Video Meat Loaf
"It's All Coming Back to Me"

MP3: Hi, how are you? Meat Loaf : Good, man. Good. I've been a little bit nervous about this moment. Why, Chris? Should I call you, you know, Meat? Everybody's called me Meat since I was nine months old. Meat! OK, that's perfect. [laugh] Since I...before I can remember. Oh, really? Yeah. Since I was a child. Since I was a baby. A baby. Did you have a preference for raw meat when you were a child? I have no idea. [laugh] I never asked. Other people's names were Bill and Frank and Chuck and Stu and Bubba and, you know, Billy Bob and Pudgy and Meat and, you know, I didn't ask. It's just what my name was. Did you ask why they named you Chris? Not until later in life. Well see, I didn't have that opportunity because my parents died very young, when I was young. Right. Ah, yes. So, you know, my dad died in 1970. So, after Bat Out of Hell came out and everybody asked me where it came from, I would have probably gone to him. Why did you call me Meat? You know. And he would have told me. But I never had the opportunity. So I'd like to ask you about the new album. OK. If I could? Good choice. OK. Thank you. So 16 years separated the first two Bat Out of Hell albums. Right. Then 13 years for the third installment, The Monster is Loose. Why the wait? It comes when it's supposed to...there's no rhyme or reason for it. When it's meant to come out, it comes out. It's not like we sit around and plan and go OK, let's wait 20 years. It's not some predestined planned thing. I mean it's predestined but it's not planned. So, it was not then...I mean did you know that you were going to sit down and do a third? Or you wished that you could and then it just sort of happened? Or...? We always knew--for over 20-something years. It's always been in mind to be a trilogy. OK. Since the '80s. And so we did two and always hoped, you know, always thought there would be a third. And that was always the plan: It should be a trilogy. And then there's an epilogue, but it's not Bat Out of Hell IV. [laugh] You're one of the first musicians to truly build a musical franchise, if you will, that parallels what you might see, say, in the film industry--like George Lucas' Star Wars. Yeah. It's an ambitious goal. Yeah, you better make sure it works. Exactly! Did you have any concerns about this one at all? Absolutely! You're kidding me? OK. Yeah. Absolutely. In fact, I wasn't convinced until April that this record was going to be called Bat out of Hell III. And we've been working on it for six months. Why was that? For [two] years it had been planned that this is Bat Out of Hell III. But I wasn't convinced. You weren't convinced that it musically would fit into the Bat Out of Hell sound? Yeah. I wasn't convinced that it was going to hold up. I see. To hold up, it was going to be, you know. I wasn't convinced. Bat Out of Hell records are different. If you listen, if you really sit and listen to Meat Loaf records and Bat Out of Hell records, they're completely different. And the imagery is different. The whole aura of them is different. They sound different. They don't sound the same. The only thing is me. You hear my voice, but they're completely different. So the common variable is your voice. Yes. But the records are different, completely different. They sound different, and the energy is different. It's a different record. So how do you know in your soul what makes a record a Bat record? When it's no longer me. When it's no longer a Meat Loaf record. So it's almost like acting to a certain degree? You sort of have to immerse yourself entirely into the record and the characters that you develop? Yeah, in a sense. But when I'm no longer a spoke in a wheel, when I have no control over what's going on--and I don't mean that, like OK, somebody else is pulling the strings--when no one is pulling the strings! And it has a life of its own. When the strings are just being pulled. I see. When no one...people make decisions and they say OK, we're going to do this on this day. But when it surpasses what anybody's talking about and things are just coming out. And the people that are planning them are looking at the guitars and going, Wow! That was unbelievable.

And you're almost possessed by a Bat Out of Hell record. And it just takes over. It's a Twilight Zone. It literally takes over everything. And it's just like a Twilight Zone thing--where people come into play and they wind up playing stuff that they didn't know that they could actually play. [laugh]. So it's a sort of--almost a group "out of body" experience? It is. It's exactly what it is, and that's what it's always been. And that's why they're so physically demanding and physically exhausting. Because when you leave the studio--when I leave the studio, when I leave a normal studio, like for Couldn't Have Said it Better, yeah, I'm a little tired. But it's not a big deal. Man, when I leave, after working on Bat Out of Hell, I can barely drive home.

I mean it's all I can do to get the 35 minutes home and get in my house. And then the next day, because it's painful, because it really hurts, it's very painful. You know you sit there and you work yourself up. You know, you've got to be there at 2 and you start working yourself up at 11 to, OK I got to go, we're going now. It's sort of like we're getting ready to play a football game, and these defensive linemen know they're going to get, you know, beat to death all day. [laugh] But that's their gig, and that's their job, and that's what's going to happen. You said earlier that you didn't know up until six months ago that this might not actually be a Bat album. Well, they were calling it Bat Album III. Desmond thought he was producing Bat Album III, the record company thought it was making Bat Album III, but until it reached a certain level for me, I'm not going to allow it to be called that. Because all it becomes then is a f***ing marketing tool.

