Meat Loaf (2011)
Interview Background
As a big fan of home cooking, I’m disappointed this serve of Meat Loaf was particularly awful. With something in the range of 1000 interviews to my name, Meat Loaf still stands out as one of the worst. A week later he received a right old caning for his halftime entertainment appearance at the Australian Football League Grand Final, where he painfully huffed, puffed and squealed his way through I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). Despite Meat Loaf blaming all and sundry for the dramas (except himself), the album he was here to promote, Hell In A Handbasket, disappeared from view faster than you can say ‘Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are’. Since I generally see my part in the story process as a mere conduit, I usually let the reader make up their own mind when it comes to the artists I’m writing about. Unfortunately Meat Loaf’s obstreperous attitude really annoyed me, so the story’s tone somewhat reflects this. Sorry to have wasted 16 minutes of your valuable time, Mr Aday…
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, September 2011.
Meat Loaf - Basket Case
by Scott McLennan
Meat Loaf: music legend, accomplished actor and genial interviewee? Two out of three ain’t bad. When Rip It Up chats to the 64-year-old vocalist about his Australian tour and new album Hell In A Handbasket, the Bat Out Of Hell rocker lives up to his 1984 album title, Bad Attitude.
Although Meat Loaf won’t be sightseeing on his current Australian trip (“I’ve seen it all,” he huffs), he retains fond memories of his first Australian tour in 1978 when Bat Out Of Hell rested comfortably at the top of the chart.
“It was the closest I could ever come to being a Beatle,” he reminisces. “The adoration was unbelievable. When we landed at the airport and I saw all these people, I turned to the person I was sitting next to and went ‘Who’s on the plane with us?’. I could never have anticipated it - my brain just doesn’t go to places like that.”
The highs Meat Loaf enjoyed in the wake of hits such as You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth and Paradise By The Dashboard Light were overshadowed by the singer declaring bankruptcy just a few years after the release of the best-seller debut.
“The bankruptcy wasn’t because I spent all my money, it was about the record company not giving me the money,” Meat Loaf says, agitated. “The connotation that comes when people write about or talk about bankruptcy is that those people have overspent. The public go, ‘Aw, he got all that money from Bat Out Of Hell and he just spent it all’. Well I never got anything out of Bat Out Of Hell, and I never spent it all and it’s bullshit and it has no relevance to anything. I don’t like it when people bring it up – ‘You made all that money and lost it all?’ – it’s fucking bullshit. I’ve hardly made anything… I don’t get paid for Bat Out Of Hell and I don’t make a dime from that. I sold 43 million albums and the record company owe me 20 million dollars, what can I tell you?”
Meat Loaf also angrily counters claims that legal battles with infamous musical collaborator Jim Steinman have left the pair estranged.
“No, no, no! Again, that’s the press running amok. Jim and I are fine and exchange emails all the time. He asked me in his last email if I would be Hook in Bat Out Of Hell on the West End if and when they get it up. And I wrote him back to say yes. So when people say that Jim and I are at odds or are enemies, it’s not true. It’s bullshit.”
Although there are no Steinman songwriting credits on Hell In A Handbasket, Meat Loaf throws a curveball with his take on The Mamas & The Papas classic California Dreamin’. Released by the San Francisco group in 1966 when the singer was still a teenager in Dallas named Marvin, was it songs such as this that coaxed him to move to LA within the year?
“California Dreamin’ is a metaphor - that song is about the fear of a human being not following his heart and his dream. Everyone always thinks that song is a nice little happy pop song, but it is not. If you’d ever met John Phillips - and I have - you could see that underneath he was a very depressed human being.”
Sounding similarly depressed by Rip It Up’s impertinence, we leave Meat Loaf with one last question. Having played the Spice Girls’ bus driver Dennis in Spice World, who was his favourite?
“I don’t have a favourite Spice Girl,” Meat Loaf sighs in despair. “I like them all.”
Hell In A Handbasket (Sony)
Unpublished Interview Material
Does your 1970s background in theatre still have a part to play in your live shows?
"Of course it does, it has a part to play in the album. I don’t think musically, I think thematically and I think dramatically. Like on this record, the piano’s playing and the guitar’s playing and I come in. The guitar player is playing his solo, and I’m sure it was very, very good and they go, ‘You’ve got to hear this’ and I’m going, ‘Well, that’s all fine and good but it doesn’t work for the song, because it doesn’t go anywhere emotionally with the song’, so I re-did it. A song has to work thematically and dramatically before it’s acceptable, because that’s how an audience listens to it."
Jim Steinman originally envisioned Bat Out Of Hell as a futuristic take on the Peter Pan tale entitled Neverland. If Steinman gets the Bat Out Of Hell musical up and running, it seems only right you’re a part of it if it’s based on the original ‘70s Neverland script.
"I don’t know what he’s done with the script and you’re speculating. That’s the problem – people speculate. You can’t speculate. Don’t speculate. I haven’t read the script and I don’t know what Jim’s done, but I know that Hook was in the original script way back when."
Over the years you’ve collaborated with E Street Band members including Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan and Steven Van Zandt, so have you crossed paths with Bruce Springsteen many times?
"I don’t know Bruce well, but he’s invited me to shows and I’ve gone backstage and spoken to him. I don’t hang out with musicians. I don’t speak their language. My friends are all actors and I understand that art form; I don’t understand music. I don’t deal with music the way that musicians deal with it. Bruce comes from a place of emotional theatre and I do the same thing. It’s about the emotion and theatricality of it more than it is the music. I’m sorry, people never want to say it, but Bruce is as corny as I am. That’s what we have in common."
