Post by Sysop3 on Sept 25, 2016 17:29:21 GMT -5
Meat Loaf: 'The only thing I'll do after this is a Christmas record'
The rock singer talks about his new (and final?) album Braver Than We Are, serial comebacks, and how he’s never lost a fist fight
Hello Meat! How are you?
[Sounding slightly slurred] I’m OK… I think. I’ve been doing interviews for months now.
I’ll try and think of some questions you haven’t been asked.
Good luck with that!
You had a health scare in June… (1)
No, no, no. I swear to God, everybody from Australia to Thailand has asked me about this. It’s mind-boggling.
Er, I guess that’s understandable after you collapsed on stage.
Nothing happened. I had the flu for two days before. I’d been on stage for nearly two hours. The show isn’t a normal one when people stop their song, sip some water and speak to the audience. We do it like a symphony. It doesn’t stop, so I had dehydration. That’s all it was.
But the New York Post even pronounced you dead!.
Oh, I was first pronounced dead by another newspaper in 1978. I must hold the record. This time, my daughter’s godfather phoned me and said: “Are you dead?” I went: “If I was dead, I
wouldn’t be talking to you.” He went: “Oh, yeah.”
In 2013 you told the Guardian that you were touring for the last time, but each time you announce a “farewell tour” (2), you keep coming back!
Well, this time, we were coming back and then … I’ve kinda changed my mind. That show was so spectacular that I don’t think we could top it. Jugglers. Fire eaters. Me doing standup. But it gets serious for the songs, because if you’re not serious all the songs are ridiculously funny. Who’s gonna actually sing “Then I’m down in the bottom of a pit in a blazing sun”? [Bat Out Of Hell] You have to be that character and it has to be real, otherwise you look like a fool.
Does becoming that character take a lot out of you?
I become a different character in every song. In Edmonton, I hit the highest note in I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) and just felt really dizzy. I thought I’d finish the song sitting down, and as I started to sit down I passed out. We did another seven gigs, but by the time we got to Moose Jaw in Canada I felt like I was dying.
Does it feel strange to think that you may have played your last ever show, in a place called Moose Jaw?
It does feel strange.
What takes you back to the road again and again?
I get bored, and no film or TV call me. The minute we go on tour, I get all these calls from film and TV. I just got offered a script, but I didn’t read it in case I liked it, but am too busy to do it. Then I would have been really pissed off.
You’re busy promoting Braver Than We Are, a long-awaited reunion album with Jim Steinman (3). Are you the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor of rock’n’roll, a warring couple who need each other?
Oh no. They had fights. Jim and I have never had an argument.
You have sued each other though.
No. The lawsuits have our names on them because they can’t happen without them. They tell us that we can’t talk to each other. Then 15 minutes later I’m on the phone to Jim. So it’s a joke. The closest we ever came to an argument was when he had a million doughnuts, and he didn’t want to give me one.
Is he more excessive than you?
Oh by far.
Does he live in a big castle, where visitors are greeted by werewolves and bats from hell?
You’re half right. He bought a Cape Cod, and built the castle room that you’re talking about, with a walk-in fireplace. The room was bigger than the house. He built a walkway for his cats out to the garage, because Jim doesn’t drive or own a car. So the garage is a cat playroom and the cats pop in to see him through this heated tunnel.
The cover of Braver Than We Are, your 13th album, announces that it’s “explicit and politically incorrect.”
If you go: “If there’s anyone left that can see, blind him / If there’s anyone left that can dance, cripple him,” [Who Needs The Young] I think lyrics like that are pretty politically incorrect.
You have some great song titles: than Loving You is a Dirty Job (But Somebody’s Gotta Do It) or – my favourite – Going All the Way (A Song in 6 Movements), which lasts all of 11 minutes and 28 seconds.
[Laughs] That’s Jimmy’s thing. When he told me the title he offered to demonstrate the six movements. I said: “No, that’s OK.” This record actually has the first three songs that Jimmy ever wrote, when he was 19: Who Needs the Young, Skull of Your Country and Godz. I didn’t do all of Godz. It went on and on and on. I did enough of the song to get the point across. Some reviewer said that Skull of Your Country copied the line “Turn around bright eyes” from Bonnie Tyler’s [Steinman-penned 1983 smash] Total Eclipse of the Heart. The guy’s a moron. Skull came first.
