The 3 important lessons Ronnie James Dio learned during his career

One of the most influential Heavy Metal singers of all time, the late legendary Ronnie James Dio first gained notoriety as the frontman of ELF, an American band that had the chance to tour with Deep Purple. A few years later, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore recalled Dio and invited him to join Rainbow, his new band. It was while fronting the Hard Rock group from 1975 to 1979 that Dio first achieved fame and respect in the music business.

But that was only the beginning, he would go on to become a true Rock God, fronting Black Sabbath and, especially, his own band, Dio. In addition to those famous groups, he was also part of several others during the 1960s, giving him vast experience in music. Over the years, he shared three important lessons he learned during his career.

The 3 important lessons Ronnie James Dio learned during his career

Nothing lasts forever, especially bands

Ronnie sadly passed away in 2009 at the age of 67, a victim of cancer. A few years before, in 2005, in an interview with Let It Rock he talked about things he learned being part of bands. The first one is that nothing lasts forever, especially bands because ultimately you’re dealing with a lot of people and anything can happen.

“I think what you learn the most is dealing with people. When you start a band you never think about what are the problems there are going to be. All you think about is music that you’re making and how much fun it is to play music, to sing, to write, all these things. Then you start to realize that you are dealing with people who got their own problems. So that means that nothing is going to last forever.”

“I think that’s the lesson I’ve learnt from all the bands from all the bands that I’ve been in. I always thought that each band that I was in was going to be the beginning and the end, that I would always be in that band, and when I retire I would retire from that band; that we’d become like The Rolling Stones and go on forever and never change anything.”

“But what I learnt is that never happens, because people have different priorities: they have lives to live, they have problems, and their problems affect what’s going on in your band. Then, people have problems with each other and sometimes can’t stay forever – I learnt that,” Ronnie James Dio said.

There is always someone trying to take advantage of you

The second thing Dio told Let It Rock that he learned was that in the music business there will always be someone trying to take advantage of you. So the singer said musicians need to be always paying attention to everything that is happening around them.

“Another thing I learnt is that there are always people out there wanting to take advantage of you. Because musicians are usually very child-like people because all we do is play. We say we’re going to play a song and we’ll play it, it’s somewhere in the air for musicians: we don’t think about anything but the music because it’s all that gives us the joy. In the meantime, there’s always a manager, or an agent, or someone who wants to take what you’ve got and what they can’t do and make lots of money from that, and leave you lying there on the ground.”

“Those are the two things that I’ve learnt the most. So I think what the lesson learnt from that is, it’s that you should never go into something with your eyes closed. I’ve always realized that there are not only a few bad people in this world – there are many, many bad people in this world. It’s one thing that you love the music, but as long as you’re smart enough to see that someone is out there trying to take advantage of you, you learn a little more about this business, which I did. I’ve learnt more about it, who was going to take advantage of me and who wasn’t.”

Have an identity as a musician

The final thing Dio said he learned over the decades he was a singer was that you need to have an identity. According to him, sounding unique and making unique music will make a musician stand out and not be just another one in middle of others.

“Musically… Music is music, and it’s either you get better or you don’t get better. To me, the greatest lesson I’ve learnt musically is that if you’re not different, no one’s going to care about you. You can’t be a copy of someone else, and if you’re good enough to create your own identity. Then people will like you, but no one wants to have the same thing over and over, and over again.”

“So as a musician, it’s one thing to be a good player, but it’s another thing to have an identity, to create something that is so different from what all the other people are doing that you will be the best,” Ronnie James Dio said.