Meat Loaf on Fight Club, Miley Cyrus, and why he isn’t a musician
The late singer and actor remembers helping David Fincher edit Fight Club in this interview from 2016
Film Features Meat Loaf
Singer and actor Meat Loaf has died. The voice of the multi-platinum album Bat Out Of Hell and co-star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was 74. In his memory, The A.V. Club presents this interview, which was originally published on September 28, 2016.
This month will see the release of Meat Loaf’s 13th studio album, Braver Than We Are. Coming nearly 40 years after the release of his cult classic Bat Out of Hell, the album is a continuation of what’s been a long, strange, and successful career in theatrics for the 68-year-old Texas native. (It’s also a reunion with his most successful collaborator, songwriter Jim Steinman.) As a sort of counter-culture polymath, Meat Loaf’s music and acting careers have more or less been one and the same since his breakthrough role as Eddie/Dr. Everett Scott in both the stage and film versions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. His unlikely success since then has, in many ways, resembled the same kind of theatrical story arc of his music and its rock-opera characteristics.
Though that’s not to say it hasn’t been a long, hard, bat-ride out of hell for Meat Loaf. Earlier this summer, he collapsed onstage while performing at a show in Edmonton—an incident later attributed to exhaustion. Given the kind of physical and mental demands of what his performance probably involves, it’s more surprising that it hadn’t happened sooner. But that’s the thing about Meat Loaf. Whether he’s Bob Paulson in Fight Club or singing about tacos with Isaac Hayes, over-the-top is the MO. It was the same in our recent conversation with him, where he was quick to find out just what the hell The A.V. Club was.
Meat Loaf: Okay, what is The A.V. Club?
The A.V. Club: The A.V. Club is an online arts and entertainment publication.
ML: Oh, so you guys are with The Onion?
AVC: The A.V. Club is like the more serious sibling to The Onion.
ML: Like a family.
AVC: Exactly.
ML: Well, that’s nice.
AVC: I feel like we’re already to the surreal part of the interview.
ML: Listen, my life is surreal. I got news for you: It’s not surreal talking to me.
AVC: Your work as a musician has had its surreal moments, though.
ML: First of all, Jonathan. Jonathan, right?
AVC: Yep.
ML: I don’t consider myself a musician. The producer named Rob Cavallo, who’s produced Green Day and the Goo Goo Dolls and Paramore and did [Meat Loaf’s 2010 album] Hang Cool Teddy Bear, he came up with the perfect line for me. He said, “Meat Loaf is an actor who acts like he can sing.” When we first started, he had never worked with me before. He goes in the studio on the first day of vocals, and I’m in the wrong key, I’m out of time, there’s nothing about a singer. [Rob] leaves and calls my management, and they call me, and they go, “What are you doing?” And I said, “What do you mean, what am I doing?” And they said, “Rob says you’re not singing in key, and you’re out of time.” And I just said, “I’m working on the character.”
AVC: That makes sense, given your theatrical background.
ML: Right! I told them, “This has got nothing to do with music right now.” Rob goes, “You’re doing what? How long will that take you?” I said. “I don’t know. I might find it today, or it might take me three days.” He said, “Well, okay, when you find the character, you come and get me,” and I said, “Deal.” It was at his house studio, so when I found the character, I went and got him, sang the song, and he went, “Okay. Now I know. You’ve got to find your character.”
AVC: Has the acting always come before the music for you?
ML: Yeah. Well, the only album that I can think of where it didn’t was the first one on Motown in 1970, Stoney & Meatloaf. After that, every album, every song, is a different character. On this record [Braver Than We Are], every character is 19 years old. The reason for that is because the first song on the record, “Who Needs The Young,” Jim Steinman wrote when he was 19. We recorded that song, finished the vocals, and mixed it, and then we had shows to do, so we went on tour. When I was out on tour, Jim and I kept communicating. He would send me songs, and I’d go, “I don’t think that’s going to fit.” We got “Going All The Way,” and he wrote new verses. And he took the part about “going all the way” from, I don’t know, some musical that he had started to work on with somebody that never got it finished. He sent me that and said, “Let’s do the chorus from ‘Braver Than We Are’ from Dance Of The Vampires. I said, “Well, I got to see if it fits the verse,” so he sent me the first new verse, and it was perfect. Sent me the second verse, and I went, “Oh my God, okay, this is it.” I was singing in falsetto, and I was crazy. We put the arrangement together, and we sent it to him, and he said that it was the exact arrangement that he’d heard. And I went, “Well, I knew that already.”
Jimmy and I, artistically, 99 percent of the time, are in total agreement. There was only one moment on this record where we weren’t sure if we liked something, so we both said, “Let’s leave it for now. Let me finish the rest of it, and then we can talk about it.” It was on “Souvenirs.” There’s a song called “More” that I didn’t know had ever been recorded before, and I sang that as a 19-year-old serial killer. The last song, unless people read the interviews or hear me on TV or whatever, they’re going to think I’m singing about a girl and I’m not. I’m a 19-year-old singing about himself and trying to find who he is and what he’s meant to be in life. The last line in the song, which I put in, is “I don’t even know who I am.”
AVC: What was the meaning behind that?
ML: Listen, Jim and I go very deep with this stuff. We just don’t pick a song and say, “Okay, let’s record this and play it.” We don’t work that way. It took me six days to come up with the character for “Souvenirs.”
AVC: Just one character?
ML: I worked six days just on that character.
AVC: Where do these characters come from?
ML: I’ve never asked Jimmy what he writes about. I never ask why did you write it, what’s that mean or what’s that all about, what’s “Two Out Of Three” about, what are any of these songs about. He knows that I do the characters.
AVC: Is it just as easy for you to be that 19-year-old character now as it was in your early 20s?
ML: It’s not that difficult, because you do these movies, and you play the good guy, and I’d much rather play the bad guy. I’ve played in some low-budget HBO and Showtime films. I did this one where I was a serial killer [Blacktop], but he was almost schizophrenic. I had so much fun with him. I’ve read three books about [Marlon] Brando, and I do what Brando does, even with the vocals. Brando, when he would get a script, before he would ever start working on lines, he would get the mannerisms of the character. Is he left-handed? Does he walk with a limp? Does he pull on his ear? Does he constantly play with his hands? What does he do? If you go sit in the mall and sit on a bench in a mall, and sit there for an hour and just watch people walk by, everybody has a mannerism. When I’m on tour and I’m in a downtown area, I will sit at my window and watch everybody walk around. There was a time once, in Dublin, we were across from a bar, and it was summertime, and they were drinking outside. You could see this group of guys, and you could watch this guy desperately trying to fit in with this group. The group I didn’t study. I studied him, because I said I’m going to use him one day, trying to do that, fit in.
AVC: Is there a sort of method acting approach you’re taking when you create these characters?
ML: I’m not a method actor. Brando and Marilyn Monroe and Rod Steiger—a lot of great actors were in with [Lee] Strasberg in the ’50s and early ’60s, doing method. He taught a completely different style than he went to later on. I worked with Strasberg a little bit, on a one-act play, just by myself. It was just me. There’s another acting coach named [Sanford] Meisner, who says that your character is on the page, it’s written there, the truth is there, the moment is there, and that’s where I go. Jimmy’s not a method writer, either. I know Jim, and [these songs] have nothing to do with anything that’s ever happened to Jim Steinman. These characters have nothing to do with anything that’s ever happened to me, either. There’s nothing I hate worse than to be watching television and see an artist on TV, and they ask about the album and the artist says something like, “Well, I wrote most of this record after I broke up with my girlfriend,” or, “I wrote most of this record after I ran over my dog in my green pickup truck.” I don’t want to know that. I want to listen to your record, and I want to get my own stories out of it. It’s like the Eagles. I’ve never heard Glenn Frey or [Don] Henley or Joe Walsh—and I’ve heard a lot of interviews by them—but I’ve never heard them say anything about where “Hotel California” came from, or where “Life In The Fast Lane” came from, none of that. They’ve allowed me to create my own “Hotel California.” People have brought me copies of Bat Out Of Hell to sign, and I’ve gone so far as to get pieces of tape, ask them what their name was, and put the tape over Meat Loaf, and write their name on it and go, “Okay, this is now Jim Smith’s Bat Out Of Hell. Not Meat Loaf’s.”
