Ronnie James Dio’s widow Wendy Dio talked about the iconic frontman’s departure from Black Sabbath and how he was affected by Geezer Butler wanting to write lyrics instead of him during a recent appearance on The Metal Voice.

Before joining Black Sabbath in 1979, replacing Ozzy Osbourne, Dio was singing for the Rainbow band. After replacing Osbourne, Dio recorded two of the best Sabbath albums of all time, ‘Heaven And Hell’ and ‘Mob Rules.’

However, there were lots of conflicts between the band members, and Dio decided to left Black Sabbath in 1982 as he was accused of mixing the ‘Live Evil’ live album. Then, he established his solo band, named Dio.

In the conversation, the interviewer asked if Dio was stressed out or not after Geezer Butler wanted to take over the lyrics for the ‘Mob Rules’ album, which could have affected his departure from the Sabbath.

As for the response, Wendy Dio stated that she doesn’t think this was a stress point for Dio and pointed out the paranoia that was going on between the band members due to huge drug abuse. Wendy mentioned that she doesn’t think Geezer wanted to take over the lyrics, but it was just bad timing for them. According to Wendy, Dio wanted to leave the band because he was unhappy.

Interviewer asked:

“When Ronnie did ‘Mob Rules,’ huge success on ‘Heaven and Hell,’ then ‘Mob Rules’ comes around – I guess we all know the legend of how the whole breakup happened but was the lyrics, Geezer wanted to take over the lyrics, was that another stress point for Ronnie?”

Wendy Dio revealed if Dio was disappointed or not:

“I don’t think so. There were a lot of drugs going on at that time, and I think there were a lot of people getting paranoid about certain things and so on.

I don’t think Geezer wanted to write the lyrics, and Ronnie wasn’t just the lyricist, he wrote songs too. He wrote a lot of the songs musically, it was just bad timing.

Everybody was like, as I said, a lot of drugs going on, a lot of stuff going on, a lot of paranoia going on, it was just time for, he was unhappy.“

You can check out the full interview below.