Wendy Dio, widow and longtime manager of the late Ronnie James Dio, confirmed during an April 29 appearance on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that Metal Blade has extended an offer to release the long-awaited reissue of Hear ‘N Aid — the 1985 metal all-star charity project spearheaded by Ronnie James Dio.
She said (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “We have been working on that. We’ve had a couple of little things that have happened. But Metal Blade has offered us a deal for this. And hopefully it could come out, yes, soon. And we’re working on a book as well, a Hear ‘N Aid book of photos, because we have so many photos from that time. So, yeah, there’s a lot of Hear ‘N Aid stuff in the works right now. As I said, we have an offer from Metal Blade, and we’ve been working on getting that together. It’s just a lot of stuff, red-tape stuff that has to be done before you can put something out.”
On plans to also record a new version of “Stars” with current artists, Wendy Dio said: “Not at the moment, but I would still like to do that. At the moment, we’re trying to get out the Hear ‘N Aid, the original one, on vinyl and on CD. So we’ve been trying to work with that at the moment, and that is what we will put out. In the future. I would like to do that. Yes, I definitely would.”
On what else the reissue package will contain, Wendy Dio said: “With the book that we’re working on, we are getting people to write, [some of the artists] that were [there], like [Judas Priest‘s] Rob Halford. And [prominent U.K. music writer, journalist, and industry executive] Dante Bonutto, who actually wrote the foreword for the original record, is going to write something for us. So, yeah, we’ve been working on that. It’s been a very long, hard road to get it out, but we will get it out. We never give up.”
On May 20 and 21, 1985, 40 artists from the metal community gathered at A&M Records Studios in Hollywood, California, to record “Stars” under the Hear ‘N Aid banner, raising money for famine relief in Africa and around the world. Participants included members of Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Blue Öyster Cult, and Spinal Tap. Contractual disputes with labels pushed the release to New Year’s Day, 1986 — on vinyl and cassette only, never on CD or digital.
Former Dio guitarist and current Def Leppard member Vivian Campbell told Guitar Interactive magazine in 2023 about the project’s origins. “When we did that, we were at Rumbo Recorders in L.A. recording the [Dio] Sacred Heart album,” Campbell said. “And it was a really dark time for Ronnie and for the band. I mean, nobody wanted to be around Ronnie.”
Campbell and late Dio bassist Jimmy Bain hatched the idea after doing a radio interview on KLOS in Los Angeles. “The DJ asked us, he said, ‘How come nobody from the hard rock world was invited to participate in that?’ And we thought, ‘You know, you’re absolutely right.’” Bain coined the name on the spot, and Campbell spent weeks cold-calling musicians — going through his publicist’s Rolodex, dialing up names like Jon Bon Jovi and Neal Schon — to assemble the roster.
Campbell recalled the day of the recording: “I remember the day we were doing it at A&M, with a film crew in there, and the guys from Spinal Tap even showed up. And that made it great because that brought a little much-needed humor to the whole situation. And all these great guitar players — we had Yngwie [Malmsteen] there and George Lynch and Neal Schon, guys who were blazing guitar [players]. And I just remember I was so busy making sure that everyone had a limo ride, had a flight, had a hotel room, had something to eat. And then, at the end of the day, it’s, like, ‘Okay, now you’ve gotta play guitar.’ It’s, like, ‘What?’”
The post WENDY DIO Confirms METAL BLADE Offer For HEAR ‘N AID Reissue: “We’ve Been Working On Getting That Together — We Will Get It Out” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
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