AVC: So there’s a kind of detachment from your music once you’re done with it.
ML: Well, I’ll give you a perfect example. You hear an actor, used to be they’d go on Leno or Letterman, and they’d ask the actor, “Did you see the movie?” and they’d say, “No, I can’t ever watch myself in a movie,” and that’s a dead giveaway. They’re playing themselves, and it’s like a phone answering machine. You’re going to listen to your voice on a phone answering machine and hate it. Well, that’s what these actors have done. They’ve created a phone answering machine on film. I have watched every movie I have ever done, because I never see myself. I disappear, I don’t exist. Meat Loaf, on Braver Than We Are, does not exist on any of these songs. Meat Loaf live does not exist on any of the songs, live. I don’t listen to myself sing live. I’m in a whole other world. It’s like when I shoot a film. When we’re in rehearsals, I see all the cameramen, I see the grips, I see all that. The minute that director yells action, I don’t know how, but they all disappear except for the actor or actors I’m working with. If they’re there, if I’m still seeing them once the director yells cut, I will turn to [the director] and go, “Let’s do that again.” In TV, that’s unheard of, but I’ve never been turned down.
AVC: Of course not. You’re Meat Loaf.
ML: That has nothing to do with it. I’ve worked with Brad Pitt, and I saw Brad Pitt get turned down. I think it has to do with the way I say it. I think I’m intimidating.
AVC: You said you’d watched every movie you’ve been in. Is there a particular favorite?
ML: Well, I really like Fight Club because of the director, David Fincher. I hardly spent any time in my trailer for almost 10 months. I sat next to David the entire time. Well, not next to him—I would have driven him crazy—but close, like behind him, so I could see what was going on and what he was seeing. It got to the point, about four or five months into filming, that we’d break for lunch, and Fincher would call me into his trailer and say, “I want you to help me pick which one I should use.” Of course, in my head I’m going, “What?” The first time he did that, I said, “I can’t do that,” and he goes, “Yeah, you can. You’ve been sitting next to me, so help me pick out the best one.” His average take was 44, so we’d sit there and watch 40 takes, and he’d go, “Which one did you like the best,” and I’d say something like, “Well, it’s either 24 or 26,” and he’d say, “I agree with you, 26.” The other movie was written by Arthur Miller, called Focus, with [William H.] Macy and Laura Dern. Arthur Miller’s characters are very complicated, and very intelligent, even though a lot of them don’t know that they are intelligent. You have to play them stupid, while still being intelligent, which is really hard.
AVC: It seems pretty similar to how you approach your music’s characters.
ML: Exactly, it’s exactly the same.
AVC: Has that always been the case?
ML: We watch The Voice, and last night, they had on Miley Cyrus, who I thought I was going to hate, but I didn’t. I really liked her, I thought she was very smart. I want to go on so bad as a guest coach one day, and tell them all they’re doing it wrong. When Christina Aguilera was there, she’d say something like: “You’ve got to feel the song,” and no, that’s wrong. You don’t feel the song. You become the song. You are the song. Then they go, “You have to control the stage,” and I just want to go, “No! You control the room!” You don’t control the stage. You control the room. There’s a technique that you learn in acting classes on how to do those things. The other thing, and I’ve told different artists—I won’t tell you who they were—but I’ve told them to stop playing to the front row. They look at me and ask why, and I’ve said it’s because those people that paid $60 or $70 that are sitting in that balcony up there think it’s an inside joke, and they’re being left out of it. You want to play to the back of the room, because when you play to the back of the room, everybody in that room thinks you’re singing to them and nobody but them. I get that on Facebook a lot. People will comment saying they were at the show, and it was unbelievable, because it was like I was singing to them personally. I started taking acting classes to get out of study hall when I was a sophomore in high school, and I got hooked. That’s the first thing they teach you, almost, is you play to the back of the room. On Broadway, when you do a Broadway show, in every Broadway theater, if they have a middle aisle—and even if they don’t—there was always a round clock on the wall. Next time you go to a Broadway theater, look up on the wall, you will see a round clock. Every director will tell you, you play to that clock.
AVC: There are many layers to you, Meat Loaf.
ML: [Laughs.] I’m a very complex human being.
296 Comments
“Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad” is a goddamn classic.I was prepared for something a little unhinged, given his reputation and right-wing politics, but this was a pretty fun interview.
That and the full-length version of “I Would Do Anything for Love” are my only favorite songs of his.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra versions of those songs are INSANE.
So…what exactly won’t he do for love? Anal?
Have you ever actually listened to more than one line of the song? He literally says exactly what he won’t do for love right before that line in every verse. I know you’re ‘joking’ but the joke is stupid, unoriginal, unfunny and based on the false premise that he doesn’t say what he won’t do when he clearly says he won’t:Forget the way you feel right now
Forgive himself if the two of you don’t go all the way, tonight
Do it better than he does it with you
Stop dreaming of you every night of his lifeIt’s in the song.
also:The woman sings “sooner or later you’ll be fooling around.”and then he sings “no, I won’t do that.”
Well, of course he wouldn’t do George Clooney’s wife? I mean, that’s … oh.
For Crying Out Loud is better. IMO
His comment about singing to the back of the room is a lesson in life – great advice, whether you’re a singer, a public speaker, or a writer. Express yourself to the people who are overhearing the interaction. Jeez, never thought I would give Meat so much credit.
Love his music. Its great to listen to even when its a Hot Summer’s Night.
Meat Loaf never crosses my mind. But for some reason, this morning in the car, I thought of “Two Outta Three” out of nowhere and wondered a) what that song was about, and b) why that song came into my head and what triggered that thought. I have answers to neither of those questions. Then I got to work an hour later, and I saw this on the AV Club home page. And what’s one of the first songs Meat Loaf mentions in that article today, of all days? “Two Outta Three.” What does it all mean? Probably nothing. Maybe everything.
A lot o’ people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch o’ unconnected incidents ‘n things. They don’t realize that
there’s this, like, lattice o’ coincidence that lays on top o’ everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinkin’ about a plate o’ shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o’ shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point
in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconciousness.
“Two Outta Three” seems pretty straightforward? The narrator is telling the woman that, while he’s happy to stay with her, he’s not in love with her and never will be, so she should stop holding out hope.1) I want you2) I need you3) there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love youBut hey, you’re two-for-three and that’s a solid batting average.
This interview is great. It’s like a time capsule from 2016, which is pretty much exactly when things started to go off the rails in a lot of ways.
Fuck yeah Fight Club. He’s great in his small number of scenes in that film. Nearly 20 years later, it’s still a fucking amazing movie.
I thought he was kind of lame, then his performance of Bob completely had me turned around.
His name is Robert Paulson.Gotta rewatch it sometime soon and see if it holds up.
I still hate the scenes with the testicular cancer patients – it kind of feels like the movie is mocking them. But the rest of it holds up really well, both as the satire of consumerism it appears to be at the beginning and the satire of blind macho rage that it turns out to be.
If there’s one element of the modern world that will bring the whole thing crashing down, it could only be the ennui of white male Americans.Seriously though, Palahniuk did a comic book sequel recently which was batshit crazy and a lot of fun.
I’m shocked that Fincher shoots 45 takes. Almost all of his movies are great and some are indisputable masterpieces, but that is an insane amount of time and effort.
45 sounds pretty tame for Fincher. He’s famous for being Kubrickian about his control and meticulousness.His dolly grip had to devise a new way to level track because after 100 takes, nothing stays where it was first leveled.
