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Old 01 Sep 2003, 02:00   #1
R.
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Join Date: 02.04.2002
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Default Oui magazine: July 1980 II

A conversation with Meat Loaf, The Baby Huey of rock explains all about the remarkable success of Bat out of Hell, his imminent stardom in Roadie, his unnatural dedication to Frank Sinatra and - most importantly - the essence of "brainlock."


Part Two:
oui: All right. But they can certainly hype him. After your album's initial success, CBS launched a massive marketing campaign. Bat out of Hell has been called the "hardest worked" album in history.


MEAT LOAF: It was the hardest worked, because it was worked hard from my side and from their side. In other words, nobody let up. They worked my album hard, but they spent twice as much money on Elvis Costello as they did on me. And their reward was that Elvis didn't go gold on his first two albums and I sold ten million with one. So how far does hype go? They can hype you to death, but if you can't live up to it, it's useless. That happens to bands all the time. They hyped me, but I could live up to it. It creates a lot of pressure, but it only makes me work that much harder.



When they reviewed us in Hamburg, Germany, they called us the greatest rock-'n'-roll band in the world. I don't believe that. You see, that's my secret. I think all the hype is a -lie. I think, "Oh no, they're lying about me again, so now I gotta work twice as hard." A lot of artists will get that hype and say, "Hey, look how great I am. Look what they're saying about me-well, it must be true." I know I am not what they say I am. I am who I am, and nobody really knows who I am. That's how I like it. And that's how it will always be. As far as press is concerned, I don't even have a press agent. I make my own hype. I don't try to hide from the press, I don't try to stop it, I don't try anything. They've had me saying that I'm gonna punch out Kiss and that I'm in love with Billy Joel-I don't care. There's no such thing as bad press-there's just press. When we go to Australia, we're bigger news than if the capital had been blown up.

oui: Why do you think your album was the all-time top seller in Australia and Canada and some European countries?


MEAT LOAF: Because most of the music today is bullshit. And Jim Steinman [his songwriter) writes real songs. And I'm a real person.


oui: But why are you so hot outside the States?


MEAT LOAF: Because they don't have the same ego trips that American broadcasters have. They have a different system of payola-none. Here, to get a record played, you have to give a thousand bucks to the guy's interior decorator. You run into all kinds of ego trips-like a girl by the name of Sam Bellamy, who is program director for KMET in Los Angeles, who'll say, "I'm not going to play his record if it sells five million copies." Now, who in their right mind made her God? What is that? She says my record is "unsuitable" for the kids in Los Angeles-it doesn't fit her market. Meanwhile, Bat out of Hell sold one hundred and sixty thousand copies in Los Angeles. They played Eddie Money to death, and he only sold sixty thousand. So I beat L.A. radio, anyway.


oui: Why was L.A. the one city that gave you such a hard time?


MEAT LOAF: I don't know. They still do. KHJ [top-rated AM station] kept Two out of Three Ain't Bad from being number one in the country. KLOS and KMET have never once played the record. First, they said I was New York hype. After it got past that point, it became a matter of pride. It became absurd how wrong they were, but they decided they were gonna stick to their guns just because they didn't want to have to admit it. It's total ego trip. So, fine. Good for them. I still sold over three million records in this country-most of them east of Denver.


oui: How did program directors get such a death grip on the music industry?


MEAT LOAF: It's ego. And the record companies and everybody else nuzzle up to them. Program directors call ten people and play them the Bee Gees, and ten people say, "I love this cut." And it's all because they've been programmed. It's just what it says it is. They've been programmed into the Bee Gees, because the Bee Gees give ratings, the Bee Gees sell records, etc. I'm not knocking the Bee Gees. I'm just using them as an example. The Bee Gees aren't responsible for the decisions made by program directors. Fortunately, the people who really run this damn business, the people I respect more than anybody else, are the distributors. If they ship out millions and millions of disco records that just sit in record stores, it hurts the ~~~~ing record business. The radio stations are playing disco, because they say it's good for their ratings. On the other hand, you've got the distributors, and they ain't selling any records. Finally, they get pissed off and call the presidents of these record companies and say, "Shove your disco records up your oven." That's how I sold a hundred and sixty thousand records in Los Angeles, despite the radio stations. A guy at Peaches and at other stores said, "Put this record in these shops, and put that cover up there, and play this record in the store." And that's where we sold records.


oui: Didn't Steve Popovich of Cleveland International, the man who finally signed you, conduct an extensive campaign with the distributors?


