Dream Child is the new band founded by ex-Dio guitarist Craig Goldy that was conceived after a brainstorming session with the president of Frontiers Records. Goldy’s mission was to pay homage to two of his favorite bands, Deep Purple and Rainbow, but in a unique and ferociously cool way. Joining him in the line-up are some of rock’s most dynamic players, including Simon Wright (drums), Wayne Findlay (keyboards), Diego Valdez (vocals) and featured guest, Rudy Sarzo(bass).

Dream Child’s debut, Until Death Do We Meet Again, and songs like “Weird World,” “You Can’t Take Me Down,” “”Under The Wire,” and “One Step Beyond The Grave” succeed in conjuring up images of Goldy’s musical heroes, but it’s also an album that’s best experienced loud and with a set of headphones.

AXS recently spoke with Craig Goldy about Dream Child and more in this exclusive new interview.

AXS: How did Dream Child come about?

Craig Goldy: It actually began when I was on the phone with the president of Frontiers Records, Serafino Perugina. Deep Purple and Rainbow have always been my favorite bands. I’d been watching some of my their videos on YouTube and noticed that a lot of the comments were all the same: “They don’t make music like this anymore.” I casually mentioned that to Serafino and he said, “Well, can you?” I told him I could. Then he said, “Can you get Rudy Sarzo and Simon Wright?” I told him I could do that too and that I’d also like to have Wayne Findlay on keyboards. Then he asked me who I’d have sing.

AXS: What was your answer to him?

CG: About eight years ago, a friend of Diego Valdez sent me an mp3 of a Dio cover he did of a song me and Ronnie wrote for the Killing The Dragon album called “Push”. It was so good it was frightening. It was almost as if Ronnie had covered his own song. I remember calling Diego and telling him how great I thought he was and that someday we’d do an album together. When we lost Ronnie in 2010, I was destroyed and it took a long time for me to get the inspiration to do original music again. But I remember saying at his first public memorial that whenever I do original music again I’d like to utilize everything I learned from the master in such a way that I hope would make him proud. The mission of this album is to recapture an old era that was thought to be long gone and never return, and that’s what we did.

AXS: What was the songwriting process like for Until Death Do We Meet Again?

CG: Since I had learned Ronnie’s method on how songs, melody lines, lyrics and titles were written, I decided to utilize it. Me and Chas West wrote “Under The Wire” and “Midnight Song” together. Jeff Pilson [Foreigner] wrote the first verse of “It Is What It Is” and then I took it from there. Doogie White had written the melody line and some of the lyrics to “Until Death Do We Meet Again” and then me and Wayne took it apart and added a middle section. Simon and I were in the same room together when we did the drums. Rudy got an amazing bass tone and [co-producer] Allesandro Del Vecchio was able to make it even more aggressive. Even Diego added some different melodies that made everything better.  It was a real collaboration.

AXS: Let’s discuss a few tracks from the new album beginning with “Weird World.”

CG: I’ve always wanted to do a song like that. I had the chorus in my head for a while but it needed to be… weird! The riff for the middle section was originally the verse for the melody and lyrics of the song, “It Is What It Is.” It was a song that needed special treatment and an odd middle section.

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Interview with Craig Goldy by Clicking Here!