I think the AV Club is pushing the cooking theme in subliminal levels now. Expect an enterview with Kevin Bacon, Jon Hamm and John Candy soon. Pulling off one of those may require an ouija board though.
What about Juan Jamón? I mean, they are owned by Univision now.
Siiiiiiii!
Don Lemon.
I can’t believe they didn’t ask what his secret ingredient is!
I’ll confess: I did sprinkle about a half gram of cocaine in with the potato and mushroom mixture. Will definitely be making this again!
Now, on a serious note, I don’t get the hate for Meat Loaf. He’s kinda the go-to guy for “lame rock” as it were, it’s popular to dislike him but I really don’t get why. I haven’t listened to much of his stuff but BOoH is a genuine classic, it rocks.
I imagine it’s mostly people who got tired of hearing Paradise By the Dashboard Light, all nine minutes of it, on the radio.
Only 8½, actually. It only seems like nine.
http://i.imgur.com/7wuDFze.jpg
We all owe Rundgren for that runtime.
Indeed. If Steinman had had his way, it would have taken up an entire side of the record.
Ain’t no doubt about it
Deejays gotta take a piss sometime, yo.
I’d put on “Roundabout.” You can take a pretty efficient dump in that amount of time.
“Achilles’ Last Stand” – a bit less familiar and 10 minutes long.
The Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post” is almost 23 minutes live – plenty of time for a trip to the can, a jaunt outside for a smoke, hit the vending machines and then maybe, another trip to the can.
Or bang their girlfriends.But the program directors get a little nervous when you take THAT MUCH time away from commercials.
Those people are tired of being alive.
On the radio? It’s a karaoke mainstay and a fucking disaster every time.
Not EVERY time – I saw a couple people do a killer version; my then-wife said “those two are DEFINITELY theater nerds”
People just have this perception of him as a sort of dated leftover, a hastily-compiled mishmash of secondhand elements that harkens back to the simpler times of a bygone era, when a nuclear family would gather around the table and talk about their day, you know?
I have no idea what you just said but it sounds smart.
I’m going crazy trying to figure out if the hanging curve you left inviting an analogy between his name and the literal food-product is intentional or not.
But at the end of the day…weird as it sounds…it’s still kinda good.
Especially cold.
Let’s not get crazy here. He’s no pizza-themed cover band.
Mmmm, cold meatloaf sandwiches in the summer. Mmm…
People might like him more if he were rolled into a sphere and eaten with pasta.
Hell, even his later stuff is good like Alive.
Anything approaching theatricality in Rock music tends to get dismissed by the intelligentsia. Not so much from a performance perspective but a musical one.
People who use cynicism and the hipness of their musical taste as a way to protect themselves from any appearance of vulnerability are afraid of sincerity. I know I’ve said things like this a lot in the past few weeks (the Bon Iver newswires sure made it relevant) but I think it’s true.I don’t mean to boil down all reasons for disliking Meat Loaf to that, because it’s not like he’s perfect and I’m not an enormous fan aside from a few really good songs. But it’s something I’ve noticed as somebody who spends a lot of time talking about music and listening to other people talk about it.
I don’t think that’s the issue.
I think the issue is that, back in the birth of rock criticism and for a while after, rock critics were very sensitive to the idea that they were reviewing inferior, disposable garbage.
They became super protective of the idea that rock was worthwhile on it’s own and any attempt to introduce other elements was a rejection of rock.
Thus the love of reactionary retro-rock like The Ramones and the scorn for art rock that introduced classical elements like Yes or The Moody Blues or acts that brought in musical theater elements, like Meatloaf.
I mean, they weren’t always wrong. The Ramones are great and Meatloaf sucks, but, still…
Spot on. Lester Bangs’ extensive essays on the merits of The Troggs and Grand Funk, while simultaneously praising Albert Ayler and Metal Machine Music (but not anything remotely prog), are prime examples.
>People who use cynicism and the hipness of their musical taste as a way to protect themselves from any appearance of vulnerability are afraid of sincerity.Seems as though something like that would be completely dependant on your own observations and the viewpoints you bring to them? Maybe they think you are not listening to enough music to have grown-out of what they consider surface level stuff?Plus, are we saying Meatloaf fans are fans of the sincere?
Probably. Meat Loaf comes from a musical theater tradition, I think. And irony simply doesn’t fly in that particular genre (or rather, it’s really, really hard to do well). I mean, in musical theater you have people breaking out into song, for chrissake. Ironic detachment is kind of the antithesis of that heavy emotional slathering-on. That’s kind of the whole point, you know?So Meat Loaf is campy and sincere and emotional — Paradise by the Dashboard Light is just one example — and that’s fine. But people who don’t want to appear vulnerable will dismiss that. It’s like admitting that movies make you cry — the cool kids never want to say that, you know?You can see this brought to its logical conclusion in chan culture, which assumes that believing anything is a front, and mocks mercilessly anyone who isn’t a kind of nihilist.Not that rock criticism goes that far, by any means. But @avclub-226982ab9123047f22996f01ae642335:disqus point is well taken that people who once worried about rock being taken seriously had a kind of vulnerability-fear there as well, and that gets into introducing elements of other genres that are not stereotypically “manly.” It’s no accident that rock people hated disco which was painted the genre of gay men and women. Musical theater gets associated with “gayness” (duh!) and so a lot of rock-centered folks look at it askance.
I guess my issue with this argument as a reason as to why people come down on Meatloaf is that it completely disregards the idea that anyone could appreciate the ‘loaf ironically, and surely the high camp and his unusual look would work in favour of ironic appreciation? It’s been working for me for years at least.I still have lots of trouble thinking of something this over produced and deliberately schmaltzy as ‘sincere’, it strikes me as very detached from reality/actual emotion
You can appreciate Meat Loaf ironically, sure. You can do that with any genre. But I think the thing about Meat Loaf is that (as a few people noted below) he’s basically musical theater. Musical theater isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and within rock-criticism culture it has a weird place. Some of it has to do with gender politics and sexism. (Think of why musical theater is a stereotypically ‘gay’ preoccupation, and what we think of as traditionally masculine and feminine genres of music).Some of it is that musical theater was considered pretty square back in the day, and there’s a hangover of that even now (though as I am sure you would agree, that old reputation, which dates from the late 60s, isn’t so relevant now). But old stereotypes die hard — after all, Trump was able to trot out a couple Monday night and everyone “got it” even though we all know they bear little resemblance to reality — and they get embedded in critics’ DNA.Then there’s the whole irony-as-cool schtick that got really going in the 1990s and hasn’t stopped since.As to your point about whether something over produced and schmaltzy can be sincere — well, in some ways that’s precisely the point. It’s pouring all that emotion into a song or performance to elicit an emotional response, damn right that’s sincere! That’s the appeal. Done badly, it looks, of course, silly (and insincere). But it really isn’t, if you see what I mean, on the part of the writer or performer.
I am dead sincere in saying “Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad” genuinely moves me.
Jim Steinman is seriously the most earnest, sincere, emotional musician of the rock era, and Meat Loaf was a perfect voice for him. So I’d say Meatloaf fans are fans of the sincere.
Steinman is a weird dude. Sincere as he can be, he’s also got stuff about serial murder on just about every album he did, and more than once a person has sex with a guitar or a motorcycle.
HIs is a very ‘stuck in adolescence’ kind of sincerity.
Yes, I think you’re onto something there. Listening to Meat Loaf as a teenager is a very different experience from when you are much older. A lot of his songs from an emotional perspective to me seem just silly, but teenaged and early 20s me would have responded better.
He also has a high school musical kind of vibe, or almost more of a middle school musical, during that confused pubescent time. It’s perfect that he does everything through an actor filter.
Agreed.So…, how’s he gonna help all of throngs us then?
