Making of Bat 3 chat with Desmond Child and Kenny Aronoff

[duke knooby]

Very interesting discussion between Kenny Aronoff and Desmond Child. The section discussing working with Meat starts around 27m through to 44m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEPs2t9qhRI

[letsgotoofar]

While we're on the subject, as long as we're discussing Desmond and Bat III, he devotes a chapter of his new memoir, lamentably titled "Leftover Meat Loaf," to the experience. To save everyone the trouble of spending hard-earned pennies on it, I scanned the relevant portions from an eBook I borrowed from an online library. You can find it here:

https://imgur.com/a/Tn3Soka

[Michael Marxen]

Very interesting discussion between Kenny Aronoff and Desmond Child. The section discussing working with Meat starts around 27m through to 44m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEPs2t9qhRI

Thanks for that, extremely interesting to watch!

And despite all the tension Desmond Child calls Meat an icon and national treasure. And finds peace by saying that he is having „a lot af affection“ for Meat.

[nightinr]

Does anybody know why Blind as a Bat wasn't the lead single or even a single from the album?

Clearly the best song on the album and surely a natural fit to promote the album.

[letsgotoofar]

Meat has said (on this forum, no less) that "Blind as a Bat" was supposed to be the lead single, but record company pressure changed that. (I'm not sure whether or not to believe him on that, because including "All Coming Back" -- at least in my mind -- was partially a victory for Meat. Long story.)

[duke knooby]

"All Coming Back" -- at least in my mind -- was partially a victory for Meat. Long story.)

I like a long story, care to elaborate?

[letsgotoofar]

It's one I've told on the forums before, so I'll quote it:

Per my (admittedly limited) conversations with Jim over the years, Meat was forever asking what he'd been writing lately, always looking to see if another gem was tucked away. In response, Jim would send Meat things he was working on. As far as Jim was concerned, whatever he shared was not always explicitly intended for Meat, just an example of exactly what Meat had asked about (i.e., what he'd been writing lately). But Meat, more often than not, interpreted it as a direct submission, and this sometimes led to trouble.

(For example, Meat desperately wanted to do "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" when Jim first played it for him, but Jim wasn't interested; he saw it as more appropriate for a woman. That didn't stop Meat from trying to record it anyway for the album that eventually became Neighbo(u)rhood. Jim successfully sought a legal injunction to prevent him from recording it based on laws about mechanical licensing. Thanks to mechanical licensing, people can cover whatever song they want. If it's been released in the U.S., all they have to do is pay the so-called "mechanical" fee to the publisher to record a song. "All Coming Back" had yet to be released Stateside, so it required Jim's permission, which he wasn't giving. That gave him grounds to stop Meat from recording it. Of course, once Celine Dion released it, it was open season ten years later, whether or not Jim was involved in, or wanted it on, the album it was on...)

That ought to suffice.

[jcmoorehead]

Just on the above, unless I'm missing something wasn't it originally released in the late 80s as part of the Pandora's Box album? So based on what was said he'd have been fine to cover it?

[AndrewG]

Very interesting hearing Desmond Child's perspective on this. He actually clarified the whole trademark suing quite a bit there.

The politics surrounding Bat 3 are weird to say the least. I remember Steinman commenting on the album afterwards on his website blog, and moaning mostly about the lack of dynamics. So if he was in the loop during production that doesn't seem to add up. I don't think Child is lying there, but Steinman definitely sounded frustrated with the whole carry on and did indeed confirm he had several songs lined up that never saw the light of day. I bet he told Child that things were fine even if he actually didn't think they were. Did a full Paradise Lost ever exist?

Lyrics Jim posted:
No matter how tragic the loss
No matter how heavy the cost
To this very day
I can stand tall & say
I fought for paradise
And Paradise lost
I fought for Paradise
But Paradise lost
Was it this or was it that
But Paradise lost in the final at bat
Paradise lost in the final at Bat

Interestingly I reckon the non Steinman tracks are much better produced and actually sound pretty great with Meat's vocals indeed on form.

Blind as a Bat is superb, but I also really like The Monster is Loose. Alive and What About Love are stellar also.
The backing vox on Alive "I'm a runaway train on a broken track..." sounded more like Steinman than the Steinman songs did on Bat 3. So weird.

It probably should have been a Desmond Child only album and called The Monster is Loose and Steinman and Meat just doing Bat 3 afterwards, even if it had taken 5 years.
But I doubt a record company would have funded it to be fair if Bat 3 as it was, already cost $2 million.

I agree very much with Child, at least we got some more Meat / Steinman with Braver.


I remember the very first time I listened to the 11+ minute Going All The Way. It was just as good as the best of Bat 3 and the first Prize Fight Lover. Meat simply at his best.
It felt like going on an incredible audio adventure. One of the best memories I have of Meat. So glad he got to make it with Steinman's direction & approval.

[letsgotoofar]

Just on the above, unless I'm missing something wasn't it originally released in the late 80s as part of the Pandora's Box album? So based on what was said he'd have been fine to cover it?

It was not released in the U.S. (the album tanked everywhere except South Africa, and Virgin declined to take it to the States), which was the key factor in Jim's being able to stop him the first time. A quirk of American copyright law.

The whole thing appeared in stories about Jim at the time, including (for example) this one (https://jimsteinman.com/peterpan.htm) (quote: "He considers his songs his children, and he is fiercely protective of them, to the extent that he successfully sought an injunction against Meat Loaf to prevent him from recording 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now' because he thought it was more appropriate for a woman."). I even remember the lawyer on the case was a guy named Kenneth Freundlich, who now mentions Jim only in passing in his C.V. (http://www.schleimerlaw.com/kdf.htm), though he used to elaborate more.