What do you remember about your first ever gig, supporting Van Morrison’s 60s band, Them?
It was a basement club called the Cave [in Huntington Beach, California]. We used to cover the Yardbirds’ Smokestack Lightning, so before the gig we went to the army and navy store and bough these big shells, gunpowder and stuff. They basically exploded, firemen came and the club was closed down. So Them never got on, but we opened for them the next night, and used a lot less smoke.
You started as you went on, with a bang. Literally.
I’ve always done that. I never knew anyone other way to do it, other than become the person singing the song. I just read that: “Meat Loaf thinks the people in The Voice are doing it all wrong.” That’s not what I said, just that you don’t just have to feel the song, you have to become the song. I spoke to Janis Joplin a lot. She was probably the biggest influence on me. I think she took on characters as well. But the character has to be the truth, or it would be like saying to Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire or The Godfather that he’s not telling the truth.
If you really do never play live again, will you keep on making records?
The only thing I’ll do is a Christmas record, of duets. But Braver Than We Are is different from anything we’ve ever done. Because Jimmy wrote the songs when he was 19, I chose to make every character 19 years old. The last song, Train of Love, is about that 19-year-old trying to find himself. I added the last line: “I don’t even know who I am.”
Can you relate to that?
No… But I don’t have to cos he did. When I was singing it, I related to it. It’s always about the truth, and sometimes the truth can get you in trouble. I’ve never been arrested. I do not lead a rock’n’roll lifestyle, but in high school I got into quite a few fist fights.
I wouldn’t want to face you in a fight, Meat.
No [laughs]. I’ve never lost.
Footnotes
(1) Meat collapsed on stage in Edmonton, Canada, on 16 June.
(2) Meat undertook farewell tours in 2003, 2007 and 2013.
(3) Braver Than We Are (all songs by Jim Steinman) is out on 429 Records. Steinman penned all of Meat Loaf’s biggest hits, including 1977’s 43m-selling Bat Out of Hell, the fifth best-selling album of all time. Meat and Steinman last truly worked together on 1993’s Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell. 2006’s Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose (featuring Steinman songs originally penned for other projects) emerged during a $50m dispute over the Bat Out Of Hell trademark during which we trust no bats were harmed.
www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/22/30-minutes-with-meat-loaf-braver-than-we-are
The rock singer talks about his new (and final?) album Braver Than We Are, serial comebacks, and how he’s never lost a fist fight
Hello Meat! How are you?
[Sounding slightly slurred] I’m OK… I think. I’ve been doing interviews for months now.
I’ll try and think of some questions you haven’t been asked.
Good luck with that!
You had a health scare in June… (1)
No, no, no. I swear to God, everybody from Australia to Thailand has asked me about this. It’s mind-boggling.
Er, I guess that’s understandable after you collapsed on stage.
Nothing happened. I had the flu for two days before. I’d been on stage for nearly two hours. The show isn’t a normal one when people stop their song, sip some water and speak to the audience. We do it like a symphony. It doesn’t stop, so I had dehydration. That’s all it was.
But the New York Post even pronounced you dead!.
Oh, I was first pronounced dead by another newspaper in 1978. I must hold the record. This time, my daughter’s godfather phoned me and said: “Are you dead?” I went: “If I was dead, I
wouldn’t be talking to you.” He went: “Oh, yeah.”
In 2013 you told the Guardian that you were touring for the last time, but each time you announce a “farewell tour” (2), you keep coming back!
Well, this time, we were coming back and then … I’ve kinda changed my mind. That show was so spectacular that I don’t think we could top it. Jugglers. Fire eaters. Me doing standup. But it gets serious for the songs, because if you’re not serious all the songs are ridiculously funny. Who’s gonna actually sing “Then I’m down in the bottom of a pit in a blazing sun”? [Bat Out Of Hell] You have to be that character and it has to be real, otherwise you look like a fool.
Does becoming that character take a lot out of you?
I become a different character in every song. In Edmonton, I hit the highest note in I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) and just felt really dizzy. I thought I’d finish the song sitting down, and as I started to sit down I passed out. We did another seven gigs, but by the time we got to Moose Jaw in Canada I felt like I was dying.
Does it feel strange to think that you may have played your last ever show, in a place called Moose Jaw?
It does feel strange.
What takes you back to the road again and again?