“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” is also fucking great. I was like 13 when the Celine version came out, and even then hearing it for the first time I was 100% sure that Steinman had to have written that song. His style is so recognizable. I get why people hate it, but for big, bombastic, theatrical rock songs, he’s hard to beat.
“Maybe they think you are not listening to enough music to have grown-out of what they consider surface level stuff?”They must not know me.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who like Meatloaf ironically. In other words they find it’s over the top arrangements and melodrama so distasteful or unfashionable that they derive humour from it. These people are human garbage. They fear emotional intimacy because of their own insecurities and close themselves of from a great deal of the human experience and miss out on enjoying and appreciating a lot of great art as a result.Like something or don’t like it, but like it ironically, because you’re so much better than it and the current trends of abstraction, understatedness and repressed emotions are so much better than the unconstrained histrionics of the past and you just kind of suck as a person.Unless you’re implying that the music itself is insincere, simply because it is written and performed from the perspective of a character, in which case I completely disagree with you and would argue, that this is true of almost all music, even that which is supposedly autobiographical. The truth is that even these songs are written from the perspective of a fictionalised version of the song-writer, incorporate fictional elements and are therefore written from the perspective of a fictional character even though that character is supposedly based on the song-writer.
I’ve never really thought of Meat Loaf as an achingly sincere artist. Bon Iver or Counting Crows, yes, Meat Loaf no.
I enjoyed his dig at overly autobiographical songwriters as a slam on Iver and that cabin record.
I don’t know if ‘loaf was digging at autobiographical songwriters, so much as pointing out that pop music—like any art, I suppose—is almost a collaboration with the listener. When you bring your own story to it that supplies the meaning, which is every bit as valid as the meaning that it holds for Justin Vernon (sp?).
Is it though? I guess there are some themes ‘drawn from life’ in that album, but it’s hardly an autobigraphical album or even narrative one, really.
Mainly thinking of the barrage of the cabin narrative in criticism — which Vernon has no control over, although it seemed to be part of the PR push — which got on my nerves. Blah, just chalk this up to grouchiness.
I disliked him when I was younger because his overt theatricality didn’t meet my young-self standards of musicianship. As an adult that strikes me as obvious pretension, and I can appreciate that there are lots of ways for a musical performer to make successful art. All of that said, I still don’t care for his rock-adjacent style.
Yeah, indie kids and people that fly the blues flag do not see much reason for theatrics in their genres. But a couple of big names, like the Stones (British), tend to get respect for being ‘larger than life’.
See: Bowie, David (nee Jones)
And for “smaller than life”, see: Jones, Davy
Jesus Christ Superstar anyone?
Basically, you could probably find someone on the AV Club willing to go to bat for an obscure Mosotho electric K-pop band that only five people have ever heard of, but you’d be hard pressed to find people who defend musical theatre.I think it stems from the fact that musical theatre is generalised as ‘corny Broadway shit’, and while pop culture websites will gobble up certain mainstream fare like the Marvel movies, they’ll paradoxically sneer at mass-appeal genres that they personally have no interest in.Meat Loaf just seems to be a casualty of that. Since he tells stories via his bombastic, over-the-top music, he’s automatically pigeonholed into the musical theatre genre.
Apart from Dio, of course.
Dio’s use of imagery used to make me cringe when I was a cynical high school student. Then I realized how well he’d paint a picture out of nonsensical phrases and words like “Ride the tiger/you can see his stripes but you know he’s clean/oh don’t you see what I mean?” and it just works. His voice, the music, no matter the band, whether it was his time in Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio, even Elf, it always WORKED. He sounded so genuine and sincere, and the tone of his voice was menacing but also beautiful. And he just kept being Dio until the end.
Couldn’t have put it better. Singular talent. Glorious nonsense. Mob Rules is going on next.And I heard the guy invented the horns! If there was ever a move that took off…
Yeah, there’s a great bit in Metal Evolution about it – Ozzy was always throwing the peace sign, so Dio threw the horns, which is an old Italian gesture used to ward off the evil eye; they then discussed how Gene Simmons is painted throwing horns on the cover of Kiss’ Love Gun, so Gene claims HE invented it, and Dio shoots back “well, if you listen to Gene, he invented breathing and shoes.”
Don’t write in starlight
‘Cause the words may come out realFrom “Don’t Talk to Strangers”.A master of the poetry; a master of melody. Ronnie James Dio is in a class by himself.
I dunno, I really liked his playing to the back/clock explanation of his singing because that performative aspect is something that can either work well for me (some Loaf/Steinman stuff, the abovementioned Dio) or fall totally flat (a good amount of Billy Joel vocals). Translating that performative stuff that can work on a rock or Broadway stage to a recording is tricky for rock music.
I think there’s also been a big movement away from earnestness and towards irony in music in the last few years. It’s a deeply unpleasant trend. Nothing disgusts me more than irony in music. It’s such a weak and pathetic way to get out of committing to an idea or sentiment. It’s like these artists are saying ‘Look at me, I’m doing this thing, but I wouldn’t really do this thing, I’m just making fun of the kind of people who would do this thing, what kind of loser would do a thing like this?’. It’s artistic cowardice and for that reason is extremely uncool and yet ironic detachment seems to have become synonymous with cool.This is why people like Prince, Lemmy and David Bowie passing away are such great losses. Musicians from the last decade or so are too afraid of being caught wearing anything other than their laundry day clothes or expressing an emotion that may leave them open to mockery to take any risks. It’s not unpretentiousness. It is born out of a fear of rejection and an excess of self-consciousness. It’s actually totally pretentious. I can’t wait for the reaction against it.
This interview was great though because it makes an obvious point that people forget too much: Meatloaf isn’t a musician, he’s just a performer of, mostly, Jim Steinman’s music. SO when people say they hate Meatloaf, what they really mean is they hate Jim Steinman. Steinman can be unbearable, but I like him in the right mood. This song has always been my favorite guilty pleasure, as it’s so Steinman that it exceeds the boundaries of Steinman, circles around itself, and once again becomes Steinman, only more Steinman than Steinman has ever been before:https://www.youtube.com/wat…Plus, overplayed or not, “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” is a fucking classic song. Its being a radio and karaoke staple have kind of unjustly ruined it, which is a shame. I really do hate “I Would Do Anything For Love,” though, and a good number of his other songs.
This shed a little light on Steinman’s frequent self-plagarism as well — like the writing of a song is a collaborative process with the performer, and Steinman just tosses out hooks and verses and things that he’s used before, but thinks will fit well in the current project, so why not?
Whenever I hear “Original Sin” (which is frequent, as I keep the Pandora’s Box version on my mp3 player), I think that I’m hearing peak Steinman. Then I think the same thing about any other song of his that I hear. You have to admire someone with such a strong creative voice that any song he writes is unmistakably his.I still wish that they’d been able to get a proper Meatloaf studio recording of “Bad For Good” back in the 80s, when his singing was arguably at the apex of vocal power. It’s such a belty sort of song that you really can’t give it too much torque.
That Pandora’s Box album is definitely peak Steinman. He just keeps recycling those songs.
I kind of love that about him. He doesn’t even try to hide it. It’s that whole “everything is part of one huge magnum opus” thing that fuels his career.
I don’t disagree about “Bad For Good”, but I think the version that made its way onto Bat III (featuring Brian May) was pretty good.
The vocal performance was very good and the lead guitar was fantastic (I loved the vaguely clarion-ish riff May added to the instrumental bits). I just wish it existed in addition to one from the 80s, you know?
I just discovered Steinman after watching Streets of Fire a couple weeks ago – literally never heard his name before – and I can hardly go a day without listening to “Nowhere Fast” and “Tonight Is What Means To Be Young”. The latter especially just leaps so far over the top so sincerely and unapologetically it always has me grinning like a madman.
“Tonight…” is amazing. In terms of bombast it makes “Tonight, Tonight” sound like “Are You Lonesome Tonight.”
