Heaven & Hell was a British-American heavy metal band active from 2006 to 2010. The band was a collaboration between Black Sabbath founding members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler and former Black Sabbath and Dio members Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice. The band's name was taken from the title of the first Black Sabbath album to feature Dio after the band's original vocalist Ozzy Osbourne was fired in 1979.
The four members of Heaven & Hell recorded and toured together as Black Sabbath from 1980 to 1982, and again from 1991 to 1992. After they reunited to record three new songs for the 2007 compilation album, Black Sabbath: The Dio Years, they embarked on a 2007–2008 tour. The decision to call the touring group Heaven & Hell was made to differentiate the project from the Ozzy Osbourne-led Black Sabbath lineup which had reformed and was also recording and touring periodically. According to Iommi, the name change was made to avoid confusion between the two different lineups of Black Sabbath, so that fans at concerts "would not expect to hear 'Iron Man' and 'War Pigs' and all that... it's none of the old stuff, it's none of the Ozzy period. It's all Dio stuff. So by calling ourselves Heaven & Hell, it's revisiting that period."The group disbanded following Dio's death from stomach cancer in 2010.