I get bored, and no film or TV call me. The minute we go on tour, I get all these calls from film and TV. I just got offered a script, but I didn’t read it in case I liked it, but am too busy to do it. Then I would have been really pissed off.
You’re busy promoting Braver Than We Are, a long-awaited reunion album with Jim Steinman (3). Are you the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor of rock’n’roll, a warring couple who need each other?
Oh no. They had fights. Jim and I have never had an argument.
You have sued each other though.
No. The lawsuits have our names on them because they can’t happen without them. They tell us that we can’t talk to each other. Then 15 minutes later I’m on the phone to Jim. So it’s a joke. The closest we ever came to an argument was when he had a million doughnuts, and he didn’t want to give me one.
Is he more excessive than you?
Oh by far.
Does he live in a big castle, where visitors are greeted by werewolves and bats from hell?
You’re half right. He bought a Cape Cod, and built the castle room that you’re talking about, with a walk-in fireplace. The room was bigger than the house. He built a walkway for his cats out to the garage, because Jim doesn’t drive or own a car. So the garage is a cat playroom and the cats pop in to see him through this heated tunnel.
The cover of Braver Than We Are, your 13th album, announces that it’s “explicit and politically incorrect.”
If you go: “If there’s anyone left that can see, blind him / If there’s anyone left that can dance, cripple him,” [Who Needs The Young] I think lyrics like that are pretty politically incorrect.
You have some great song titles: than Loving You is a Dirty Job (But Somebody’s Gotta Do It) or – my favourite – Going All the Way (A Song in 6 Movements), which lasts all of 11 minutes and 28 seconds.
[Laughs] That’s Jimmy’s thing. When he told me the title he offered to demonstrate the six movements. I said: “No, that’s OK.” This record actually has the first three songs that Jimmy ever wrote, when he was 19: Who Needs the Young, Skull of Your Country and Godz. I didn’t do all of Godz. It went on and on and on. I did enough of the song to get the point across. Some reviewer said that Skull of Your Country copied the line “Turn around bright eyes” from Bonnie Tyler’s [Steinman-penned 1983 smash] Total Eclipse of the Heart. The guy’s a moron. Skull came first.
What do you remember about your first ever gig, supporting Van Morrison’s 60s band, Them?
It was a basement club called the Cave [in Huntington Beach, California]. We used to cover the Yardbirds’ Smokestack Lightning, so before the gig we went to the army and navy store and bough these big shells, gunpowder and stuff. They basically exploded, firemen came and the club was closed down. So Them never got on, but we opened for them the next night, and used a lot less smoke.
You started as you went on, with a bang. Literally.
I’ve always done that. I never knew anyone other way to do it, other than become the person singing the song. I just read that: “Meat Loaf thinks the people in The Voice are doing it all wrong.” That’s not what I said, just that you don’t just have to feel the song, you have to become the song. I spoke to Janis Joplin a lot. She was probably the biggest influence on me. I think she took on characters as well. But the character has to be the truth, or it would be like saying to Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire or The Godfather that he’s not telling the truth.
If you really do never play live again, will you keep on making records?
The only thing I’ll do is a Christmas record, of duets. But Braver Than We Are is different from anything we’ve ever done. Because Jimmy wrote the songs when he was 19, I chose to make every character 19 years old. The last song, Train of Love, is about that 19-year-old trying to find himself. I added the last line: “I don’t even know who I am.”
Can you relate to that?
No… But I don’t have to cos he did. When I was singing it, I related to it. It’s always about the truth, and sometimes the truth can get you in trouble. I’ve never been arrested. I do not lead a rock’n’roll lifestyle, but in high school I got into quite a few fist fights.
I wouldn’t want to face you in a fight, Meat.
No [laughs]. I’ve never lost.
Footnotes
(1) Meat collapsed on stage in Edmonton, Canada, on 16 June.
(2) Meat undertook farewell tours in 2003, 2007 and 2013.
(3) Braver Than We Are (all songs by Jim Steinman) is out on 429 Records. Steinman penned all of Meat Loaf’s biggest hits, including 1977’s 43m-selling Bat Out of Hell, the fifth best-selling album of all time. Meat and Steinman last truly worked together on 1993’s Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell. 2006’s Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose (featuring Steinman songs originally penned for other projects) emerged during a $50m dispute over the Bat Out Of Hell trademark during which we trust no bats were harmed.
www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/22/30-minutes-with-meat-loaf-braver-than-we-are
Omega
