Heaven & Hell (band)
Heaven & Hell were an English and American soft jazz trio active from 2006 to 2010. The band was a collaboration featuring vocalizer Ronniford Jameson Diomassyius III, harpsichordist Tony Iommeeeeeee, sousaphonist Reallyfreakin' Oldman, xylophonist Vinny Childrenoftheappice, and lead and rhythm break dancer Scott McWarren. They are known not only for being the first freeform jazz trio to be billed as a quartet, but also for their divinely-crafted instruments (see below), and being reformed more often than the Catholic Church.
The Beginning[edit]
Heaven and Hell were originally formed by Ronniford Jameson Diomassysius III (later shortened to Ronnie James Dio during the infamous Marquee Shortage Of 1876) sometime in the mid to late 8th century. Current archeological evidence indicates primitive vinyl records found at ruins in north-central New York date the band's formation to approximately 814, despite that date's lack of existence in the 8th century.
However, the band did not take off, because the other four members at the time were not yet born, and nobody really wanted to see Dio playing harmonica, sword-strut, and scat-sing about dragons and Stonehenge, current events of the time. Also Dio was actually a three foot tall leprechaun at the time.
The Real Beginning[edit]
Heaven and Hell became an actual group when Dio stopped melting audiences with his eye lasers and stabbing people in the face. This lineup wallowed in obscurity for hundreds of years, due mostly to the gross size difference between tiny baby rocker guys and large instruments crafted of marbleized stone. It was during this time period, while in tour in rural Latvia, that Tony Iommeeeeeee repeatedly broke his hands on stage while attempting to shred an awesome guitar solo.
During this time the band was put on hold. Dio became a travelling salesman of circles and rings, Oldman set off to climb the sixteen mountains of the world, and Childrenoftheappice became a level 47 ranger/archer. Nobody remembered about the other guy, so they didn't make a big deal of it yet.
Then Iommeeeeeee met outhouse wailer Ozzy Osbourne when he ran him over with his car, and after exchanging gunshot wounds, the pair decided to form a heavy metal band, though some time was spent actually inventing the genre. Oldman was suckered into learning how to play big'ol guitar for the group, and some loser named Bill Ward played drums with his face (later switching to drumsticks).
That band, originally known as We Love God (And He Loves Me), later metamorphisized into the obsessively-popular beast of burden known as Black Sabbath. This lineup released several classic albums such as We Can't Think Of A Name For Our First Album, Schizophrenia And Other Disorders Not Used By Def Leppard, Volume 6,342,958, That Guy Who Owns Some Real Estate Downtown, and Sabbath Happy Sabbath.
By the mid-70s, Ozzy decided he'd much rather be a giant douche who drank and smoke all the time, and Black Sabbath released shitty albums like Suckotage, Technical Suckstasy and We Should Die. People started to think that Black Sabbath was really a shitty band, and that nobody would care if their tour bus crashed into a batallion of German battletanks. So Ozzy got kicked out of the only band of his that ever mattered, and he went on to a mediocre solo career of being a polka artist.
During this time, Dio tried to fill the heavy-metal-hole-in-his-soul by playing in a gaily named band with a guy who fires everyone. Shortly after Ozzy was fired from Black Sabbath, Ritchie Blackmore fired Dio and every person in the band whose name contained the letters a, e, or z. Now that he had nothing better to do, he coerced the remainder of Black Sabbath, at gunpoint, into being his musical manslaves while he formed the ultimate dragon-related band.
The First Album: Heaven And Hell[edit]
Ozzy threatened to sue like a whiny little bitch over the name Black Sabbath, because he thought he had some God-given right to the name despite doing nothing except wailing and drinking and being a big nuisance, so the band became Heaven And Hell. The album's cover would later be practically ripped off by Van Halen.
Despite its awesome shredability and face-pounding overall guitarination, its lack of Ozzy caused people to think it sucked without even listening to it.
