Dream Child – Burning the Gates of Babylon

Sunday, 2nd September 2018

Dead Rhetoric: Do you hope to be able to bring this material to the world in a live setting with as much of the recording lineup as possible – or will this strictly be a studio-driven outfit?

Goldy: No, once again good question. We want to be able to do this. It’s more a matter of everybody’s schedules aligning and being able to do it. We’ve gotten some offers already to go to Russia, and it was great. One of the guys in the past who had worked with Dio, and just got done working with Rainbow, he wants to bring us out there. There are opportunities and we have to just coordinate them with everybody’s schedules. Everybody wants to tour this, they are proud of this album. Everyone brought their A game- Simon Wright plays his ass off! It’s like a different drummer than what people know him from with Dio and Dio Disciples. A lot of times before we would take off to do Dio Disciples and tour, the night before I would stay with Simon. Simon is staying at one of Ronnie’s houses, and it’s the same house that I ended up staying on the couch the night of the Rough Cutt audition- so it was almost like going back to mom and dad’s house.

It was weird, the house seemed smaller. There are two bathrooms, and one of them was broken. In the kitchen when I was going to the bathroom, I would hear Simon listening to old Genesis albums. I loved old Genesis. And then Simon did the Operation:Mindcrime thing, which was very challenging for him. He got a chance to expose that ability, that almost laid dormant in the past. I didn’t know he could play like this- and he and I were in the same room together when he cut the drums. He did his homework, learned the songs – he gave things a try. There was one really great track that got screwed up by the computer. I had the engineer send it to me, and I had to edit the whole 17 track, drum session to sync up to the click and song. It took me all day, because luckily in ProTools today you can edit drums effortlessly. It was his performance, it wasn’t chopping up the best parts.

Dead Rhetoric: What do you think were your biggest takeaways regarding songwriting or the music business during the Dio years that you’ve been able to consistently apply to your craft from this point forward?

Goldy: Two things. A long time ago, Ronnie’s best friend and favorite tour assistant is a witness to this. During a rehearsal back when Ronnie was still with us during the Dream Evil days, Ronnie came up to me and said, ‘kid- I’m going to pass the torch onto you.’ And his friend looked at me… I don’t want to put his name out there until it’s okay to do so, he just goes, ‘woah – do you know what that means?’. I didn’t really understand it at the time – because I do realize I was not the favorite Dio guitar player. Doug Aldrich had it all going on when he joined the band – even Rowan (Robertson). Same with Tracy G, and Vivian (Campbell) is the iconic guitar player for Dio. I was more in learning mode. Ronnie saw me as this thirsty sponge and he would just pour his knowledge, information, and methods that I could handle in. I was able to use a lot that I’ve learned from him, and so many other people I’ve worked with.

At his first public memorial service, I did say that if I would ever do original material again, that I would try to utilize everything that I learned from him in such a way that would maybe make him proud. I’ve been getting a lot of those comments, that Ronnie would be proud of this. This album in many ways could have been better, but we wanted to make sure it was out on time. An album shouldn’t come with an explanation- this is almost like the Machine Head of Dream Child, there were a lot of things going on at the time. It came out as good as did with the circumstances we were facing. It allowed me to begin a new path. When we were recording the Dream Evil live concert for MTV Headbangers Ball, there’s an interview that Ronnie did, a voiceover. He looked forward to Craig being the leader of his own band someday – and it took me a long time to get inspired to do music again, but I’m on my own path. I love doing the Dio Disciples stuff- I love being able to go out in the crowd and treat people the way Ronnie did, keep his memory alive.

Ronnie and I had a ball together – the rest of the band would go to the hotel, because we were friends we did it together. He was the guy that would make sure everybody got taken care of before we would leave the hotel. Back in the day when I had it all going on, there were Playboy bunny looking girls backstage, Ronnie and I would head to the shorter, not so pretty girls and he would hug them, kiss them, and make them feel like queens. He would pay fans rent when they couldn’t afford to pay rent. He gave me a check and an address, and I went to this address without telling me what it was. I show up at this building, and told the person that Ronnie wanted me to give this to you. Turned out it was a check that he had written to help one of his fans to pay his rent. There was a lot of that stuff going on. I have to have something of my own, to fulfill Ronnie’s prophecy.

I’ll always want to pay tribute to him for the rest of my life. Dio Disciples is about a family who lost a family member and we are doing a memorial service in the form of a rock concert. We are always coming out of pocket when it comes to those shows for the most part- and that’s okay because it’s a labor of love. Serafino told me Dream Child is my band, and he wants to make this as successful as possible. I’m hoping that I’m back on my own road and my own path- hopefully be able to make the kind of music that got me started in the first place.