Jim Steinman has been working on his magnum opus, an apocalyptic darkly comic rock opera about the end of the world and vaguely sexualized Peter Pan themes, since the Sixties. The most successful version fused this concept with “Fearless Vampire Killers” by Roman Polanski, becoming the European musical “Tanz der Vampire.””Tanz” was written in English and then translated to German, but when it finally came to America as “Dance of the Vampires,” the Mel Brooksian farce was the tone du jour for musical theatre, not sweeping and somewhat ironic Gothic romance. The show was entirely rewritten to feel more like “The Producers” and “Young Frankenstein,” and while the new version was pretty funny in its own way- a Transylvanian butler, upon being brainwashed by the Dracula analogue, suddenly develops a hunchback and Peter Lorre voice- the clash between the farcical book and the epic score was too great. The show crashed and burned, losing a ton of money, and hasn’t been performed in English in any capacity since then. It’s a shame- there’s a ton of potential there.
I like the work Steinman did with the Sisters of Mercy. The two opposing theatricalities at work there in Steinman and Eldritch really come together well.Apparently Mr. Loaf has done a version of “More” on the new album, which now I’m curious about.
I with Steinman and the Sisters would have done more* together. A lot of Vision Thing strikes me as Eldritch trying to write like Steinman, and the last Sisters single ‘Under the Gun’ is a flat-out Steinman ripoff.Sadly Loaf’s version of ‘More’ is not very good – he doesn’t have the voice any more, and Steinman doesn’t do a great job updating the music.* pun not intended but unavoidable
I would name Steinman’s two Streets of Fire songs plus ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’ as The Most Steinman. ‘All Coming Back to Me’ is such a great song that I’ll defend the Celine Dion version (although the Pandora’s Box version is the one I have, and by far the best one.)For me the great ‘what if’ in rock history is ‘What if Meat Loaf had been able to do the vocals on Bad For Good?’ Steinman was a horrible, weak vocalist who got lost in his own songs*. But they’re a much better group of songs than Bat Out Of Hell, and Meat Loaf would have killed them – imagine him at his peak singing ‘Left In the Dark’*.* Why didn’t Steinman recruit another vocalist? He had Rory Dodd sitting right there!** the version he did in the 90s doesn’t quite cut it
Dodd sings lead on about half of “Bad for Good,” but he only sings on the “generic songs.” Anything with a character, Steinman did for himself.
For me the bigger “what if” is “What if Steinman had let Meat Loaf record ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’ for Bat Out Of Hell II (or even Welcome To The Neighbourhood) rather than giving it to Celine Dion?” The version that ended up on Bat III doesn’t cut it, IMO; Marion Raven was a terrible choice of a duet partner. (Heck, his duet with Kat McPhee on the finale of whatever season of American Idol she was on was better, and that was very nearly a trainwreck.)
Yeah, that’s a good one. At the time I actually thought Marion Raven was a good choice for a duet partner–but I agree she didn’t work in the final product, and that really exposed the limits of her talent. (And its a shame because Steinman is brilliant with female vocalists.)
Oh, those Streets of Fire songs!! Awesome.
Fun fact: Steinman originally presented “Making Love Out of Nothing At All” to Air Supply as a more typical Steinman nine-minute-plus opus, and they succeeded in getting him to pare it down to five minutes. Also, that song peaked at #2 by dint of being blocked out by Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” another Steinman composition.Fun fact #2: among the players on “Making Love…” are Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan from the E Street Band, and Rick Derringer on lead guitar.
Max and Roy were also on a lot of the Bat Out of Hell album. It was recorded during the few years when Bruce was in litigation with Mike Appel and wasn’t allowed to record.
There was that less than flattering doc a few years ago
I love him, but I love cheesy, sentimental, over-the-top, theatrical music. Why would I want subtlety from rock and roll anyway?
Because he’s a Trump supporter?
I try VERY hard to separate Meat Loaf from his politics. Most of the time I’m able to succeed.
I have most of his albums. Bat Out of Hell is classic, there’s good stuff on Dead Ringer and Midnight at the Lost and Found, and I like him as a performer, but his new album is horrible. His voice sounds shot; the songs are too “show tuney” for rock; and the one song Ellen Foley sings on, she blows him out of the water.
Even back in 2010 with Hang Cool Teddy Bear, Meat Loaf hasn’t been doing too well. I couldn’t even make it through that one, but of course Bat out of Hell and Dead Ringer are frequently ringing in my ears, so two out of three ain’t bad.I mean, he has other great albums, but I had to go with that one.
He had a certain naive charm, but no muscle.
I like him a lot, always have.
I don’t care for his music at all, because it does nothing for me, but I appreciate what he does because he so obviously (as evidenced by this interview) puts a ton of work and effort into it. I really respect that. And I had a blast reading this interview because it gave me a lot of insight into his process.
My dad was a big Meatloaf fan, and the primary memory I have from childhood family roadtrips in the ol’ Plymouth Voyager is Bat out of Hell playing, in its entirety, over and over again from the tape deck. I have nothing further here.
Nothin’ ever grows in this rotten old hole, and everything is stunted and lost.
And nothin’ really rocks, and nothin’ really rolls, and nothin’s ever worth the cost.A lesson every child should learn.
Another important lesson: “There ain’t no Coupe de Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.”The earlier you learn that, the better off you’ll be.
For years you were lucky to get a plastic magnifying glass instead of the usual stupid temporary tattoo.
My mom listened to the LP as she cooked and cleaned in our trailer A LOT when I was 3-6 years old. Meat Loaf and James Taylor are burned into my DNA a little now.
Are . . . are you my wife?
Everything Louder Than Everything Else is such an underrated piece of rock and roll glory.
This is legitimately pretty interesting stuff.
And I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – the video for “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” is the REAL fourth Indy movie.
I feel like he and Andrew WK are cut from the same cloth. If you look at technical singing ability and craftsmanship you couldn’t grade them very highly, but when it comes to sheer earnestness and ability to captivate they’re some of the funnest rockers around. So much of what they do goes beyond the actual music.
I mean, isn’t Andrew WK a trained jazz pianist? But you’re right, his music isn’t about, but the intense earnestness.
Yeah, he’s supposedly a piano prodigy going back to childhood, but had forsaken that for the endless party.
You mean to tell me you had Meatloaf in an interview and you didn’t ask what, exactly, it is that he won’t do for love?
For the record: the thing he won’t do for love is the exact thing he was singing about in the preceding lines of the stanza in question.He will not:
– lie to the subject of the song
– forgive himself for not going all the way with the subject of the song
– do it better with someone else other than the subject of the song,
– stop dreaming of the subject of the song every night of his life,
and so on.Alternately: he was talking about visiting in-laws over Thanksgiving.
How can he do “anything” for love except “that” when “that” is about twenty different things? Unless he’s going for some kind of “What did the Romans ever do for us”-type humor.
Because those things aren’t for love, I guess? But then why are they presented in direct opposition to his claim that he would do ANYTHING for love, including, one would assume at first glance, those very things? What connection even is there that would merit them being conjoined in such a way? It’s like saying “I would do anything for love, but I won’t eat ham for dinner tonight.”Look, I gotta go to the yarn map on this one.
Yeah, it’s just that the phrasing should be “I would do anything for love, SO I won’t do that [thing(s) that are AGAINST love]”: problem solved!
This is the best thread ever.
The different things are all ultimately subsets of one thing. Everything that he wouldn’t do for love is something that he might do if he loved another woman. By promising her that he won’t lie to her, won’t hold back on his passion, won’t have something more intense with another lover, won’t let the flame die in their relationship, he’s promising her that his love and devotion is for life. In the last section of the song, when his lover is singing back to him, he further avers that he won’t treat the whole thing as a fling and forget her. Basically, he’s saying that he’ll do almost anything for the love of her, but he won’t let love (as an abstract force) drag him off to another woman.
