Many years ago, I briefly met Ronnie James Dio. 

I've told this story many times in person, but I realized that I had never written it down. In truth, it's a pretty small encounter, but it's never failed to bring a smile to the face of whatever metal-loving fan I've told it to, and hopefully it will do the same for you. 

It was 1997 and I was working in an local record store chain in Maple Grove, Minnesota called Down in the Valley. Down in the Valley still has two locations today, including the Maple Grove store, but back then it had several more locations and had a fair amount of clout in the Twin Cities music scene. As one of the largest independent record store chains in the area, it was fairly common to have musicians do signing events at one of the stores. Usually these events happened at the Golden Valley store, the original and largest Down in the Valley location. Once, Pantera came through town and employees from all locations were asked to work the signing event. This is how I annoyed Phil Anselmo by bringing a copy of the band's pre-Phil album Metal Magic to have signed. 

On April 18, 1997, Dio performed a show at the Medina Entertainment Center, one of the Twin Cities' most oddball venues. While most of our venues are in the urban core, the Medina Entertainment Center is about 20 miles west of Minneapolis in a town that's now considered outer-ring suburbs, but back in the 1990s still felt more like farm country. If you've ever heard of the Medina Entertainment Center or its sub-venue the Medina Ballroom, it's most likely because of its connection to the death of former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland. He was in Minnesota for a show at the Ballroom, which was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. For reasons unknown, he stayed in the area and was later found dead in his tour bus in Bloomington, Minnesota. The death was attributed to a toxic combination of drugs and alcohol.

The rest of this story is more fun, I promise.

In advance of the show that night, Dio and his band were scheduled for a meet and greet event at the Maple Grove location. Everyone who worked at the store was roped in to staff the event, as were several of my friends. This was fairly common - my buddies would regularly hang out at the store, and because they were all generally decent people who didn't cause problems, the store's manager Jon would occasionally ask them to help out with tasks around the store and reward them by letting them take a few CDs from the used section (I have to assume this wouldn't have been approved by the store's ownership, but they're retired now, so whatever!). Rather than opening as normal, the store was closed until the signing at 11 am (I think - I'm going off memory here, and some of these details might not be 100 percent accurate.), and about 100 people or so were lined up outside the store by 9. On this day, my friends were tasked with helping to make sure the line stayed orderly. Mostly this wasn't a problem.

Fast forwarded a bit, the scheduled time of the signing event arrived, and the band wasn't there. At this point, no one freaked out. It's not like rock bands are known for punctuality or anything. Time ticked on, and then they were 15 minutes late. Then 30. The crowd outside started to get a little restless. My friends went outside to placate them. I think the signing was about 45 minutes late when the phone rang. I was standing closest to it, so I picked it up to answer.

"Down in the Valley, this is Jeremy."

The voice on the the other end of the line was warm and excited.

"Hello! This is Ronnie James Dio! I'm sorry I'm late, I'm eating rotisserie chicken!"

I don't know what I expected to hear on this call, but it certainly wasn't that sentence. I wish I could remember how I responded to that, but I was so thrown it probably wasn't anything intelligible anyway. But somehow I did get enough information from the conversation to learn that he was finishing up his lunch and was on his way to the the store. I let the rest of the staff know and the update was passed along to the the waiting crowd. It wasn't long until Dio and his band were at the store, and the doors finally opened.

The signing itself is a blur, with Ronnie James and his band taking a few moments to talk to everyone who came in and sign their items. Once it was over, we shut the store down again so the band could do some shopping. If you've heard much and the man, you probably know that Ronnie James had a reputation for being a gentleman, and I can confirm that. I didn't get much time with him afterwards, but I can tell you that he treated us all with warmth and kindness. One of his band members - I think it was guitarist Tracy G but can't be completely certain - told me that he wanted to learn more about industrial music and asked for my recommendations. I gave him a few picks and he bought them all. Again, I wish I could remember for sure, but I probably told him to pick up Godflesh's Songs of Love and Hate, an album I was recommending a lot back then (and still do).

Ronnie James made sure to sign something for everyone working the event that day. I've received a lot of swag and promotional items over the years, and gotten rid of most of it (The Metal Magic CD is long gone). But my signed Dio tape is going to be with me until the end. 

In case you can't read it, the signature on the cassette reads "To Jeremy, Magic - Ronnie James Dio"