Ronnie James Dio on the Reason Rob Halford Joined Black Sabbath in ’92 for Two Shows Opening for Ozzy: “Someone wanted to break this band up” – VIDEO – Rock History 101

Ronnie James Dio:

With Sabbath, we were offered to be the opening act for Ozzy (Osbourne), which were supposed to be his farewell shows. He was never going to tour again; he was never going to play again. Gee, what happened?

I didn’t want any part of that. I had stopped being in my own band in Dio. Tony (Iommi) had not had Tony Martin anymore, Cozy Powell. We now had Vinny (Appice), myself, Geezer (Butler), and Tony. We all gave things up to do what we thought was important, which was to make another Black Sabbath album with those people.

Then they felt it was more important to make whatever money that was offered to be the opening act for Ozzy. I totally disagreed. We started ourselves. All the tours we had done since ‘Dehumanizer’ were done with us and opening acts, and, to me, that’s the way it should’ve been. So, I refused to do it. They, in turn, brought in Rob Halford to do those last two shows. That showed me how important they thought I was as a person. But it didn’t matter what I thought. To me, it was wrong to do that.

I did not want to be part of the circus that was going to happen that night. And that circus was for them to not only be the act that went on before Ozzy, but then after Ozzy, for them to get together again with Bill Ward, Tony, Geezer, and Ozzy, which is what they did. They announced that they were going to have a reunion. Well, that would’ve meant that it wouldn’t be any band with me in it anyway, or Vinny. So, I guess I did the right thing.

And then not too long after that, Ozzy decided, “No, I don’t want to this.” Let’s face it, it all comes down to the fact that someone wanted to break this band up and they did a very good job of it. That’s what happened. It was all a bunch of political mumbo jumbo, things that shouldn’t have happened but they did.