The different things are all ultimately subsets of one thing.This could be said about any two things in the universe.
Does this mean that I’m… mega-correct?
As above, will he or won’t he cool her down with holy water if she gets too hot? You seem to be an authority on such matters
Oh, he’ll do that, and he’ll give her something she can take home to boot.
He also won’t do anything in the last two duet verses that the female vocalist asserts he will eventually do: “see that it’s time to move on”, and “be screwin’ around”.
Wait, he won’t even be screwin’ around for love?
He won’t do that.
I can’t remember the answer to the question ‘Would you cool me down with holy wahtuh, iffa get too hot-huh!’ I can’t figure out if that’s good or bad in the context of the song
Jim Steinman has a major fixation with doomed romance and vampires too- some of that shows up in the song’s iconography and even Bat II’s album art. The video’s interpretation seems to indicate that “THAT” is either drink blood or “turn” his love interest.
Fun Fact: Meatloaf’s daughter is married to Scott Ian of Anthrax, who, on FantasySports radio, claimed that Meat Loaf is a fantasy football expert.
Of course and of course.
Wait, why was Scott Ian on FantasySports radio?Apropos of nothing, I heard Mike Mussina today on Dan Patrick, and he was talking about being all geeked out to meet Rush, who are HUGE baseball fans, and Geddy Lee walked up to him and thanked him for helping his team kick the shit out of Alex Lifeson’s team in 01 and 02.
He would do anything for love, but he won’ lose weight.
I get a delicious Gary Busey vibe in that “I would do anything for love” video.
There has to be a way to get Meat Loaf, Gary Busey, and Randy Quaid together as the panel for a weekly TV show.
Did he give the secret of a modern girl?
That’s a deep cut of Meat Loaf.
Well, I’ve read FOUR books about Marlon Brando so there. I mean, I haven’t actually read those books, but I did assume the role of a character who had read four books about Marlon Brando. Point being, David Bowie Schmavid Dowie, who is anyone to tell me Station to Station isn’t about a dog I met once that was a total asshole? You can’t tell someone that doesn’t exist that dogs can’t be assholes, they have just as much right as anyone.
Well, shit.
I’m going to have to read the article to get this post, which is pretty damn funny as is and probably funnier in context,
Fuck you Great Unwashed! You may or may not have caused me to actually read this column rather than just posting snarky comments about it,
Fucker, maybe.
That’s actually very insightful how he sees himself as more of an actor than a musician. Gives me a different perspective on his work.
He says in his autobiography that the best thing you can do for a Steinman song is to give it to somebody like Robert De Niro, who (presumably) won’t be hitting every high note or keeping perfect time, but you’ll damn sure believe every word he says.
Remiscent of Meryl Streep’s quote that she can’t sing, but she can play a singer.
Outstanding. Coherent, consistent defence of an aesthetic. Well done, Mr. Loaf.
“You don’t control the stage. You control the room.” Brilliant.
His insistence on telling the young folks they’re doing it wrong made me nervous that this was going to verge into “AVClub interviews Gallagher” territory, but Meat Loaf isn’t a huge asshole.
Meatloaf will never work again in Australia because of this performance. https://www.youtube.com/wat…
ha; I won’t even click, I’m just going to assume you’re talking about his legendarily baaaaad performance at the 2011 AFL Grand Final (Go Cats!)
– inspiration behind my avatar, as you can see ..
Unforgettable.
This was as wonderfully intense and humorous as I could have hoped it would be. And it has the best introductory sequence of any A.V. Club interview I can remember.Like a family. That’s nice.
I like how Bat Out of Hell is a cult album, despite having sold thirty million-plus copies. In truth, it DOES feel kind of cult to me, even today. It just doesn’t make sense that the gigantic, overemotional soundtrack to a musical that didn’t quite exist somehow became one of the biggest selling albums of all time. I love the thing, but it feels like it should be niche, not a huge part of pop culture.
I think everyone can relate to the thrill of smelling the windy heat coming off the desert plains as you hit a hundred octanes of sex when you head to your best gal before she throws herself off the turquoise peak of the largest tombstone in the Graveyard Between Heaven, Hell, and Love Itself.
My friend described Bat I as “goth Springsteen,” and Bat II as “fat goth Springsteen.”
Which makes absolutely no sense as he was much heavier for Bat I than he was for Bat II.
Hmm, maybe it was more like 8-10 million sold if you consider re-buys between vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, digital, and re-releases/re-issues. Of course, that would still be quite high for a cult album.
How is Bat Out of Hell a cult album?
It was a multi-platinum smash with hits that have endured until today.I mean, it sucks and is schmaltzy garbage, but it’s not a cult hit by any measure that doesn’t render the term meaningless.
It seems as if this writer assumes “cult classic” to be an album released before the turn of the century.
In other words, he’sWRONG.
The AV Club
Guilty pleasure would be more accurate.
Geez, we get it. You don’t like Meatloaf the singer. Let it go.
I’ll just leave this here – https://www.youtube.com/wat…
“There are many layers to you, Meat Loaf.”*slow clap*
He’s a Trump supporter. Pass.
This makes me very sad.
After reading this interview, that makes sense.
He was referenced by Barack Obama in that epic takedown at the Press Dinner a number of years back. He had apparently been a contestant on the Apprentice around that time.
No mention of his main claim to fame… Scott Ian 😉
Scott Ian has probably actually eaten meat loaf with Marvin Aday.
He did a shitload of TV in the UK over the past few weeks and boy did he look unwell. I hope it was just jet lag or something but he wasn’t the larger than life character we’ve seen in the past. ‘Bat Out of Hell’ in the UK is the equivalent of something like ‘Frampton Comes Alive in the US’, in that nearly every home had one back in the late seventies.
Did he get his voice back? Last I heard him he had about half an octave of vocal range left that wasn’t croaking or hissing.
That’s what a couple of my friends said when they saw him earlier this year. By friend’s wife LOVES Meat Loaf and my friend paid through the nose to get them tickets and they said he was horrible. He kept shaking the mic like he was trying to get some artificial vibrato out of it. (It remains a running joke between us any time we hear one of his songs). They said the band was even tuned down to try to help Meat out but nothing doing.
Man, it’s really sad to see isn’t it? Poor guy, I can’t imagine losing something so important to my life and have it there, just out of reach (pun intended).
ok…
Eh, I mean, I’m sure this is how he justifies himself, but the fact is, his voice is ruined.
I mean, you watch him on stage – do you get the impression he’s playing different characters? He does the same shit in every song.
For the record, ‘More’, which Mr. Loaf didn’t know had been recorded before, is indeed the Sisters of Mercy song that Steinman wrote with Andrew Eldritch. On this record they do it as a kind of 90s industrial-rock thing. It doesn’t work.Sad to say it, but from what I’ve heard from the new record his voice is absolutely gone, and a lot of effort seems to have gone into fixing this in post-production. Also, has Steinman written a new song this millennium?
Whoa. Now I’m imagining the Loaf trying “This Corrosion” in full on goth gear.
The fact that Jim Steinman has worked with Andrew Eldritch, Meat Loaf and Celine Dion always delights and mystifies me. I mean…you can definitely hear the connection but I wouldn’t have landed there on my own.
The entire “Bat Out of Hell” album is just music=fun. I feel the same about Kiss. Any record that I put on that makes me sit and smile and sing along is the best. It’s why, despite it being my age group, get into REM or U2. I didn’t find them fun. Meat Loaf is fun. Was he in “Interview with a Vampire”? I think I remember him in it, but it must of been an uncredited role. I may be also remembering a terrible Uwe Boll movie. I’m just not sure.
Oh man he was so in that Uwe Boll movie. Just chewing the scenery while there were boobs all around him. It was easily the best scene in that dreadful film.
Meat Loaf again?
You never used to complain about it until they added the damn Supper Club.
Meat loaf, smeatloaf, double-beat loaf. I hate Meat Loaf.
