Dio guitarist has unheard ‘haunting, trippy’ track

Former Dio guitarist Doug Aldrich has a demo of an unheard track featuring the late singer, and he’d happily see it released.

But he thinks Wendy Dio may have forgotten that he offered it to her, and that’s why it’s never come out.

Aldrich, who’s currently in the Dead Daisies and previously played with Whitesnake, was a member of Dio from 2002 to 2006, when he took part in the recording of Magica II – a project that remained unfinished when Dio died of cancer in 2010.

The track Electra is the only one to have been released from that work (listen below), but the guitarist has confirmed that there’s more to be heard.

Aldrich tells Roppongi Rocks (via Blabbermouth): “It was during the time he wrote Electra. We were kind of bouncing around some of his ideas and working on some of them.

“Before we did Electra he had this other one that he said, ‘Can you put a solo on this?’ and he gave me the track. I had put a solo on it, and then when I brought it to his house, he goes, ‘No, no, no – I’ve got this new idea called Electra.’ We didn’t even listen to it.”

Aldrich doubts that Dio ever heard the solo he’d laid down, but he’s full of praise for the singer’s own work on the song. “This one track is haunting,” he says. “He doubled his voice – it’s just really trippy. At some point it will have to come out.

“I offered it to Wendy and I don’t know. Maybe she forgot about it. I actually have the recording session which has got Ronnie playing bass, rhythm guitar and vocals, and then a drum machine.”

He adds that, following successful negotiations with Whitesnake leader David Coverdale, he was ready and willing to join Dio’s touring band. “I said to him, ‘If you work it out with David I would love to go on the road with you.’ He worked it out, and then he got sick.”

The Ronnie James Dio Quiz: how well do you know the late metal hero?

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