anyone who spends the better part of five decades in the music business, Dio had his ups and downs in terms of commercial viability, but he never stopped singing, recording and touring, even in the darkest days of the 1990s as metal incurable was Passe to all but the true living who never die (WE KNOW WHO WE ARE, DON’T WE?).
So rather than structuring the doc like a rollercoaster, Argott and Fenton have put together a celebratory biography full of exuberant speakers, cheeky re-enactments, and powerful archival footage. They cover the origins of the devil horns gesture that Dio popularized with his own bare hands (adapted from his extremely intimidating grandmother!), explore his often empowering and upbeat lyrical themes without getting overly dramatic, and assert that he is a was more accessible, down-to-earth -earthly human and concentrated driven artist who died far too early (2010, at the age of 67, of stomach cancer). And then we get a slew of colorful comments and anecdotes: “Ronnie defeats the dragon, became a metaphor for the man,” says Dio guitarist Craig Goldy as we see Dio on stage slaying a beast with a large sword . “Ronnie couldn’t write ‘Unskinny Bop Bop’ if they put a gun to his head,” says Dio fan and fellow rock singer Don Dokken.
For Dio hedonists who already know the basics of his life, the gem moments here — like Appice’s rehearsal tape and archive snippets of Dio’s pre-eleven performances — are worth the price of admission. (You’ll also nag about some glossed over parts of his career, such as his first reunion with SABBATH in the early ’90s.) But beyond that, dreamers never die is a warm, shiny endeavor that ultimately feels like a bunch of metalheads sitting in a room, cranking up “Mob Rules” and “Holy Diver” and sipping a few beers while gushing about their all-time favorite singer.
Our appeal: enthusiastic and affirming, Dio: Dreamers never die is a feast for headbangers. I can’t speak for the uninitiated as her mileage may vary, but it’s also a reasonably thorough, informative, and professional biography. Stream it.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more about his work below johnserbaatlarge.com.
