The Last in Line

The second album was recorded in the spring of 1984 at Caribou Ranch, high in the Colorado Rockies, the studio Elton John had named an album after in 1974. The label wanted Van Halen's producer Ted Templeman, but Ronnie James Dio, who had handled everything on Holy Diver himself, from the production to the sleeve, refused and produced the record again. Vivian Campbell, Jimmy Bain and Vinny Appice returned, joined by keyboard player Claude Schnell, formerly of Rough Cutt; The Last in Line is the first Dio album to credit him. Campbell remembers the band living at the ranch for the whole sessions and eating together in its mess hall. Ronnie James Dio already had the lyrics for the title song; as Mick Wall tells it, Vivian Campbell came up with its 50-second arpeggio introduction and Jimmy Bain with what the singer called "the monster riff". According to Campbell, the opener, "We Rock", was made up on the spot in the studio from Vinny Appice's beat, the singer's melody and Campbell's chords and riff, yet the singer alone is credited as its writer. Seven of the nine songs credit band members as co-writers, and the near seven-minute closer, "Egypt (The Chains Are On)", is credited to all four. In 2014 Tenacious D covered the title song for the tribute album This Is Your Life, and that version won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2015. Warner Bros. released The Last in Line in the US on 2 July 1984, with Vertigo issuing it in Britain. It peaked at number 23 on the Billboard 200 and spent 35 weeks there, and it entered the UK chart at number 4; the title song reached number 10 on Billboard's rock tracks chart. The RIAA certified the album gold on 12 September 1984, the same day as Holy Diver, and platinum on 3 February 1987, making it the band's first platinum album. The tour that followed ran to more than a hundred shows into January 1985, with Whitesnake, Twisted Sister, Queensryche and Dokken among the support acts.