Ronnie James Dio’s opinion on Eddie Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen changed the course of guitar playing after Van Halen’s debut album was released in 1978, and the entire Rock and Roll scene was mesmerized, trying to figure out how he was playing like that. In the following years, Hard Rock and Heavy Metal embraced that influence, creating a whole new generation of imitators.

Over the decades, many Metal musicians have shared their opinions on Eddie, including the late Ronnie James Dio, who is considered by many to be the greatest vocalist in the genre.

What was Ronnie James Dio’s opinion on Eddie Van Halen

“Eddie changed the face of guitar and that should be legend enough. But it was the whole band’s devil-may-care musical attitude that really captured my attention. David was brilliant and spawned a new batch of frontmen, but they did it together. What a breath of fresh air. Great band, great guys, great times,” Dio said in Neil Zlozower’s book “Van Halen: A Visual History: 1978 – 1984”.

Back in the ’80s, when choosing some of his favorite music videos to be played on a British TV show, Dio picked Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”, praising Eddie and David Lee Roth. “This is not exactly my favorite all-time Heavy Rock or Heavy Metal band, although there are a few people in the band that I respect incredibly. One happens to be the guitar player, who has been a real moving force in changing guitar playing attitudes.”

He continued:

“I just think that the video itself is done so tongue in cheek and that the main character, who is David Lee Roth is really an incredible person. Just as a personality, he is very outspoken, he’s very brash. He is somewhat the bad boy of Rock and Roll, but he is able to take a laugh out of himself. (So) this is Van Halen! The song is called ‘Hot For Teacher’,” he said in 1985 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). After the video was played, Ronnie lamented they had split up.

As Dio said, he had the chance to meet and spend good times with the members of the band. There is even a famous photo of him with Eddie, Jimmy Bain, and Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee. They had the chance to meet him when they were the opening act for Rainbow in the 70s.

Curiously, in the beginning of Van Halen’s career, they used to cover Rainbow’s “Man On the Silver Mountain”. The song was co-written and sung by Dio when he was in Ritchie Blackmore’s band. The fact that he had previously worked with Blackmore and Tony Iommi, two of the greatest guitarists in the world, reinforces how valuable his positive opinion of Eddie was.

He was also a fan of Diamond Dave and as revealed by his widow and manager Wendy Dio. She said he considered creating an animated movie in the ’80s using Roth’s voice for the main character. He would be a demonic beast named Murray, who was Dio’s mascot. “It was going to be a Middle-Earth musical. David Lee Roth he wanted as the main character (laughs),” she told The Metal Voice in 2023.

Eddie Van Halen donated one of his guitars to the Ronnie James Dio cancer fund

Ronnie passed away in 2010 at the age of 67, a victim of stomach cancer. Later on a fund was created by Wendy Dio, to support research and further early detection, prevention and treatment of prostate, colon and stomach cancers. In 2012, to help the cause, Eddie donated one of his guitars to be auctioned.

The model, an EVH Wolfgang, was signed by the guitarist and was a prototype custom-made for Eddie, with no serial number. More than 80 guitars donated by famous artists were auctioned at the time, raising more than 100,000 dollars.

After Dio’s death, Van Halen’s bassist Michael Anthony recalled how the band first met him and how they used to cover Rainbow songs. “I was saddened to hear yesterday about the passing of one of Rock’s most powerful vocalists, Ronnie James Dio. He was an influence to me, growing up playing music. I remember in Van Halen we used to do ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’ in the club days. During one of our early tours we played a festival in Europe with his band. My condolences go out to his family, he will be missed,” he told Billboard in 2010.

Eddie was a big Black Sabbath fan

Eddie Van Halen was a big fan of Black Sabbath and in the early days he and his brother even considered naming their band “Rat Salad”, after the instrumental track from the album “Paranoid” (1970). Although he praised Sabbath multiple times over the decades and was a close friend of Tony Iommi, there are no records of him praising Dio’s era in the band. However, he always supported Iommi and his playing. “He was the father of heavy metal in my mind,” he told  Rolling Stone in 2011.

He even had the chance to co-write a song for Sabbath with Iommi. It was the track “Evil Eye”, featured on “Cross Purposes” (1994). That was the album that followed “Dehumanizer” (1992), the final one with Dio on vocals as Black Sabbath. The singer would be part of the only album of the spin-off band Heaven and Hell, released in 2009.