That's all it is then. And it can't just be that. It can't be a marketing tool. First and foremost, it has to be Bat Out of Hell.

Secondly, it can be a marketing tool. But that can't be all you look at. Because there's just too much of me in these two other things. And too much of my life in them to just sit there and go, OK fine, well that's good. OK, go ahead, put Bat Out of Hell III on and I don't care, it's just about the money. And I've never done anything for the money, and I never will do anything just for the money--not going to happen! Not going to sell my soul for a marketing tool. Oh, that's a beautiful thing to hear in this day and age. Yeah, because everybody's out just doing stuff for the money. I mean I can sit here and name you bands that are on tour which have no business being out on tour. And the only reason they're there is because they're out there for the money. And I'm not going out on tour for the money. But baseball players, the real baseball players, don't play baseball for the money. They play baseball for the love of the game. And that's what they play for. Then, on the other hand, because it is a business, if they're good enough, then they deserve to be paid what they're worth. It's on two different levels. But first, you go for the love of it. And if you don't feel it, and you don't get excited behind it, and you're walking through it, and it doesn't mean...if every show doesn't mean something to you.

And it's like my guitar player said. We'd been out on the road last year for four months. We're at the last show. So it's the last show, who cares? Me? I'm in there giving notes, changing parts, saying OK, let's not do it this way tonight, we're going to do it this way--different. And Paul says: Meat is always like this little ball of energy…

And that's how I approach it. Every show has to be better than the one before. I'm never going to walk through anything. And, if I'm going to start that, then f***ing I'm not going. Because what's the point? What is the point? What's the point? All you have to do is disappoint an audience, and I can't stand that because that's who I work for. I work for an audience. It's like a plumber. If you don't want to do plumbing anymore, retire. Because you're not going to do a good job anymore. If you're tired of doing whatever you're doing then it's called a rut! I think it's been called a rut forever. And if you get stuck in that, you know, I pity you, because you don't have to be.

I mean some people's circumstances--if you get off into Africa and things like that--there are circumstances beyond your wildest imaginations. But I'm talking about in America. I'm talking about in Germany. I'm talking about in Australia. I'm talking about in Japan and these places, where people have choices. Because in certain countries, they have no choices. You know, China, they're dictated to. North Korea, they're dictated to. It's like choices are limited. But where you have choices, you need to make them. You've got to live your life where you're happy. But you know what stops people from doing that? Fear! Do you have fear? I have a fear. And my fear is that my show tonight won't be as good as the one last night. So that implies that we haven't seen your best performance yet? Yeah absolutely, you haven't. Like people, they ask these questions all the time about: What is the highlight of your career? And I go: That's the stupidest question I've ever heard in my life! [laugh] What do you mean, what's the highlight of my career? If I'd had the highlight already, what the f*** am I doing here? Right. I have no business being here. So what was your fear? What was your fear of this record? Oh! My fear is that I didn't have a fear. It wasn't a fear of the record. I just know that when you put out a Bat Out of Hell III, all you've got is skeptics and doubters. Bottom line! That's all you've got, people going oh, Bat Out of Hell III. Yeah, right! I mean that's the bottom line, let's be realistic. You don't have people jumping and down. You've got skeptics and doubters. And, because Bat Out of Hell, the other two is basically Bat, has been so much to so many people's lives, it's not about me, it's about them. And that's what Bat Out of Hell is about. It's not about Meat Loaf; it's about the people that have it. So you're a conduit to the experience? I am a conduit to the experience. That's all I am. I'm a spoke in a wheel. It has been 13 years since the last installment, and the music industry has changed dramatically. Oh I don't know what the hell they do. I don't pay any attention to them. You don't really care about the music industry or how it's changed over the past 13 years? No. Was there any concern going into this that the landscape of the music has changed so drastically that your theatrical sound with Bat Out of Hell would somehow not resonate? I don't know. No. That doesn't, that doesn't... No? Because people are always getting the same thing. It's like a drone. I'm sorry the music business is a drone. And they get the same thing all the time. They get the same stuff. And when anybody comes and does something different, people take notice. And when it sounds different, it's like anything. If you're walking down the street and somebody's dressed in a clown suit, you notice them.v Right. You go, look at that. And, you know, they're dressed completely different. So if anything, these albums prove that despite all the changes and popular music or what have you, it just comes down to sincere music. That's exactly right. I think if it's in the song, if it's in the tracks, people will respond. If it's in the song, they will respond. If it's not there, then they won't. Excellent. Well thank you for talking to me Meat. OK, no problem. And have a good day. All right, thanks.