He speaks highly of you!
And that’s Mr. Loaf to you!
Meatloaf, smeatloaf, double beatloaf. I hate meatloaf.
Show me how the piggies eat!
Does anyone else notice that they cut from the little brother pulling his pants down to take a shit to a pot of boiling cabbage on the stove in that movie?
What about muh mashed puhtaters?
What a guy.
Makes you cry.
And I did.
Ugh! Meatloaf! My most hated of all loaves!
I would do anything for love. Except listen to Meatloaf. I won’the do that.
I agree, Meat Loaf isn’t a musician. I certainly wouldn’t call what he does “music”.
like Kid A!
He’s not a musician! He IS THE MUSIC!!!
I know this will ruin all of my rock and roll street cred, but I’ve got a soft spot for Bat Out of Hell. When I was a tiny little guy my sister would play it on a loop. All of those songs are ingrained in my psyche.
Shouldn’t everyone have a soft spot for Bat Out of Hell? It’s fucking fantastic. You’re as likely to find it on my playlist in between Neurosis and Dillinger as anything else.
When people write it off as schmaltzy and overwrought, it’s frustrating to try to explain to them that THAT’S THE POINT.
Schmaltzy drama! I love it man. I mean, a little Meat Loaf goes a LONG way.
Anyone who claims to know and love rock ‘n’ roll and does not at least appreciate “Bat Out of Hell” does not in fact know and love rock ‘n’ roll.
I’ve always been turned off by the theatricality of it all. Prefer my rock and roll stripped down, bare bones and honest.
You are missing out on a lot of great music and I pity you.
I thought Todd Rundgren’s guitar playing on that track was excellent
I love that album, probably more than it deserves. I love Paradise by the Dashboard Light about as much as it deserves, and never ever skip it on shuffle.
Brian Koppelman (who I generally like but he can be a blowhard) did a tweetstorm recently where he talked about the time he was working as an A&R man and Jim Steinman called him up to come listen to “I Would Do Anything For Love” in the studio. Pretty cool description https://twitter.com/punywea…
Miley Cyrus is very nice.
She’s good people. Seems to genuinely care about people less fortunate than her, and that is great.
Saw you on the Trump/Hillary Frontline doc last night, Meat. I know it was a stupid reality show, but I’ll never forgive you for saying you’d vote for the Donald on the Apprentice. Lame.
I am a big fan of his fairly obscure album “Hang Cool Teddy Bear.” And yes, “Bat Out of Hell.” That is all for now.
I pretty much think of him only as the Paradise by the Dashboard Lights guy, because that song dominated radio when I was a teenager. Interesting dude. Might be a little full of himself, or shit, but interesting.
A multi-platinum record is a cult classic?
it’s like that other 70s cult classic, Rumors.
No, all true.
Or the “Frampton Comes Alive” cult.
as gloriously mad as I hoped. Thanks.
When I was a freshman in college, I read this book about a bunch of guys who spent all their free time worming into celebrity events like premieres or finding ways to get free stuff. They had a whole chapter breaking down who they had met and what they were like. They said one of their negative encounters was with Meat Loaf, but it was probably because one of the guys said they asked him if they should call him “Mr. Loaf.”They said the biggest asshole was Billy Crystal and that they had once witnessed him insult a young autograph hound until the girl was in tears and then Crystal and his buddies all laughed at her.
Yikes. That’s a surprising one.
Yeah, they really stuck it to him. I can’t remember any other stories but they had a lot of them. I think they even rated them on a five-star scale. I think they said Stallone was a good guy.
I don’t care much for Mr. Loaf, but this interview makes me think he’s the greatest artiste of all time. Such grand statements, surely come from confidence built on wild successes with zero failures to think of whatsoever.Make Meat Loaf Again.
Why did I read his answers in Trump’s voice?
He’s looking very Frank Booth these days. (That’s a good thing.)
Fuck that shit!
As far as I’m concerned, he’ll always be that motorcycle riding punk who gets pick-axed to death by Tim Curry.
He was indeed a low-down, cheap little punk.
And when he said he didn’t like his teddy, you knew he was a no-good kid.
Don’t really care for his music but this interview made me respect him much, much more than I ever had thought to before.
If this were anyone else answering the questions, I’d be all like “you pretentious prick wad” but it’s Meat Loaf. So it makes perfect sense. Great interview. It could’ve been a little longer though.
Meat Loaf once had a beautiful and powerful voice. It’s been a long, long time since that was true.And, even when he did have that voice, he had neither an ear nor a sense of timing. In all live recordings, going back to his prime in the 1970s, you can hear him singing in the wrong key and coming in at the wrong time (like halfway through a measure at the intro of a song).But, alas, Meat is the vehicle through which most people know the brilliance and the genius of Jim Steinman, who is one of the great composers of the 20th Century — and now of the 21st Century. So it’s good if Meat has his shit together.But we should be aware that Steinman himself is more than capable of delivering his songs. For an illustration of this, listen to the album Bad for Good. Steinman’s voice is nowhere near as bombastic as Meat’s; but he sings with a subtlety and a depth that Meat just doesn’t have within him. There are a few songs which both Meat and Jim have recorded (“Left in the Dark”, “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through”, “Bad for Good”); and Jim’s version is far superior in every case.Anyway, I am glad that this new album is out; and I will be picking it up.
I have “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” on 45.Yes, I’m old.
So do I. That’s how it came in the Bad for Good album, as a separate 45.
Not a day doesn’t go past that the immortal opening verse doesn’t pop in my head:
Roddy’s daddy Denny saved every penny
To buy a guitar for Rod
Three jobs a day, he took all his pay
And he went down to Don’s pawn shop
Don said Denny, “If you buy this guitar
Your son will be a rock’n’roll star”
Roddy tried his best, he couldn’t pass the test
But he knew that he would some day
I dunno. Wasn’t he the only guy who could actually sing all the lyrics to “Hot Patootie” in RHPS in time?But yeah, it was a hell of a voice.
All in all the article was quite good… but calling Bat Out Of Hell a ‘cult classic’ is just wth. The album is like #5 all-time for sales at 43 million copies sold.To give you an idea of how massive that is, i’ll put it in kiddie terms and tell you that’s roughly how many albums Bieber has sold total over his entire career. One album for Meat Loaf = Blueber’s entire career. Hardly ‘cult’, but ‘classic’? Hell yes.
That was very different than that Emeril Lagasse interview.
Wasn’t Meat Loaf in about three scenes of “Fight Club”? How on earth was on set for 10 months?
I imagine Fincher shooting 44 takes on average had something to do with it.
Double beet loaf!
Mommy’s little piggy!
I don’t believe you can collapse from exhaustion unless you’re using speed or coke
You can if dehydration is involved.
ctrl+f “spice world”WELL WHAT IS THE DAMN POINT, THEN
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to meet . . . Loaf!https://www.youtube.com/wat…
This was repeated endlessly when I was in grammar school! This episode of Saturday Night Live was considered by many to be its best. “The Island of Lost Luggage”, “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave”, Bill Murray doing his Oscar picks (might have been the debut of that bit).
meat loaf = meatloaf
George Remus approves of the way Meat Loaf refers to himself
A great Meat Loaf story: http://pittnews.com/article…“I don’t give a shit if he’s fettucinne alfredo, get him the hell out of my kitchen”I’ve heard that story from several people and it kills me every time. I’ve met the guy who kicked Meat Loaf out of his club’s kitchen, and I believe he’d do it.
Meat Loaf, what a character!
Bob. Bob had bitch tits.
He was in that Swayze movie about big rig trucks, so I guess he’s okay in my book.
This seems as appropriate a forum as any – what are peoples’ thoughts on meat loaf, the food? I mean, it’s sirloin mixed with onion, topped with a layer of dried, cooked ketchup and then cut into squares. I’ve never been able to locate the appeal of this.
