Craig Goldy has no problem admitting that he is a true Dio disciple. The talented California-based guitarist and songwriter spent a number of years in Ronnie James Dio’s solo band, performing and co-writing tracks for the Dream Evil, Magica and Master of the Moon albums. More than just a hired gun guitar player, Goldy was mentored by the legendary vocalist in the ways of songwriting, production as well as the intricacies and legalities of the business side of the music business.
Through his later career, including the band Resurrection Kings, which saw him reunite with Dio/Black Sabbath drummer Vinny Appice for an album in 2016, various solo albums and other collaborations, Goldy has always tried to utilize the lessons that he learned at the feet of the master.
The new band, Dream Child, is the full realization of all that Goldy has learned, and all the inspiration and knowledge that was poured into him by Dio over their near quarter century of friendship, before the singer’s untimely passing in 2010. The group’s debut album, Until Death Do We Meet Again, will be released Sept. 14, through Frontiers Records.
“A long time ago, during the Dream Evil tour rehearsals in 1987, Ronnie said something to me in front of his best friend and favourite tour assistant that also changed my life, and which is just now starting to come to fruition. He said, ‘Goldy, I want to pass the torch onto you kid.’ And I am just now starting to understand what that meant. Because he did teach me his method of writing lyrics and melody lines. He did teach me his method of songwriting. He did pull back the curtain. It wasn’t just a peek behind the curtain like in the Wizard of Oz. He would bring me to record company meetings, and visits to radio stations and things like that,” said Goldy, from his home in San Diego.
“His wife Wendy Dio was a paralegal and she taught me how to read and write contracts. And so did Ronnie’s lawyer, who was a big-time lawyer with clients like David Bowie. Ronnie’s network reached so far and wide that I got a chance to sit in on sessions with producers and engineers who worked with John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. I got a chance to sit and soak up all that, even before I was in Dio, when I was still in Rough Cutt and he was producing our demos. All that stuff got poured into me. And I realize I am not everybody’s favourite Dio guitar player, but I was in learning mode the whole time.
“Vivian Campbell is the quintessential, iconic Dio guitar player. No question about it. Rowan Robertson had it all going on when he first joined the band, as young as he was. And Doug Aldrich had it all too, so did Tracy G. I was still in learning mode, so Ronnie poured as much into this sponge that I could possibly absorb. I realized that’s why he was telling me no and those other guys yes for some things, because I was still learning. So now, even though I am a late bloomer, I get a chance to do what I promised the fans I would do when I spoke at Ronnie’s first memorial service, which is start doing original material again and try to utilize everything I learned sitting side by side with the master for so many years. And I wanted to do it in such a way, in hopes that I would make him proud. Dream Child is just the beginning of that.”
The record does need to be set straight from the outset. Dream Child is inspired by Ronnie James Dio – particularly his time with Rainbow – but also by contemporary acts doing similar music, such as the classic Deep Purple lineup of the early 1970s. It is not a tribute album to Dio, nor is it being marketed as such. Goldy said having himself, and two other former members of Dio’s band – bassist Rudy Sarzo and drummer Simon Wright – as well as a vocalist who shares Dio’s vocal range – is meant to add authenticity to the music they are creating – not to imitate Ronnie to cash in on his impressive legacy.
“Ritchie Blackmore was basically the reason I started playing guitar. And I have told you this before that Deep Purple was my favourite band. And then came Rainbow and Ronnie was my favourite singer and still is. Dream Child is basically a group of musicians who all grew up and were inspired by that sound and that era, trying to recapture a style of music that many thought would never return again, and also make it sound new and vibrant,” he said.
“I am making no apologies. This is just the music that I like. This is what made me want to start playing guitar in the first place. This is the music I turned to in times of trouble. I came from an abusive family, I was in and out of hospitals and lived on the streets for a time and Ronnie’s voice is what I turned to in times like that. The music of that time is powerful. It changed my life and changed the lives of so many other people. I have always wanted to create something that had the same impact on somebody else that this music had on me. I think bands like Kingdom Come in the 1980s had it all wrong. They tried to make it sound like ‘what, we sound like who? Led Zeppelin? Who are they?’ Come on guys, own up to your inspiration. That’s what really hurt them.”
The idea for the band and the album came during a discussion with Frontiers Records president Serafino Perugini about another project that Goldy was working on for the label. He mentioned in an off-hand manner how he was watching a lot of YouTube videos of classic Rainbow and Deep Purple songs and shows and reading the comments. Many of those comments were arguing that there wasn’t any music like that being created any more.
“Almost every one of my favourite songs had a comment from somebody saying they don’t make music like that any more. And I just happened to say that to Serafino and he said, ‘well, can you?’ And I said yes. And he asked me if I could get Rudy Sarzo [Whitesnake, Quiet Riot, currently with The Guess Who] and Simon Wright [Dio, AC/DC] and I knew that I could. He asked me who would I write with, and I said I was already writing with [Frontiers in-house producer] Alessandro Del Vecchio, and Jeff Pilson [Dokken, Dio, Foreigner] and Doogie White from Rainbow, and also Wayne Finlay. Wayne and I were actually trying to put together a band at one point that would be like Deep Purple for the 21st century. He did a lot of great work as the keyboard player and second guitarist for Michael Schenker. So, I knew with all these guys that it could work,” Goldy explained, adding that in the back of his mind he knew he wanted to get Argentinian vocalist Diego Valdez to sing and co-write for the Dream Child project.
