An (Un)Holy Deep Dive into Dio

If you’re looking for the scribe who fits the bill or “World’s Most Prolific Rock Writer,” you can likely look no further than Martin Popoff. The 62-year-old Canadian has penned (or typed) nearly 8,000 record reviews, published 125+ books, written band bios, documentary scripts and liner notes, and contributed to dozens of magazines and websites.

Fortunately for fans of hard rock and heavy metal, those are the genres he’s chosen to focus on. And the level of detail both in words and visuals in his books are extremely valuable to fans, and especially those who count themselves as hardcore.

In fact, Popoff has written so much that he may be running out of new subjects. Hence, he has been revising/republishing/repackaging some previous works. As with his new Dio: The Unholy Scriptures—The Complete Unofficial Chronicle of Ronnie James Dio’s Solo Canon (400 pp., $45, Schiffer Publishing).

The handsome, glossy hardcover combines two earlier Dio tomes, to which Popoff has added even more text and visuals. And it’s a fabulous dissection of the 10 studio and seven live albums put out under the band name Dio from 1983’s powerhouse debut Holy Diver through 2014. Ronnie James Dio himself died in 2010 at the age of 67 from stomach cancer and even made several trips to Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Popoff relies on a trove of archival and recent interviews—many he conducted himself over the years—to tell the story of each album and tour cycle chronologically. In addition to reflections from Dio himself (always a loquacious and deep thinker in talks with the media), he has insight from bandmembers, associates, and Dio’s longtime wife and manager Wendy. She has kept the man the music alive since his passing with a flurry of record, book, and film projects.

And it’s no hagiography. Former members of Dio’s band—most notably original guitarist Vivian Campbell—have taken issue over the years with Dio over purported stinginess over songwriting credits and financial compensation. They have voice here on both musical and money matters.

After high-profile stints as the lead warbler in Rainbow and then Black Sabbath (replacing the fired Ozzy Osbourne), conflicts with Sabs Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler lead Dio to stake out on his own, taking drummer Vinny Appice with him, then adding Campbell, bassist Jimmy Bain, and then keyboardist Claude Schnell.

Though it must be noted that the last would have to set up his gear and perform behind the curtain during early concerts, for some ill-reasoned idea that keyboards and synths were “not metal.” Ironically, Dio’s biggest hit, “Rainbow in the Dark,” featured very prominent keyboards.

Popoff extensively quotes not just Dio himself, but seemingly every member of the often-rotating-and-returning lineup. And they’re not always complimentary of their leader or each other (Vivian Campbell and Tracy G’s comments are often blunt about the boss).

Especially during the years of albums like Strange Highways and Angry Machines when anything that smacked of heavy metal (or Dio’s favorite fantasy themes of swords, dragons, and wizards) was considered gauche in the Age of Grunge. And while a good chunk of his fanbase weathered these slower, doomy-albums, Dio (again with the revolving-door membership) had two latter solid albums with Killing the Dragon and Master of the Moon. He also reunited with his Sabbath lineup for tours and new music, but under the name Heaven and Hell (to avoid the wrath of Sharon Osbourne).

As with many of his other books, Popoff reproduced a generous amount of band ephemera (posters, tickets, backstage passes, print ads) along with concert photos. Much of it from his own envious archive.

Make no mistake, Dio: The Unholy Scriptures is not really for the listener who just has Holy Diver or The Last in Line and not listened to them in ages. It’s for deeper fans of the man born Ronald James Padavona. And the real popularizer of the now-ubiquitous “metal horns” gesture. Which is actually the storied finger-extending Italian maloik curse/defense he learned from his grandmother.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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