It typically has an egg + a carb for binder, too, ideally Italian herb breadcrumbs. The end is greater than the sum of its parts!
Perhaps I’ve yet to find the perfect one!
The addition of the binder is why it is known as a frugal entree’, it stretches the meat. I’ve seen ppl use raw oatmeal, crumbled saltines, stale bread.
Meat Loaf is boss. That is all.
Well, most of this discussion was already covered in StoryTellers, but he does cover more film background here. I recall his StL ST stop, he said one song (FCOL? 2/3?) he was an old man looking back on his life, which he claimed he hadn’t used that persona on that song before. You’d have to ask his more diehard fans about that. (looks at Caryl…)As for BTWA? it’s….an album. I wasn’t too thrilled with it, but I can see a couple songs getting airplay on classic rock stations (KSHE and the like). At least I finished this album. Hell in a Handbasket, I stopped in the middle of his California Dreamin’ cover and never finished it. HCTB still rocks, imo, and I still have it on my ipod. these last two don’t have his previous edge, that je ne sais quoi that he rocked the house with before.(It also didn’t help HiH that not only did it have an “eco message”, but it as released in Australia months before anywhere else, and even Amazon had a street date embargo! I don’t recall even hearing a single song got a video for YouTube!)I do wish Jonathan had asked him more about RHPS, and the upcoming “remake”. Meat had said before that he was willing to revive his role as Dr Scott with Jack Black as Eddie, but it seems once the long-in-gestation project left MTV, they were never consulted. I mean, they have fucking GLAMBERT as Eddie.Bad enough he’s ruined Queen, but now EDDIE??!?!?!?btw, Roadie is where I got my screenname, not some pseudo-scientific book, or commercial catchphrase, or even that band in France. So…thank you, Travis W Redfish? LOLI also stumbled across a couple “Dead Ringer” clips on YT a while back. (Think Prince and Pauper as played by Meat and his nerd altar ego. one was a recording session cut into a music video where he takes off and keeps singing in the back of a moving pick up truck, the other was the Big Climax where the nerd meets and performs as Meat on stage, plus some credits.) Shared them to one of his FB posts, and he was surprised that someone had access to them yet, as he didn’t. When I asked him about a potential release in the future, he went into the usual rights holding spiel, not that he’s sure who even has them, or the full movie still exists, anymore.
(I did check a couple torrents for it, and there WERE copies, at one point, but the seed is so old, there’s nothing left to torrent.)
Hey how come you can’t fucking sing?Not trying to, I’m doing a character.Classic.
I was lucky enough to catch Mr. Loaf at his nadir – playing 100 seat, small dives after he bottomed out post Bat 1. We were 5 feet away, side stage. He blew the roof off. Fucking nailed it.
I enjoyed this interview very much. My only minor gripe is describing Bat Out of a Hell as a cult classic. Cult classics usually don’t sell 30 million copies. That’s a pretty big cult!
This comment or account was deleted on Disqus before The A.V. Club’s comments were migrated to Kinja.
Wait, what?
Hey, at least this comment is weird, stupid, and about the topic of the article. So it’s a step in the right direction for Mohd.
Well, whatever it is, i never thought i’d say this but damn, Meatloaf is lookin’ good these days (both the guy and the food item).
He looks like a meat loaf made of turkey and zucchini rather than of sausage and beef.
In his prime, maybe. He seems to have slimmed down a lot.
I saw him perform at Six Flags a long time ago (’89 maybe), when he was definitely NOT slimmed down. He was drenched in sweat by the third song, and every time he fell to his knees I couldnt tell if it was part of the act or if he just couldnt stand.
I have/had a photo of him from around the “Dead Ringer” area and he was seriously like an orb with big, crazy eyes.But by the time “Bat II” came out, he was seriously reduced. I think he had done Jenny Craig, and I’ve also heard about him being a vegetarian, at least for a while.
clearly, you’ve seen the Tales From The Crypt with him and Christopher Reeve
or, y’know, his dad nicknamed him Meat at birth, and the Loaf got stuck on in the intervening years.He claims he doesn’t even remember when in his autobiography, but it was at least as far back as Jefferson HS, in Dallas.
This comment or account was deleted on Disqus before The A.V. Club’s comments were migrated to Kinja.
I had bought the book of Fight Club before I saw it but I hadn’t read it because I knew they were doing a special revival of it on the big screen in Sydney (they used to do late screenings of cult films).The day of the screening, I was looking through a film magazine and (I am forever grateful to … it was either Empire or Total Film I think … for doing this) but the first paragraph was along the lines of “We’re going to talk about the twist”.So I put it down and didn’t read any further, I went to the film and by the time of the movie that night, I was so engrossed that I even forgot there was a twist. Definitely also blown away by it and I also still find the odd detail here and there that I hadn’t registered earlier.Just one example, the Human Sacrifices scene and the follow up in the background on the back of the door is hysterical. I’m not surprised that even the author thinks it’s a rare example of the film surpassing the book.Great interview by the way by both the subject and the interviewer. More like these if we can, please.
This comment or account was deleted on Disqus before The A.V. Club’s comments were migrated to Kinja.
Yeah, this article did do a great job of breaking down why I don’t like meatloaf: it’s show tunes. Dennis Deyoung and the Loaf need to get together and make a fucking horrible record.
Hey, that live album Styx did with REO Speedwagon was epic and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.(No, I won’t really fight anyone. But that was a good record if you like that kind of music.)
But what does that mean, really?Broadway isn’t a genre, or even a theme. Hamilton, The Book of Mormon and Chicago are all Broadway shows, yet I’d be damned if you could find much in the way of similarity between them – except that they all feature people singing and dancing to convey plot and emotion.As I said above, a lot of the dislike of Meat Loaf seems to stem from a dislike of musical theatre and the superficial resemblance of his discography to that genre. Yet while no one would declare that they hated ‘books’ or ‘cinema’ (or at least, not without being treated to well-deserved mockery), it’s somehow become acceptable to write off the entirety of musical theatre, as if it wasn’t just as diverse and expansive as any other genre.
I can only speak from personal experience, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the half-dozen big flashy musicals I’ve seen, even ones I’d heard were supposed to be terrible like that Guys and Dolls revival from a few years ago (although that was mostly due to Lauren Graham.)I can’t imagine a situation in which I’d want to listen to something like that at home or in the car, however. It’s just not how I like to experience music. I think when people say “Broadway” they’re talking about music that exists to further a plot, which is a fairly unique type of music. It’s also, however, barely seven a.m. and I’m not done with my first cup of coffee, so this thought may be somewhat half-baked.
Agreed, and because of that (other than a few monster classics that can stand on their own) I think the spectacle of a Meatloaf concert would be better than just the music.
As someone who’s written for the stage a lot, and written for Off-Broadway recently, I get what you mean. What works in the context of a show experience, or even in listening to a whole album back to back for a show’s cast recording, rarely if ever works in terms of a single casual listen. In the theatre world, we call songs that work on their own as a listening experience “breakouts,” a remnant from the days when a song that could do that genuinely WOULD become a breakout pop hit and be covered by other artists.
The law of the law of genre is precisely a principle of contamination, a law of impurity, a parasitical economy—in the code of set theories, a participation without belonging.
This comment or account was deleted on Disqus before The A.V. Club’s comments were migrated to Kinja.
YesYesYesYES.yesI bet you say that to all the boys
This comment or account was deleted on Disqus before The A.V. Club’s comments were migrated to Kinja.
Well to put it quite simply, I don’t believe Bowie was appropriating styles ironically.
I would do anything for Loaf.
Did you know you can sort Kinja comments by newest first?Anyway, Meat Loaf died and he would have been around longer if had gotten the COVID vaccine. It’s a shame.
“Meat Loaf is an actor who acts like he can sing.”So just like Jack Black then? Oh, wait. Meat Loaf can ACTUALLY sing.