Here is the unedited, raw interview with Ronnie James Dio...

What kind of vocal training or exercises do you do?

"No to both."

No to both . . . ?

"I've never had vocal training and I never do exercises."

How do you decide in your mind how you're going to tackle a specific verse? You have a lot of dynamics, I think, in your singing.

"It's a matter of what you're singing. I mean, certainly in the rock & roll world, you have to understand what you're singing. Luckily for me, I write most of my own material. If it's important to you, you'll try to portray it, or sing it in a way that people will feel the emotion from it. So it's just a matter of understanding what you're singing, and dealing with it as a spoken word, not just a singing part. Too many people get caught up in their own voices."

I think that's probably one of your strong points, is you've consistently seemed to have done that throughout your career, to have made the song better.

"Well, you know, it's a matter of going and always making sure that I did that to something early on, that I always made sure that I did. The words are very important to me, they have something to say. They weren't just a series of notes to me, to show off my power, or show vibrato somewhere. It's like reading a book. You know, you're telling a story, and if you can't do it in a way that makes the audience interested, then they're probably not going to be listening to it."

Yeah. Well, how would you describe the differences and similarities between Richie Blackmore, Tony Iomi, Vivian Campbell and Tracy G. -- and forgive me if I left out a guitarist or two?

"Uh, well, a lot of it is like comparing apples to oranges. I mean, you really can't compare Tony to Richie at all. They're completely different players. Tony is very interested in being a rhythm guitar player. I think he feels that is most important, and totally agree with him. Richie plays with one finger on the E string, and that's his rhythm playing, and I've seen drummers and keyboard players do that. So, it's hard to compare the two. Richie is obviously the much better soloist than Tony. Richie has got great technique, incredible technique, wonderful feel, great touch. Tony has all of that as a rhythm player. The riffs that he comes up with are phenomenal. He has so many of 'em. Vivian was a completely different player than the two of them. Vivian certainly had a lot of speed -- and speed was a big thing at that time anyway. Plus, he also had a lot of passion in his playing, and his solos were much more intricate than most, I'd say, but with a lot of flash. He was a good rhythm player, but more of a poppy player. The kind of songs he was writing were rooted and very firm, and wouldn't lead you astray too often. He was a great player. And then Tracy does all those things that Tony could do as a rhythm player. He knows the sound, and loves the sound, just huge. He's got riffs coming out of his ears like Tony did. But he also was able to play with the passion of Vivian and Richie. He doesn't have Richie's technique, but who does, really? The thing I like the most about Tracy is that he's experimental. He's willing to take chances and he wants to take the music into the future."

What would be the songs from your career that you would label as defining moments?

"I would think that the song 'Man in a Silver Moon,' 'Heaven and Hell' was a good one. Actually, the whole album was great."

I think most people would agree. I was talking to the guys in Atomic Opera last weekend and told 'em I was gonna talk to you.

"Great. Give 'em my regards when you talk to 'em next. Are they still together? I heard they broke up."

Yeah, Frank is still goin' at it and they've got new members. Actually, the drummer, Mark, was with 'em this past weekend. They played at a one-off festival.

"What happened to Jonas?"

He cut his hair. That was the first thing, I guess, and I can't remember exactly why he left. But Jonas and Jonathan are out.

"I really like that band a lot. Not only are they nice people, but boy, they perform so well."

They're redefining their sound a little bit. They're kind of grafting in some of their lighter moments. Their first album didn't really sell at all, but they're still crankin' away.

"Frank's a talented man, so he'll get there."

He wanted me to ask you whatever happened to them doing a cover of "Heaven and Hell" for the Ronnie James Dio tribute album.

"Tell him that it never came about. It wasn't a matter of them not being included -- nobody was included! It just wasn't done."

A lot of the songs on Angry Machines seem to deal with the human mind. How and why does this fascinate you?

"Well, I think because of the same way that I've always written in fantasy fairy tale. Fantasy being things that you really can't put your finger on, either real or unreal. Much of the same way with the mind is. Unless you're one hell of a psychiatrist or therapist or whatever, you wouldn't know what's going on in there. I think the mind just fascinates me, a piece of tissue in our heads, which we only use a minuscule amount of. My mind boggles at what we could do with the brain. It's what the mind has either created or destroyed that defines its success, because I judge humans as being some form cancer on this earth. It's easy to see what we've done, spread all over this planet and pretty much kicked this planet in the crotch, and while it's still bent over, we do pretty bad things to it as well. So, it's for that reason that I'm kind of . . . why do we do the things that we do? Why are we doing this to our world, to our children, to our loved ones, to ourselves? It's just, I guess, in answer to your question, I would like to know why the human mind does the things that it does. So I'm talking about it, writing about it, singing about it, thinking about it, until I get the answer."

A good artist is one who asks questions.

"I would hope so. Getting the answers is the hard part."

How has your Roman Catholic background inspired, affected or driven your lyrics writing.