It appears that there's a war of words a-brewin' between bands comprised of former Dio members. In a new interview, Craig Goldy of the Dio Disciples took exception to recent comments by Last in Line's Vivian Campbell.

"It's just unfortunate that Vivian has continued to say vile things about Ronnie and us," Goldy told Sleaze Roxx. "I mean, I was in Dio with [drummer] Vinny [Appice] and I'm in another band [Resurrection Kings] with him. Just like with any family, there's always one that holds onto a grudge forever. He's nice to my face. I don't know if he says bad things behind my back."

Goldy replaced Campbell as Dio's guitarist in 1986, and even though they parted ways in 1989, Goldy returned for three more stints beween 1989 and Ronnie James Dio's death in 2010. A year later, Goldy formed Dio's Disciples with the other members of Dio's final lineup, bassist Rudy Sarzo, drummer Simon Wright and keyboardist Scott Warren.

In 2013, Campbell debuted Last in Line, which was comprised of the the men who played on Dio's first three albums -- Appice, bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboardist Claude Schnell. But Schnell was let go before the release of Heavy Crown and Bain passed away in January 2016 while they were taking part in Def Leppard's Hysteria on the High Seas Cruise. For Campbell, the distinction of having been there at the beginning is the difference.

“I don't think we're even in the same league as the Dio Disciples," he told Big Music Geek in June. "None of those guys were original members of the band Dio. We're the original band. We're the guys who formed the band with Ronnie. Not only were in the band, but we wrote all the songs with Ronnie. If you look at the writing credits on the first three records, it was very, very much a collaborative creative venture. That's what made the early Dio records so strong.

While Campbell believes that Dio Disciples has "zero credibility," as he said, Dio's widow, Wendy, feels otherwise. She gave Goldy her blessing in allowing a hologram of Ronnie to appear at Dio Disciples' performance at the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany last month. The hologram is expected to return in 2017.

But Goldy suspects that there's still some lingering bitterness over the way things ended between Campbell and Dio. "I wish he'd just say 'I'm sorry,' he continued. "Maybe something happened behind closed doors that Vivian finds unforgivable. I just find that just so hard to believe. I don't know what happened between the two of them [Ronnie and Vivian], but maybe [Vivian] stepped over some boundaries and felt the heat. He got called on it and was let go."

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