MEAT LOAF: That's right. Popovich and Stan Snyder. Damn right. And then I went around and put my personal touch on it, because I can sell my records better than anybody. It's a team effort. You don't do it all by yourself. I'm not a stupid artist. I know why, and I know how, to beat them. I know where I beat them, and I know who beat them with me. We beat them.


oui: A lot of industry honchos, including Clive Davis, turned you away before you signed with Popovich.


MEAT LOAF: Yeah, he pissed me off. I don't need somebody like him around. Everybody turned us down. Good. I'm glad they did. If they hadn't turned us down, it might not have happened. I'm glad they thought we were so weird that they didn't know what to do with us. The record people kept telling us that we weren't rock 'n' roll, that our songs were too theatrical, that it was "Broadway music." Then we got the right people. Things work out for the best.


oui: That's easy to say now, but how did you feel about all that rejection a couple of years ago?

MEAT LOAF: I felt basically the same.I just thought everybody was crazy I still do. Because even though I've sold ten million records, they still don't know how good a songwriter Jim Steinman is. They don't know that Steinman is probably the greatest songwriter in the last twenty years. Maybe in the next hundred years-nobody will even come close to him. That's the God's truth.


oui: Let's not be so modest. It's your singing, your delivery, that makes them special.


MEAT LOAF: Fine. That's great. But a singer is only as good as his band, an actor only as good as his script and the actors around him. You can't do anything by yourself Why is my name up there as top male singer in the Playboy poll, when Steinman isn't even listed with the writers? Where is that at? There isn't a writer on the list that can even come close to that man. What do you think we're dealing with here, Neil Diamond? This is Steinman - probably one of the greatest writers in this century. I'm not fooling. That goes for Dave Marsh, and whoever else thinks they're God in the rock-'n'-roll world-they're not. They're not; they're damn children. They're children. Excuse me, I'm mad.


oui: Did Steinman get you into classical music?


MEAT LOAF: No, I've always been influenced by it. My mother listened to it. My mother was a singer.


oui: I thought she was into gospel music.


MEAT LOAF: No. That's hype. Somebody put that on a bio somewhere.

oui: What's the truth?


MEAT LOAF: I don't know what the truth is. I told you, I don't even know how I got my name.


oui: Did you sing or act when you were in Texas?


MEAT LOAF: No. I played football. High energy, hard- rock-'n-'roll football.


oui: How old were you when you left Texas?


MEAT LOAF: Sixteen. I just took off for California. I didn't know anybody or anything. I just got on an airplane.


Oui: Did you know you were going to pursue a musical or, an acting career?


MEAT LOAF: No. I had no idea. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I could've been a car salesman, for all I knew. When you're sixteen, do you think about things like that?


oui: So how did you wind up singing in a rock-'n-'roll band?


MEAT LOAF: I was a bouncer at a psychedelic shop called the Third Eye in Encino, California. All the people that hung out there were musicians. So I wound up getting in a rock-'n-'roll band with this guy Rick Fasso, who is now with Jefferson Starship. It just happened. I didn't plot it. Somebody else may have. I didn't take it seriously, until 1973, anyway. There are about seven or eight years in there where it wasn't really serious.


oui: What took you to Detroit?

MEAT LOAF: The band I was playing with in California moved there, because the drummer was from Detroit and he had a band called the Bossmen-a big band out of Michigan. He knew everybody, and so we thought we could get a lot of work there. And we did. We worked for two and a half years, starting around 1966. The original name of the band was Meat Loaf Soul. Then it changed to Popcorn Blizzard, because we needed a gimmick. We couldn't afford smoke and everything else, so we decided to throw popcorn.


oui: Is that where you connected with Ted Nugent?'


MEAT LOAF: Yeah. We opened for him a couple of times. He asked me to join his band, and I said no. We played with him some more, and then I didn't see him for a while. He wrote me letters with notes addressed to the postman on them: "Beware at feeding time." Stuff like that. He wrote me once to tell me his parents needed their house moved and to ask me if I could come on the weekend. That's Ted.


oui: Were you playing in the clubs at this time?

MEAT LOAF: No, concerts. One-nighters, all of them. I hate clubs. I wouldn't play in a club. Nugent had those Amboy Dukes, and we were playing with Bob Seger and Nugent and MC-5. We played the Grand Ballroom all the time. There was a whole Detroit scene at the Grand Ballroom. Everybody came in-Hendrix, the Who and we were always opening there. They always ripped us off. They didn't pay us anything. They'd pay us thirty-seven dollars to open for the Who.


oui: A number of years later, you did the vocals on Ted's Free for All album.