“A friend of Diego’s, about seven or eight years ago, sent me an Mp3 of a Dio cover that Diego did of and song that Ronnie and I wrote called Push. It was just chilling; it sounded like Ronnie had covered his own song. It was scary, and it almost hurt to listen to because Ronnie had passed not that long before. It was so close, and I was just so destroyed when he died. I got hold of Diego at the time and told him it was amazing but that it was a little too early for me to work on something like that. But I did tell him that I wanted to do an album with him some day. So, we stayed friends and now just seemed to be the time. I sent that Mp3 to Serafino and there was no question about it, it had to be Diego.”
Goldy said he was inspired by Dio in pretty much every aspect of the music business, and in particular the craft of songwriting. The two connected on a similar philosophy as to the importance of lyrics, and how they liked to emphasize both the light and the dark when it comes to human behavior, the nature of the universe and the world.
“When I first met Ronnie, it was during the sessions he was producing for Rough Cutt, the band I was in at the time. One of the first things I said to him was that I loved the lyrics where it sounds like you are saying on thing but are really saying another. I said ‘you pick these subject matters that have two opposites beliefs, there’s two opposite sides and they are both as valid as the other. So, if you’ve got two people together in the same room, they would probably argue, but because they love your music so much, they show up to the concert and they are unified because of their love for you and the music. But they are on opposite ends of the subject matter – both think that the song is about them,’” he told Dio more than three decades ago.
“It’s got this dark imagery, but yet it ends up having a positive message overall. And he grabs me by the arm and it was like I broke his code or something. So, we connected right there. And even when he was in Heaven and Hell, he would call me at home and read me his new lyrics over the phone. And because of that first encounter, and what I told him, that exchange has always stuck with me too. He liked to bring out the opposite ends of one subject. So, there was Heaven and Hell, Rainbow in the Dark, Evil or Divine. I knew that I couldn’t use those subject matters or else I would really be raked over the coals, so I just decided to write about life situations but in a similar way, because that’s my favorite type of songwriting too is making people think and talk about something that is there in their lives but maybe presented in an original way.”
One example of this us the evocative title track Until Death Do We Meet Again.
“It’s really a positive thing. It came from watching people getting married and in their vows, it always says ‘til death do us part. And I believe in the afterlife, so shouldn’t it be until death do we meet again? I thought, wow, that sounds like a great title and I just waited for the right time and the right music and the right melody to fit it,” Goldy explained.
“A lot of the lyrics on this album are like that. We talk about how life can be so difficult at times and almost impossible. However, things will change. Change will come and change the tide. And basically, the overall tone of the album is about how life can just beat the living crap out of you, but that half the time, these negative things force us down a path that we wouldn’t otherwise go on, and sometimes we end up in a better place that we wished for originally. Almost every song has something like that.”
You Can’t Take Me Down is an anthemic piece that Goldy said actually came out of a day where it seemed that Murphy’s Law was in full effect, and everything that possibly could go wrong, did go wrong. But like any good artist, he used his gift to process the pain and frustration and came out of it, with one of the best songs on the Dream Child album.
“My worst day ever actually gave birth to one of my favorite choruses that I’ve ever wrote. It was almost like several demons had been assigned to me just to mess with me all day, at every angle. From my parents’ health, to my car to my studio equipment to my gear, my pens, my paper, my shoes. And even putting on socks. I remember actually having an argument with a sock. I remember just yelling at the top of my lungs, ‘you can’t take me down.’ And I am all alone in the apartment like I was crazy. Then I thought it might be a cool premise to a song and I sat down and started writing and it was like the song was just given to me. And that ended up being You Can’t Take Me Down.”
Having two former Dio bandmates in the fold not only helps lend powerful name recognition and credibility to Dream Child, but Goldy said they both acted as consciences for the project, ensuring that while it remained inspired by Dio, that it did not become an overt, sycophantic tribute to him – that it remained once removed from the original so as to retain its own creative integrity as a musical entity and not simply be riding the late legend’s coat tails.
“Rudy and Simon would have been the first to say, ‘whoa whoa whoa, Craig you’ve got to calm this Diego guy down. You guys are getting too close to Ronnie. You have to calm it down. It’s not supposed to be an album that sounds like Ronnie.’ They would be the first to say that, but they didn’t have to say a single word because we all understood. As you listen to the album there are a lot of places where it’s just Diego being Diego and doing his own thing. But I also never coached him to sound more like Ronnie because he is just naturally influenced by Ronnie just like I am naturally influenced by Ritchie Blackmore,” he said.
“And I have to tell you as well, those two guys brought their A game musically. Simon and Rudy both played their butts off on this album.”
As for touring plans for Dream Child, Goldy said it depends on scheduling, with Sarzo’s full time position as bassist for The Guess Who being a factor.
“We all definitely want to tour this, it’s just a matter of making sure everybody in the band’s schedules synch up, and then off we go. We have had offers from guys that booked Rudy and Simon and I when we were in Dio and just got through working with Ritchie and Rainbow, and they want to bring us to Russia and stuff like that. So, we are waiting for the right opportunity, with the right window of time where everybody is available and then we will do this. We definitely want to make this a band, and not just some project.”
As well as Dream Child, Goldy said that he, Appice, singer Chas West and bassist Sean McNabb will reconvene soon for a second Resurrection Kings album.
For more information, visit www.craiggoldy.com, or www.facebook.com/DreamChildRock.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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