Former Dio guitarist Craig Goldy recently joined Shane Bennett of Totem Paul Radio for an interview and said Vivian Campbell disrespected Ronnie James Dio.
Goldy said Campbell’s split with Dio was partly over money. He explained Ronnie wanted equal shares once the band members were as famous as him, but that didn’t happen. By the third album, tensions grew as expectations about equal shares weren’t met.
Craig noted that Vinny Appice and Jimmy Bain had agreed with Vivian about issues with how the money was split in Dio and continued, “There was no united front — it was Viv. I mean, Vinny says they all felt the same way Viv did, but where was the united stand? Where was the united front? Why didn’t all those guys go together?”
“Why wasn’t it four people confronting Ronnie? Why was it just Viv? Why was it just right on — like [Vivian] set his alarm clock and the alarm went off, and he said, ‘Okay, now it’s time [to confront Ronnie].’ And he was very disrespectful to Ronnie on many occasions,” Goldy revealed.
The rocker added, “Many times me and Ronnie would be at the bar together when I was still in Rough Cutt, and he was perplexed because he didn’t know what to do about Viv because Viv was being so disrespectful to him because he had such a sense of entitlement. He didn’t earn it… ”
“They went from opening act to headliner very quickly, and Viv didn’t earn it like Jimmy and Vinny and Ronnie did. And he had a sense of entitlement. He was a good guy; he really was. A lot of fans will tell you that he was a really good guy. And he was — he was a nice guy; he was a gentleman. Most of the time he was a gentleman to me…,” Goldy further shared.
Ronnie, Vivian, Appice, and Bain worked on the first three Dio albums before Vivian left for Whitesnake in 1987. Wendy Dio stated in an interview with Eddie Trunk that Campbell wanted to take the band in a more commercial direction, which Ronnie opposed.
