During the mixing of
Live Evil, Dio and drummer
Vinny Appice abruptly left the group, leaving original members Iommi and
Geezer Butler to carry on. The two factions would provide vastly different accounts of what transpired as things fell apart. "Ronnie had started to take over a little bit too much and was becoming a bit of a
Hitler", Iommi explained to Steve Gett of
Guitar for the Practicing Musician. "We were working on the
Live Evil record in Los Angeles, and in fact we nicknamed him 'Little Hitler'". In his 2011 memoir, Iommi was considerably less harsh in his summation of Dio's behaviour, stating "By then Ronnie did come over a little more...I suppose, bossy. The way he conducted himself, the way he talked, it might have given that impression to the outside world, but he usually didn't mean anything by it. Ronnie was just very outspoken." Iommi also contends that he and bassist Geezer Butler were concerned about Dio already rehearsing with other musicians for a proposed solo album offered to him by
Warner Brothers Records. Dio's account attributed the breakup to a misunderstanding arising as the result of Iommi's drug abuse. Dio has stated that while he and Appice were not interested in drugs, Iommi and Butler were using
cocaine very heavily at that time. When Dio and Appice arrived at the studio to begin the
Live Evil mixing process, Iommi and Butler never showed up. While waiting for their bandmates at the studio over a period of several days, Dio and Appice passed the time by listening to the recordings and frequently experimented with the mix by asking the engineer to adjust the levels of various parts. No mixing had commenced, and the tracks were merely being listened to. When Iommi arrived days later, he asked the engineer what Dio had been doing in his absence and was told that he had frequently requested that the vocals be brought up higher in the mix. Iommi, in his drug-addled state, misunderstood what he was being told and came to the conclusion that Dio was not only mixing the album without him, but was trying to push his own vocals much too prominently in the mix. Iommi, a founding member of the band, reckoned he had a power struggle on his hands and he wasn't about to relinquish creative control of Black Sabbath. Dio steadfastly denied that he altered the mix and accused Iommi and Butler of fabricating the story. Iommi later laid the blame on the engineer. On the
Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven and Hell DVD, both Dio and Appice claim the mixing sessions were scheduled to start in the early afternoon but, on the third day, Iommi and Butler didn't show up until much later. This exacerbated the rift between the new and original members until the singer was asked to leave. In the same interview series, Butler described the
Live Evil mixing sessions as "the Yanks against the Brits," adding, "I think Ronnie seemed to desperately want to do his own stuff and we sort of wanted to keep it going as it was." In the
liner notes to
The Rules of Hell, Appice states, "I knew things were coming to a close from some of the things that were happening on the road. Ronnie and I would ride in one car, Geezer and Tony in another car, and everybody was breaking away from each other a little bit." ==Release==