Jimmy Kay from Canada's The Metal Voice recently spoke to The Rods guitarist Vocalist David 'Rock' Feinstein who is the cousin of Ronnie James Dio and former band member with Dio in Elf. Two part series Retro interview on the early years with Ronnie.
Watch here Part 1
Part 2
When asked about how he was related to Ronnie James Dio
"We're cousins, our Grandparents were sister and brother, we're like second or third cousins."
When asked about his relationship growing up with Ronnie and over the years
"Ronnie was five years older than me and he hung around with a different crowd of people but I looked up to him. Ronnie played trumpet when he was younger and when I turned seven years old I wanted to play trumpet too. Ronnie started a band and you know of course I wanted to start a band. I always looked up to him he was kind of like an older brother, that was what the relationship was like and for awhile, I actually Ronnie lived next to him - you know - with my parents. It's like that in the Italian world every body's related to everybody. "
"Now in the last 10 years of his life Ronnie and I became very close again with him because during the days of Rainbow and and Sabbath Ronnie was on the road and constantly lived in LA. and I was living on the East coast. We might talk on the phone or something like that but there wasn't a lot going on in terms of visiting. Now in the last 10 years of his life he would visit his parents in Cortland and I would see him. Also started to go to LA and visit him at his house. I would stay out there for a week and we talked about doing an Elf reunion album and how great it would be. We even worked on some material while I was there. Ronnie was looking forward to even playing bass on the Elf album because he was originally was the bass player and singer in the band and he thought it would be cool. We were making plans for the future while he was doing the Heaven and Hell thing. So our relationship was really close in the last 10 years and when he died it really, affected me heavily. I really felt the loss."
When asked about him opinion on performing the Dio Hologram on stage recently
"The hologram performance was such a such a great idea because it's kind of technology thing and Ronnie was always into .Ronnie had a brilliant mind and I think that he would have really dug the idea of this whole hologram thing."
" I got a message recently from Wendy and she said they're gonna be on tour with the Hologram in New York and if I would come cause the band would like me to sit in and play a song because I was part of the family. I said yes, great. It was it was an awesome experience and those guys in the band who I know really well, all the guys in the band treated me great. I'll tell you the crowds loved it, the Huntington show was pretty much a full house and the crowd went nuts.I just have nothing bad to say about the whole thing. To hear Ronnie's voice coming through the PA you get really emotional. I know there's a lot of naysayers that say oh let the dead be dead. But if you're a Dio fan go see the show that's all I can say, if you're against it don't go. "
The Rods are an American heavy metal band formed in 1980 by David "Rock" Feinstein (guitar, vocals) [Born in 1947], Steven Starmer (bass, vocals), and Carl Canedy (drums, vocals).
Elf was an American rock band founded in 1967 by singer and bassist Ronnie James Dio, keyboardist Doug Thaler, drummer Gary Driscoll, and guitarists Nick Pantas and David Feinstein (Dio's cousin).
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