A SLICE OF MEAT LOAF
Singer talks up musical based on wildly successful Bat Out of Hell album in Toronto,
Long before any talk of a Bat Out of Hell stage musical, Meat Loaf says, he’s been creating characters — every song he sings is one.
“I’m scared to death in the studio so I disappear, Meat Loaf disappears, and these characters take over and they aren’t afraid,” Marvin Lee Aday, a.k.a. Meat Loaf, told the Star this week, adding he uses the same technique for live stage performances.
It’s the reason his musical hero is the late singer/songwriter Janis Joplin.
“(My) biggest idol was Joplin because I know for a fact that she did everything in character as well. All you got to do is watch her. You can see her walk the stage, walk around, move certain ways and move to the mind and the look in her eyes, she’s a different person,” Aday, er rather, Loaf said.
While generally dismissive of more recent music, he has another favourite: Bruno Mars.
“The only person I like is Bruno Mars because he doesn’t repeat himself. I suspect if I sat down with Bruno Mars and said, ‘do you do things in character?’ that he would say, ‘yes’ because it (music) is so varied and so different,” Loaf said Tuesday in Toronto.
Mars’ commercial success is undeniable, without coming close to Bat Out of Hell’s staggering benchmark. The 1977 album has sold more than 43 million copies worldwide and the voice behind it has been promoting the musical of the same name — built around its unforgettable rock tunes — opening at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in October.
It was an opportunity for Loaf to rally fans (as he did at a Monday preview on Yonge St. downtown) and reminisce, especially about making the album that propelled him into rock stardom, with the aid of his frequent collaborator, writer Jim Steinman.
“I have never worked so hard on anything in my life. Jim (Steinman) wrote the most incredible songs and people go, ‘Why are they incredible?’ Because they touch the memories of people,” Loaf said.
Loaf — he also answers to Meat — said while he has never asked Steinman about where his songs come from, there is one — “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” — that was directly inspired by the singer’s own experience.
“I know where ‘Paradise’ came from because I took (Steinman) home from the studio and we were sitting out front of his apartment. Ellen Foley was my girlfriend at the time so I wanted her to be on the record and do a duet,” Loaf recalled.
“He (Steinman) goes, ‘Well, I really don’t have anything in my head.’ And I said, ‘Well, let me put this in your head. When I was a kid, I had a red convertible Ford Galaxy and it had the dashboard of doom, it would light up, it was like the Northern Lights of cars. That would be the car I would go to the lake to and make out.’
“He came back with ‘Paradise By the Dashboard Light’ out of 30 seconds of me talking about this red convertible, this dashboard and going to a lake and making out,” Loaf said.
The song is about eight-and-a-half minutes long but Loaf noted it was originally planned to be 22 minutes long. “No wonder the record compa- nies thought we were crazy.”
The Bat Out of Hell musical, also written by Steinman, premiered at the Manchester Opera House in February, and has been so successful, the run was extended.
“It’s a musical but the audience was reacting to it like it was a concert. But it’s not a concert,” Loaf said.
“You’re going to watch it and you’re going to go to the box office window and get another ticket because you’ve got to see it again. It’s like a three-ring circus.” Tickets go on sale on Wednesday.