Interview

austria-flag.gif (7024 Byte) Im Herbst 98 hatte Tobias Gsell die Gelegenheit, sich mit Ronnie James Dio zu unterhalten; mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Radio GONG dürfen wir Dir hier das Interview präsentieren. Um Ronnie's Antworten hören zu können, wird der RealAudio Player benötigt. Sollte er noch nicht als Browser-Plugin geladen sein, kann er von Real heruntergeladen werden.

Greetings, my children!

English textThis interview was held by Tobias Gsell during the "Last In Live" tour  and is presented here with kind permission from the friendly people at Radio GONG. To hear Ronnie's answers, you need RealAudio Player. If it's not already available in your browser, you can download it from Real.

Q: The press never knows your exact birthday. I don't want to know it, but I want to know the intention behind it. Do you think that age isn't important as long as you're young in your heart?

A: RealAudio Clip, 59KB

Q: I read your first instrument was a trumpet. Did it help you with exercising your lungs, your breath?

A: RealAudio Clip, 93KB

Q: Your musical career is now over 30 years long - what has been the most exciting time during this period? Has it been the time with Rainbow, Black Sabbath, or your solo career?

A: RealAudio Clip, 41KB

Q: That's been in the mid-seventies - before the time with Rainbow?

A: RealAudio Clip, 26KB

Q: Perhaps you know Ritchie Blackmore will be here on Wednesday and will give a concert. Now he does a medieval sound with his female partner - Candice - and also he made a solo album with acoustic sound and some kind of very strange music. Did you ever feel the same, or was it always straight Rock'n'Roll and Hard Rock?

A: RealAudio Clip, 73KB

Q: Isn't it a little bit frustrating for you as a singer if the audience always wants to hear the old stuff, like Rock'n'Roll Children, Holy Diver, Rainbow stuff, and so on... what is the reaction on new material, for example from your last studio album?

A: RealAudio Clip, 210KB

Q: You say that it's not a problem that it reminds you now that you're 20 years older when this song came out, it was 1978 or so?

A: RealAudio Clip, 43KB

Q: How is your relation to modern music trends like - it started with Grunge and then Techno-Metal-Rap-Crossover on the whole - could you do some kind of this crossover stuff - or would it be straight impossible?

A: RealAudio Clip, 326KB

Q: 'cause that's a problem for us in commercial radio - in Germany it's the same, we have commercial private stations, so we have to live from the money that comes in from advertising... so we can't play songs that are 18 minutes long - it's not possible in the day parts. We try to play this - especially at our station - but we're one of 4 or 5 so-called "rock format stations" in Germany. There are not many more!

A: RealAudio Clip, 145KB

Q: Best example of this is if bands with big names, like, for a german band, Scorpions - they only had success witht their ballads, because those ballads had been so soft that all the radio format stations could play them...

A: RealAudio Clip, 143KB

Q: What do you think nowadays about your fantastic stage shows with pyrotechnics, light show and so on what you had in the middle-eighties?

A: RealAudio Clip, 401KB

Q: Just two more questions... the title could make believe that it's really your last live tour - how about this?

A: RealAudio Clip, 48KB

Q: If you think it over - what has been the funniest event ever on stage?

A: RealAudio Clip, 227KB

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