Doug Aldrich says he has an unreleased Ronnie James Dio demo recording

Guitarist Doug Aldrich, who played with Dio between the years 2002 and 2006, revealed there are previously unreleased tracks from Ronnie James Dio’s demo recording. The songs appear to be during the sessions for Magica II & III, originally set as sequels to 2000’s Magica. The piece remained incomplete following Dio’s death in 2010. However, the song originally recorded for the unfinished record titled “Electra” was released in 2012 on The Very Best of Dio Vol 2. Aldrich mentioned he still has the recording session.

The guitarist told Roppongi Rocks:

“I have a demo of Ronnie, an unreleased song nobody’s ever heard. I offered it to Wendy and, I don’t know, maybe she forgot about it, but I said, ‘I have this song. It’s really haunting.’ It was during [the] time he wrote ‘Electra’. I just played on it. 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. I don’t even think he ever heard the solo because we were so focused on trying to get one song done to promote the tour that we were gonna do. I was still a member of Whitesnake, but I said to him, ‘If you work it out with David [Coverdale], I would love to go out on the road with you.’ Because he had asked me to go. He worked it out and then he got sick. But there is this one track that is haunting, because the lyrics are… And he doubled his voice, it’s just really trippy. At some point, it will have to come out. I got it. I got the mix. I actually have the recording session, which has got Ronnie playing bass, Ronnie playing rhythm guitar and vocals. And then a drum machine. One day.”