Dead Rhetoric: Out of the three studio albums you worked with Dio on, do you have a specific favorite or do each resonate with you because of the time period they were developed around?

Goldy: Basically you answered your own question there too. Dream Evil was the very first full-length album, that’s very special. Ronnie and I wrote most of that together. A lot of times it’s the first Dio album that had a lot of Rainbow influences on it, so it through some people off a bit. I came from Giuffria, so people were like ‘who is this hair band guy?’ replacing Vivian. Back when I worked with Ronnie on a late night Rough Cutt studio session, he looked at me and said, ‘Goldy- if Vivian ever doesn’t work out, you would be my first choice’. And that’s why there were no auditions – Vivian was out, I was in, and that’s it. He knew it would work out.

Magica – Ronnie wanted to do a concept album to follow up Dream Evil. He’s always wanted to do a concept album, and when I rejoined the band I had done an album linked together with what I’d like to call sound effect scenarios. How Dark Side of the Moon never has a break – it fades in and out with sound effects or another intro all strung together as one long piece. I wanted to do that with the Magica record- so not only did Ronnie and I write most of the music together, I got to write the connecting pieces too. We had to record it in a special way so it was all one long piece. It was a special time – when I rejoined Dio, he was very efficient as he could play bass, he could play guitar, keyboards – he was a bass player anyways in Elf. He would program the drum machine, but I was faster at programming than he was. I convinced him to let me do the grunt work – we played keyboards on that Magica and Master of the Moon. Sometimes I would program it, sometimes I would play it- sometimes he would play it. As we were recording Magica, we wrote down all the keyboard patches that we used, and then we went through the songs to see what lines he would double, where he would put a third harmony below or above. I have this notebook filled with all these things. He would move me into his home and we would have 24 hour access together to write and record. When we started writing for Dream Evil he would call me at 3 am with an idea – sing his melody lines over the phone and I’d have this little guitar amp right by the speaker of the phone. Then five minutes later, can we try this?

Magica was special to Ronnie and Wendy and the record company, because that kind of put Dio back on the map. Some of the failing sales of the other albums – even though I love what Tracy G brought to the band, I was jealous. I wanted to get into some of that real dark, weird stuff- same thing with Rowan he brought some killer stuff to Lock Up the Wolves. I was in learning mode, and now I was getting my own thing together. Magica we clicked on equals for that one – Master of the Moon was good, but we had a bunch of obstacles too. There are some special songs on that one, Jeff came back to the band. Jeff Pilson really created Dio history – as most people will see all lyrics and melody lines by Ronnie James Dio on an album. There’s a song called “Stay Out of My Mind” in the Tracy G days, that’s a song that Jeff Pilson wrote, and Ronnie used his melody lines and lyrics for that song. The very first time ever Ronnie did that.

Dead Rhetoric: What’s on the horizon for activities either in the studio or live over the next twelve months for Craig Goldy?

Goldy: We are hoping to do an original material album for the Dio Disciples, and negotiating with BMG at the moment. There is another Resurrection Kings album that we are gearing up for which I’m really happy about, because I really love working with Vinny Appice. Nobody plays like him – there’s a version of “Mistreated” live at the Aurora with John West singing, it’s just spectacular the way he plays. Dream Child album will come out, I’m hoping people will like it and this is the beginning of restoring some balance. Because people are stealing music on the internet, bands are turning around and charging $500 for shows and $1,000 for meet and greets. At the same time, the fans got tired of paying $12-$15 a pop for a whole album and getting tired of only getting two to three good songs. I understand if you buy the CD and the vinyl if you move from time to time, those things go missing so you feel entitled to listen to those things on YouTube. I understand that – previews of a song on YouTube can be misleading just like movie previews. A lot of us people in the 80’s only got paid as sidemen, now that it’s our time people are stealing our music. It’s hard to get the best musicians to give it their best performance-wise and ideas, only for it to be stolen. I’m hoping this album will restore the balance again.

The fans and the bands need to work together. We have to do ten different things to make the equivalency of one just because of this. Ronnie would bring an 18-foot, fire breathing dragon on stage and didn’t hike up the ticket prices, because it was his gift to the fans. I’m just taking a step of faith, give my best ideas forward. If you like the song, pay 99 cents or a $1.29. Money is a tool – disposable income in Ronnie’s world was just a way to help other people. The true currency of life is not money- money has no soul and money has no heart, but the music does. Even though the internet has changed things drastically, the way of reaching people’s hearts and piercing their souls, that process is still the same. The true currency of life is love, respect, honor, the spirit of giving, integrity.

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