As a big fan of home cooking, I’m disappointed this serve of Meat Loaf was particularly awful. With something in the range of 1000 interviews to my name, Meat Loaf still stands out as one of the worst. A week later he received a right old caning for his halftime entertainment appearance at the Australian Football League Grand Final, where he painfully huffed, puffed and squealed his way through I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). Despite Meat Loaf blaming all and sundry for the dramas (except himself), the album he was here to promote, Hell In A Handbasket, disappeared from view faster than you can say ‘Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are’. Since I generally see my part in the story process as a mere conduit, I usually let the reader make up their own mind when it comes to the artists I’m writing about. Unfortunately Meat Loaf’s obstreperous attitude really annoyed me, so the story’s tone somewhat reflects this. Sorry to have wasted 16 minutes of your valuable time, Mr Aday…
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, September 2011.
Meat Loaf - Basket Case
by Scott McLennan
Meat Loaf: music legend, accomplished actor and genial interviewee? Two out of three ain’t bad. When Rip It Up chats to the 64-year-old vocalist about his Australian tour and new album Hell In A Handbasket, the Bat Out Of Hell rocker lives up to his 1984 album title, Bad Attitude.
Although Meat Loaf won’t be sightseeing on his current Australian trip (“I’ve seen it all,” he huffs), he retains fond memories of his first Australian tour in 1978 when Bat Out Of Hell rested comfortably at the top of the chart.
“It was the closest I could ever come to being a Beatle,” he reminisces. “The adoration was unbelievable. When we landed at the airport and I saw all these people, I turned to the person I was sitting next to and went ‘Who’s on the plane with us?’. I could never have anticipated it - my brain just doesn’t go to places like that.”
The highs Meat Loaf enjoyed in the wake of hits such as You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth and Paradise By The Dashboard Light were overshadowed by the singer declaring bankruptcy just a few years after the release of the best-seller debut.
“The bankruptcy wasn’t because I spent all my money, it was about the record company not giving me the money,” Meat Loaf says, agitated. “The connotation that comes when people write about or talk about bankruptcy is that those people have overspent. The public go, ‘Aw, he got all that money from Bat Out Of Hell and he just spent it all’. Well I never got anything out of Bat Out Of Hell, and I never spent it all and it’s bullshit and it has no relevance to anything. I don’t like it when people bring it up – ‘You made all that money and lost it all?’ – it’s fucking bullshit. I’ve hardly made anything… I don’t get paid for Bat Out Of Hell and I don’t make a dime from that. I sold 43 million albums and the record company owe me 20 million dollars, what can I tell you?”
Meat Loaf also angrily counters claims that legal battles with infamous musical collaborator Jim Steinman have left the pair estranged.
“No, no, no! Again, that’s the press running amok. Jim and I are fine and exchange emails all the time. He asked me in his last email if I would be Hook in Bat Out Of Hell on the West End if and when they get it up. And I wrote him back to say yes. So when people say that Jim and I are at odds or are enemies, it’s not true. It’s bullshit.”
Although there are no Steinman songwriting credits on Hell In A Handbasket, Meat Loaf throws a curveball with his take on The Mamas & The Papas classic California Dreamin’. Released by the San Francisco group in 1966 when the singer was still a teenager in Dallas named Marvin, was it songs such as this that coaxed him to move to LA within the year?
“California Dreamin’ is a metaphor - that song is about the fear of a human being not following his heart and his dream. Everyone always thinks that song is a nice little happy pop song, but it is not. If you’d ever met John Phillips - and I have - you could see that underneath he was a very depressed human being.”
Sounding similarly depressed by Rip It Up’s impertinence, we leave Meat Loaf with one last question. Having played the Spice Girls’ bus driver Dennis in Spice World, who was his favourite?
“I don’t have a favourite Spice Girl,” Meat Loaf sighs in despair. “I like them all.”
Hell In A Handbasket (Sony)
Unpublished Interview Material
Does your 1970s background in theatre still have a part to play in your live shows?
"Of course it does, it has a part to play in the album. I don’t think musically, I think thematically and I think dramatically. Like on this record, the piano’s playing and the guitar’s playing and I come in. The guitar player is playing his solo, and I’m sure it was very, very good and they go, ‘You’ve got to hear this’ and I’m going, ‘Well, that’s all fine and good but it doesn’t work for the song, because it doesn’t go anywhere emotionally with the song’, so I re-did it. A song has to work thematically and dramatically before it’s acceptable, because that’s how an audience listens to it."
Jim Steinman originally envisioned Bat Out Of Hell as a futuristic take on the Peter Pan tale entitled Neverland. If Steinman gets the Bat Out Of Hell musical up and running, it seems only right you’re a part of it if it’s based on the original ‘70s Neverland script.
"I don’t know what he’s done with the script and you’re speculating. That’s the problem – people speculate. You can’t speculate. Don’t speculate. I haven’t read the script and I don’t know what Jim’s done, but I know that Hook was in the original script way back when."
Over the years you’ve collaborated with E Street Band members including Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan and Steven Van Zandt, so have you crossed paths with Bruce Springsteen many times?
"I don’t know Bruce well, but he’s invited me to shows and I’ve gone backstage and spoken to him. I don’t hang out with musicians. I don’t speak their language. My friends are all actors and I understand that art form; I don’t understand music. I don’t deal with music the way that musicians deal with it. Bruce comes from a place of emotional theatre and I do the same thing. It’s about the emotion and theatricality of it more than it is the music. I’m sorry, people never want to say it, but Bruce is as corny as I am. That’s what we have in common."
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