MEAT LOAF: Ted had problems completing the record, so he called me. I didn't know if I could do it. I'd never heard the songs before in my life. But I went in and, in four days, I cut six tunes. Actually, Ted doesn't write tunes; he writes guitar parts. I threw out their producers and did it myself, with Ted's drummer. Freefor All sold more than any of his albums.


oui: You had a starring role in Hair. How did that happen?


MEAT LOAF: I'd left Detroit and gone back to California. I was checking up and down Hollywood Boulevard, looking for a job, and I landed one parking cars at the Aquarius Theater. My first night on the job, a guy comes up to me and says, "Hey, you sing, don't you?" I say, "Yeah." He says, "Why don't you try out for a part in Hair?" I say "Nah." He says, "Yeah, come on." I went and auditioned, and I was hired that night.


oui: And that took you to New York?

MEAT LOAF: Eventually. First, it took me back to Detroit. I did Hair there. And then it took me all over everywhere, and eventually to Broadway. Then, in 197 1, I had a Motown hit called What You See Is What You Get by Stoney and Meatloaf. It got to thirty-one, which is a hit. It was number three on the soul charts, number one in Spain. After that, I did some stuff with Norman Whitfield that never got released, and I said, "That's it," and I left. I went to New York and did theater for the next ... I don't know how long.


oui: Is that when you started taking acting seriously?


MEAT LOAF:No. What made me start taking acting seriously was when I did Shakespeare. That's when I decided that maybe I should take this seriously for a couple of minutes. Joe Papp called me on the phone and asked, "Do you want to do Shakespeare?" I said, "I've never even read Shakespeare." But I did it. That's my life story. I never plan anything. The only thing I've ever calculated in my entire life, if you really want to know, is what I did after the release of Bat out of Hell. I knew that I could headline and sell records on the road. I knew I had charisma and a tremendous ability to control audiences, to hold them at a point of hysteria. Still do. But that's the only move I ever calculated in my whole life. And it was ~~~~in' right.


oui: What Shakespeare did you perform?


MEAT LOAF: I did Othello and As You Like It, but the thing I liked most was the printed program: "Joe Papp presents William Shakespeare's As You Like It, starring Raul Julia, Kathleen Widdows, Doug Watson and Meat Loaf " I knew Bill would have loved it. I mean, if I had been around in Bill Shakespeare's time, my name would have been perfect; it would have been all through Shakespeare. Meat Loaf, you know? The names in his plays are really far-out.


oui: Later, when you did Rocky Horror, were you surprised by the strong cult following the show inspired?


MEAT LOAF: Nothing surprises me. Absolutely nothing. The Rocky Horror Show was a cult before it was a movie. When it was a stage play, it was a cult.
In Los Angeles, it was a cult to people like Diana Ross, Carole King, the Rolling Stones and Keith Moon-Keith must have seen that damn show fifty times. And every time he came, if there were nine people in that cast, he'd put nine bottles of champagne on the stage at curtain call, just to let everybody know he was there.


oui: Would you ever consider doing a nude scene in a movie?

MEAT LOAF: No way. I wouldn't do the nude scene in Hair. Even though my wife thinks I'm an exhibitionist, I wouldn't do it. But then, I can't really say never. If it was right for the part, I might do it. But if you're asking me to pose nude for the center of oui, no.


oui: We don't usually run male nudes.

MEAT LOAF: Well, you never know when you might. Just don't ask me.

oui: Does your weight fluctuate a lot?


MEAT LOAF: The press has had me weighing anywhere from two hundred to four hundred and fifty pounds. Right now, I weigh two sixty-three.


oui: Do you diet much?

MEAT LOAF: Yeah, I'm trying again. I really want to get down to two-thirty-five.

oui: What type of food are you most addicted to?

MEAT LOAF: Cheeseburgers-but with no bread. I put the tomato on the cheeseburger and make a sandwich with the lettuce. I take two pieces of lettuce and put the cheeseburger in between, with lots of mustard. I eat that almost every day.


oui:How many do you usually eat?


MEAT LOAF: Two, sometimes three.

oui: Psychologists say that growing up "fat" invariably leaves a person with
emotional scars. Did you ever feel
rejected because of your weight?


MEAT LOAF: No. I played football, and you get away with that when you play football.


oui:How have you been spending your money?


