Meat Loaf is back with 'Bat'
Meat Loaf hates when people take his stuff.
He was furious six years ago when thieves made off with a box of his coat hangers, a box of his sheets and two precious boxes of his cassettes, singles and live recordings that dated to the 1960s.
So you can imagine his reaction when he learned that Celine Dion got her vocal cords on "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." Dion took the song, a hit-in-waiting that didn't make the cut on Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell" album, and carried it to No. 2 on the charts in 1996.
"When I found out about it, I basically ignored it," Meat Loaf said during a recent teleconference. "I had to. Not from the fact that I dislike Celine. I don't dislike any artist. I think everybody who works and tries and gives it an effort is deserving of their work. And it had nothing to do with her. It just had to do with the fact that I felt that song was mine so I basically have ignored it.
"To me, it doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is this duet."
This duet, with 23-year-old Norwegian singer Marion Raven, is Meat Loaf's response. Instead of scrapping his version of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," he made it the first single off "Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose." It is the third installment in his "Bat" trilogy, and barring a change of heart, probably the last chapter of this rock-opera collection.
"Yeah, I think this pretty much sums it up," Meat Loaf said. "I don't think I have the energy. If you added how old I was and the number of years between 'Bat out of Hell (II and III),' even the Rolling Stones won't last that long."
He released "Bat Out of Hell" in 1977 and "Bat Out of Hell II" in 1993. Now 55 (or maybe 59, there are conflicting reports of his age), Meat Loaf doesn't expect to be writing rock songs in his 60s.
Inspiration for the latest album arrived a few years ago, when Jim Steinman approached Meat Loaf about resurrecting the "Bat" franchise for one more run. Steinman, who wrote some of Meat Loaf's biggest hits, trademarked the phrase "Bat Out of Hell" during the '90s. It would lead to a quarrel between two friends. Meat Loaf sued Steinman, claiming the writer had no right to trademark something that did not belong to him.
"I tried to stay out of it as much as possible," he said. "Only in total desperation do I ever talk to a lawyer, or ever become involved in this thing."
After settling out of court, Meat Loaf was free to focus on Part III, a swaggering finish to a trilogy that opens with the title track "The Monster Is Loose." He actually cherry-picked the phrase from an incident involving former Mets catcher Mike Piazza.
"It's based on something that (former Mets bench coach) John Stearns said to Mike Piazza ... when Piazza was in a slump," Meat Loaf said. "He just kept telling Piazza, 'The monster's out of the cage. The monster's loose, Mike.' I remembered that from watching the Mets on TV. ... I always loved that phrase."
It is a track that takes you back to his previous two installments — which may be a bit of a risk. The second he threw the phrase "Bat Out of Hell" on the album cover, he knew he was taking a risk. The name carries the weight of millions of past album sales with it. The original "Bat Out of Hell" sold over 30 million copies, while "Bat Out of Hell II" sold more than 15 million copies.
The pressure didn't seem to affect him during a recent performance at London's Royal Albert Hall. Playing selections from all three albums, Meat Loaf said he was stunned to read rave reviews from the writers who covered the show.
"People behind the scenes that have been watching me said it was the best show they've seen from me in 14 years," said Meat Loaf, who received four-out-of-five-star reviews from The Guardian and The Independent. "I was pretty taken aback by that."
