Jack Black explains why Ronnie James Dio is his favourite heavy metal vocalist ever
Ahead of the release of his new movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle next week, Jack Black dropped by to record a one-hour My Planet Rocks special.
Set to air at 7pm on Sunday (17th December), the Tenacious D singer talked Jumanji and School of Rock, how he ended up presenting Led Zeppelin with their prestigious Kennedy Center Honor in 2012, his penchant for a certain seventies Swedish pop act and his undying love for Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath.
While discussing Sabbath’s seminal anthem ‘War Pigs’, Jack moved on to how Ronnie James Dio later joining the band had a profound impact on him as a child.
“They replaced Ozzy with who turned out to be my favourite heavy metal singer of all time, Ronnie James Dio,” Jack told Liz Barnes.
“He held a special place as he was from the United States of America, y’know, he was one of ours. The fact that he joined forces with the greatest heavy metal band of all time was a great source of national pride for me personally.
“Also, he just had these operatic pipes; he was a very different cat, very different to Ozzy but great in a whole different way. He was singing about the devil too but more of like a dungeons and dragons magical devil than the actual terrifying satanic mass.”
Talking about meeting his hero, Jack said: “We did get to meet him, me and Kyle (Gass). We sang a song about Dio on a Tenacious D album (‘Dio’ on 2001’s ‘Tenacious D’) and he heard about it and he reached out and he said ‘hey, do you guys wanna be in a music video?’ So we did a little cameo in one of his music videos (2002’s ‘Push) and it was a thrill.”
Following Tenacious D’s appearance in the ‘Push’ video, Jack personally invited Dio to appear in his 2006 movie Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny that also featured Dave Grohl and Meat Loaf.
Listen to My Planet Rocks to find out what Dio-era Black Sabbath song Jack cherry-picked to be played on the show.