MEAT LOAF: I spent a lot of money on my house. I also put a lot of money into the U. S. Government. I paid more taxes last year than the average man makes in forty years. I saved a hundred and seventy thousand dollars just by building my home in Connecticut and avoiding New York taxes.


oui:Who have been your greatest showbiz influences?


MEAT LOAF: Sinatra and Presley. Those are the two major ones. A lot of other vocalists have influenced me a little-Joplin, Cocker, Dobie Gray.


oui:Sinatra?

MEAT LOAF: Yeah. As far as the overall major influence in my life-how I look at my show-business career as a singer and an actor-yeah, Sinatra is the main one. Technically, I think Pavarotti is probably the greatest singer that ever walked the earth. Greater than Caruso. But as far as nonoperatic singers, Sinatra's the best. What makes a great singer is knowing how to sell the song-not just making it sound good, but making people know and feel what you're singing.


oui:You spent almost two years working on what was supposed to be Meat Loaf's second album, Bad for Good. Then you decided not to sing on that record, but to have Jim Steinman release it as a solo project, as well as write a whole new set of songs for your next album, Down in the Deep End. Why did you decide to bail out of Bad
for Good?


MEAT LOAF: I fought with that record too long. I did the vocals a few times, and I didn't like them, so I erased them. I went back to the studio and fought
with it, fought with it, fought with it. I just didn't feel like going back in the studio with that particular record anymore. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that I couldn't sing the songs or that the songs weren't good enough. It was just the time and the place and the pressure we were under, and everything else that was happening in my life. My decision not to do that album was totally emotional. That's how I run my life. I have to be at an emotional peak to deal with anything, and if I'm not there, it's not going to happen. It was a matter of finally saying, "Ya know, this doesn't feel right; let's do something else." People freaked. But I think everybody in my organization understood, because they're all the most emotional people you could ever meet in your life. We argue or threaten to throw out files
or quit or beat each other up. Actually, we don't really argue; we only threaten. But we've survived together for the past seven years. When I made the decision not to do Bad for Good, it did a good thing for the entire family. The family was tired of dealing with that record, and we had to go on to something else. Once the decision was made, the pressure was off, and everybody in the organization was really up again. We wound up getting together two albums, instead of just one.


oui:It's common for a group that has a smash success with their first album to develop a great deal of fear
and anxiety about doing their second.
Is that what happened to you?


MEAT LOAF: I'm scared to death. But I'm not scared of you, and I'm not scared of the people who buy my
records. I'm not worried whether or not Tim Matheson is going to like my record as much as he did the last one. My only fear is whether Meat Loaf is going to like the record as much as he did the last one.
..

oui:When do you plan to tour again?

MEAT LOAF: This fall. Steinman will have his own album out. I'll have my own album out. Karla DeVito, who sang with us on the first album, will have her own album out. And we're all going to tour together in one big show. Nobody's gonna open for nobody. It'll just be a whole lotta different artists doing a show together. It'll be called the "Neverland Spectacular." And we'll probably do a live album from that tour.


oui:What's your next movie?


MEAT LOAF: I don't have a title yet, but they're working on the script now. I'll be the leading man, and it'll also be a
love story, like Roadie.
..

oui:What about the movie version of Jim Steinman's play NeverLands, which is sort of a rock-'n-'roll version of Peter Pan about adolescent boys who never grow up. Are you going to be in that?


MEAT LOAF: Yeah. I'm gonna play Tinkerbell. And Tink's gonna be the lead character. It used to be split, but since I got the lead in Roadie, they changed it.


oui:Adolescence seems to be a common theme in your music. Steinman's songs are often labeled as teenage anthems.

MEAT LOAF: Yeah, but they're not for
or about teenagers. Bat out of Hell was
for teenagers, the same way King Lear is a play for old kings. It deals with the hard-core emotions that come into being when people come of age. For
different people, this happens at different ages. But the majority of people reach that emotional peak between fifteen and seventeen. They have their first love, and they feel what it's like when it breaks up. They have their first fight, and then they know how that feels. They have their first conquest, denial, sexual adventure, real adventure. They crash a car into a tree and come out laughin'. When you get older, you stymie yourself, and you don't do those things. When you're younger, you can do 'em cuz you don't know.



oui: Do you feel, in certain ways, that you're still a kid?


MEAT LOAF: Of course. Would I have long hair and have a name like Meat Loaf, if I didn't feel like I was a kid?
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