All that to say, if Jim ever said "We'll save it for Bat III," it was a "Sure we will, Meat... (pat pat)" moment if there ever was one. Once Celine had recorded and released it, however, all bets were off, and Jim had no say.

[jcmoorehead]

Oh interesting! I knew the album didn't do very well, but didn't know it never saw a release in the US!

[Evil One]

I'm not surprised Original Sin didn't do well. It's the very best and the very worst of Steinman in one package. Endless spoken word pieces and instrumentals and then more spoken words pieces. To misquote the man himself 'Too much is sometimes more than enough.'

And I say this as a big Steinman fan.

[letsgotoofar]

I often wonder what he might have changed if he went through with reconfiguring it for U.S. release, as he said he was exploring in his Bat II era conversation with Simon Bates. He mentioned replacing some of the vocalists, which I can only assume may have been an attempt to launch Lorraine Crosby, who Jim was managing at the time. Perhaps he'd have said, "Okay, maybe just 'The Want Ad,' make the speeches more self-contained to the group and not a cameo from me, and let's take out this or that instrumental as well."

...then again, he most likely thought it was perfect as-is...

[duke knooby]

I'm not surprised Original Sin didn't do well. It's the very best and the very worst of Steinman in one package.

I often wonder what he might have changed if he went through with reconfiguring it for U.S. release, as he said he was exploring in his Bat II era conversation with Simon Bates.

Had Original Sin been a success, would we have got Bat 2?

[AndrewG]

It's interesting finding out about such things years later.
I had no idea Pandora's Box was not released in the US but perhaps explains why in the early days of the internet and talking about Jim and Meat's music there was little information about that album. Yet it was easily obtainable in the UK in Tower Records or Virgin in the mid 90s (on CD at least, didn't get the vinyl until a few years ago). Perhaps it was also a reaction to the success of Bat 2; easily to get the older -less popular- stuff again?
Nowadays you can forget getting these types of albums in the few major physical stores that are left.

Also in those days, I always thought Live Around The World looked like an elaborate expensive bootleg as it didn't have a major label logo on it, unlike the rest of all of Meat and Jim's music in those stores.
I mean "Tommy Boy", right? It sounds like a bootleg label to me.

(edit: looking up Tommy Boy records, and it IS actually a major label. The world is crazy.)

[letsgotoofar]

Had Original Sin been a success, would we have got Bat 2?

David Sonenberg, quoted in an article at the time of Bat II, sure thought it wouldn't have happened if Original Sin was a success. As it stood, as I mentioned previously in the thread, Jim was planning to piggyback on Bat II's success by trying to revamp Original Sin for U.S. release, which ultimately never occurred.

[rockfenris2005]

Here's my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong:

Meat thought "Couldn't Have Said It Better" was going to be the last album, and the tour was literally called "The Last World Tour", but according to the media of the time Jim rang him up and said they still had to make "Bat out of Hell III". This was after "Dance of the Vampires" had flopped on Broadway, and "Garbo" shuttered in Sweden after about three months, and "Batman: The Musical" was cancelled. It's my guess (not my guess actually, I got it from someone else but it makes sense) that Jim got scared and wanted to make "Bat III". This time, it was sort of the reverse of "Bat II" where I think Meat needed Jim more than Jim needed Meat, despite "Pandora's Box".

I have an article from around this time where Meat said Jim had left David Sonenberg (his manager) after 25 years, and they were going to make the album together, and there was as much as 8 songs ready already. (Does anyone remember Fireball saying that Jim had written an even longer song than "Anything for Love" which was going to be fifteen minutes? My guess is that was "Braver Than We Are" aka "Going all the Way".)

You only have to look at the "Bat III" thread with Fireball, to get an idea of what happened next. Fireball said that they worked on a contract that would have made Jim the highest paid record producer in history, and they'd been putting together the deal for a year. At some point, before this, I can remember reading that Peter Mokran who produced "CHSIB" was going to handle the vocals this time, whereas Jim would produce the rest of it.

For whatever reason, the contract for Jim to produce "Bat III" came back unsigned, and that was basically where the whole thing went to hell, as it were. Then Michael Beinhorn was announced to produce it, after Meat began singing "Only When I Feel" on tour (that was a really exciting time), and everyone just assumed it was going to be all Jim. After Desmond was announced, it seems like a few months later there are going to be non-Jim songs. I never understood how that entered the equation. Meat himself said "I'm the singer, Jim Steinman's the writer, and it's got fantasy art on the front cover." If they wanted, could they not have just chosen about 2 or 3 more Jim songs, and extended the rest?

I mean, "All Coming Back" is missing two verses! "Bad for Good" doesn't have the "God speed" bits. Live in the 80s, that song got up to 15 minutes long. Could they have made it an all-Jim album? And if they could have, why didn't they? I have ideas, but I don't know for 100% certain.

[Michael Marxen]

In his recent book Desmond Child spends a chapter („Leftover Meat Loaf“) on his stress and frustration making Bat 3. Concluding: „After Jim Steinman passed away, I realized why Meat Loaf was so hostile toward me. He could never forgive me for not being Jim Steinman.“
Child nevertheless ends the chapter with some respectful words towards Meat: „Despite everything he put me through … honor to work with the powerful musical force … proud, larger than life, irrepressible … Meat Loaf.“

[letsgotoofar]

They know, I posted the entire chapter in a link in my first reply. :-P

[AndrewG]

They know, I posted the entire chapter in a link in my first reply. :-P

I read it. Very similar to what he said in the Kenny Aronoff interview.
Really good as it clarifies that time quite a bit.

I actually never knew just how many good song writing credits Child had. Wow.
I knew about the Bonnie Tyler, Bon Jovi and Aerosmith stuff but Billie Meyers' Kiss The Rain is one of my favourite "one hit wonder" songs.
There was so much good stuff in the 90s.