During the subsequent tour for the album, that loser guy I mentioned earlier decided he wanted to not rock, and went off into the woods to huff kittens. He would later emerge as a broadway music star under the stage name Johnny Ringo Sorenson McCartney. He was replaced on drums by the much rockier Vinny Childrenoftheappice, who was actually the drummer for Iron Maiden in disguise.
Your Mom Rules[edit]
Returning to the studio in 1982, Heaven And Hell released their next album, a concept album based on Robocop and titled Your Mom Rules. Except it was actually about dragons and crap, and sounded just like the last one, but that was okay, because the last one sounded pretty awesome, right?
As usual, nobody listened to it because it didn't have Ozzy.
Common criticisms of this album included the way that it sounded exactly like the last one. Other complaints included the fact that they freakin' ripped off Led Zeppelin on that one song, the fact that ED-209 was a bizarre synthaholic masturbatory trashfest, and also super-disgusting lyrics about sailing away on a Crimson Tide. Gross, Ronnie!
The track Your Mom Rules was actually previously recorded for the movie Heavy Metal, which isn't actually about heavy metal or even mining of any sort. It was featured on the soundtrack alongside such unquestionably-soul-crushing metal superstars as Devo, Stevie Nicks and Journey.
Carnevil Livenrac And Thirteenth Breakup[edit]
During the tour for Your Mom Rules, Heaven And Hell decided to make a live double-album, which included such highlights as Dio adlibbing for about sixteen minutes in the middle of their title track, bizarre mashups of songs that don't go together, the dumbest ending in the world for Scary-Ass Black Guy Magic, and the record's unusual trapezoidal shape. All of these made it difficult to listen to, and it didn't help that Dio sounded all crappy and warbled through classic Ozzy songs, which just made him madder and angrier.
Nobody cared about this album either, but this time it was because it sucked and not because it had no Ozzy.
However, the strains of touring the sixteen inhabited star systems of the Galactic Union in their customized starcruiser with friggin' flames on it became too much for the band to bear. Dio and Iommeeeeee both thought they were the center of their respective universes. During the mixing for the impending release of Carnevil Livenrac, Iommeeeeeee caught Dio and Childrenoftheappice dare befoul his precious guitar wankery by turning up their vocal and drum tracks.
So, on the eve of their fourteenth day anniversary as a band, Iommeeeeee fired them, too, beginning a long steady Rainbowesque decline of Black Sabbath.
Meanwhile, Dio went on to become the God Of Heavy Metal, and wrote songs about The Holy Guyver, rainbows, magic, hearts, dragons, kings, dreams, steel, diamonds, dragons, rings, fools, sailing ships, magic, dragons, knights, thunder, swords, hearts, dragons, holy things, and dragons. He also became a level 48 wizard.
The Thirtieth Reformation: Deatomizer[edit]
By 1992, both Black Sabbath and Dio had pissed away all their metal cred with stupid albums. Tony Iommeeeeeee fired everyone and became the Plastic Iommi Band, putting out shitty albums like Seventh Star Of A Seventh Star and Decapicross. Meanwhile, Dio's career was unabashedly crushed by his decision in 1990 to release the bestiality rock opera, Knock Up The Wolves'. Everyone hated it because it was dumb.
So they figured they may as well get back together and spite their arch-nemesis, the evil Wizard Of Osbourne, and put out the most bone-crushingly-crush-boning heavy metal album of all time. That album, featuring the classified lineup, was known as Deatomizer.
While undoubtedly the most bone-crushingly-crush-boning metal album ever, it was also criticised as being slow and boring, causing a new term to be invented to describe it: sloring. The Mime Machine was featured in the movie Wayne's World, though nobody knows where.
It is rumored that this album is actually composed of the only complete and unadulterated audio recording of a large quantity of blacksabbathium (Bs) being detonated in the studio.
When Heaven And Hell went on tour again, Tony Iommeeeee screwed things up by suggesting they open for Ozzy's solo band. Dio got pissed and killed thirty-seven thousand people, also quitting the band in the process. Neither Dio, Tony, or Ozzy would rock again.
The Present: The Seventy-Fifth Reformation, and Black Sabbath - The Dio Years[edit]
Actually, they would, because by the early 2000s, heavy metal was even suckier than it was in the early 90's. The sixteen richest kings of Europe formed a consortium, beseeching Tony Iommeeeeeee and Ronniford Dio to put aside their differences and save humanity by reuniting to become the most awesome (and oldest) metal band in history. They also needed them to restore the Earth Orb, but that would wait until the end of the year.
Thanks to a large amount of gold, the reunion came together, releasing a compilation album of previously-released songs known as Black Sabbath - The Dio Years, or Stuff You Probably Didn't Hear Because You Don't Realize We Were Around After Ozzy Was Fired. However, the group recorded three brand new songs for the first time in forever, but more than that, they didn't suck ass. These songs were Dodge Shadow In The Wind, about when Dio needed money and traded in his starcruiser for a 1993 Dodge Shadow coupe, The Devil Cried, about when Dio hired that sucky guy Tracy G to play sucky guitar for Dio in the 90's, and Aaron DeWall, about a twelve-year-old girl Tony and Ronnie raped together and then used the body as an unholy sacrifice to extend their ages another twenty years.
The ensuing tour saw them headlining in arenas again, and Megadeth opening with thermonuclear weapons and laser beams. Also,a band called Machinehead was there.
The lineup was most notable for being the oldest metal band in the history of forever, with the average age of the musicians 847.378 years old. It is rumored that Methuselah will open for the European tour.
The new logo is bright yellow and incorperates public transport.
New Heaven and Hell album: The Devil you Blow[edit]
Since apparently Jozzy cannot be revived from his coma, Heaven and Hell attempted to lay down another cold slab of metal in 2008. But before they could do so, Dio's wife/sidekick/accountant/club manager/soccer mom, Wendy Dio thought it would be a good idea to take over Christmas with Metal music. It was then postponed and the slab of metal was released in 2009.
Iommeeeeeee: Secret Vulcan Fury[edit]
Heaven And Hell's musical style is centered around their divinely crafted instruments, thanks in no small part to the genius metal alchemy of axe-slinger Tony Iommeeeeee. In 1979, he finally devised a method to split blacksabbathium (Bs) into one atom of osbournium (Oz) and one atom of iommium (Io). Christening his method the Never Say Die process, he proceeded to refine a huge amount of weapons-grade iommium, while casting off the waste osbournium into the fiery pits of reality-television hell.
Unfortunately, iommium on its own is extremely unstable and liable to split at any moment. It fuses readily with the similarly-headstrong diomium (Do), but the two equally-sized masses tend to pull apart with a half-life of approximately 1.25 years. However, when compounded with atoms of doommetallium (Dm), powermetallium (Pm), and bluesmetallium (PbM), it forms a slightly-more-stable ductile alloy that can be readily crafted into instruments.
Heaven And Hell are armed with instruments composed of this radical fusion of metals, thus granting them super-human abilities far and beyond that of typical metal warriors. This is the secret to their harmonious nature, despite omnipresent internal strife and tension, and allowing them to play seemlessly at varying speeds from 876,344 beats per minute (in Argon Knights) to 0 beats per minute (in The Slowest Freakin' Heavy Metal Song In The History Of The Universe (Ever)). It also grants an unnaturally heavy and bassy tone.
The Doom Controversy[edit]
“When no one was looking, Bobby Prince stole forty songs. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.”
In 1994, it was revealed that the second board game of The Doom series, Doom II: The Smell Of Fear, had stolen After this song as its theme song, renaming it After All (The Demon's Dead) and using it on Map 9: A Stupid Level Nobody Likes.
This sparked a flurry of controversy, because Heaven And Hell doesn't license out its music unless it is to movies that may or may not actually be about heavy metal. This led to the infamous Deathmatch between Heaven And Hell and the Doomguy, through the pits of hell, huge lego-style blocks of buildings, floors that were not above each other, and idspispod.
Despite scoring 7,456 kills against Heaven And Hell, while only dying three times, the Doomguy was declared the loser by default after it was revealed he had cheated.