First of all, Meat Loaf is a great interview. Nice guy, good talker. But when asked about a reported beef with a certain blond celebutante, the singer chuckles derisively, and over the phone line you can almost hear that big block head of his shaking in exasperation.
ldquo;That's a complete lie, rdquo; he says. ldquo;I have no beef with Paris Hilton. She did a movie with my daughter.
That's insane. rdquo;
Sarcastically, he blurts that he ldquo;loves the press, rdquo; but I'm not really paying attention. I'm just so giddy at achieving my goal of inducing a superstar named Meat Loaf to say anything close to ldquo;I have no beef with Paris Hilton.
rdquo;
Anyway, the singer currently promotes Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, the latest (and last) volume of the gazillion-selling franchise. And if he's worried about being misquoted, he needn't fret here. For this story, we'll take the words right out of his mouth.
The New York Times addresses you as Mr. Loaf. What should we call you?
Meat. Everybody's called me Meat my entire life mdash; my entire life, not just my entertainment life. From when I was a year old.
When I did the first interview for Bat Out of Hell in 1977, that was the first question. Nobody had ever quizzed me on that before, so I found it strange. lsquo;I'd been called this for 28 years,' I was thinking to myself, lsquo;why would you ask me now?
'
That was almost 30 years ago. Why so much time between each Bat album?
In 1977, we put out Bat Out of Hell III, people would have gone, lsquo;Yeah right, ho-hum, so much for this.
' You've got to give people time to get over each one. I believe you need time to evaluate them.
And so, in 1993, you finally released Bat Out of Hell II, with the hit song I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That), which .
..
A phenomenal song.
I mean, I'll walk down the street and people sing that. They see me and they don't say hello, they just start singing it. You've got huge emotional connections to the thing.
I was going to ask, what is it that you won't do for love? I'm thinking that you won't place the toilet seat down after using it. Something like that.
I see. Well, everybody's got their own thing. That's the first time I've ever heard that one.
[Laughs.] You don't have a romantic bone in your body, do you? If you read the lyrics, it's the first line before every chorus.
It's lsquo;I'll never stop dreaming of you.'
I heard you hate to sing. What's up with that?
If you believe everything you read, you're in the wrong business. What I said was that I hate singing in the studio because it hurts. It is painful.
Sally Field once described acting as cutting yourself with razor blades. And I think that is very apropos to how I feel in the studio.
You're pretty intense on stage as well.
I will get so emotional mdash; and people have witnessed it mdash; that I've been so upset by a show that I'll be in the dressing room in tears over it. It impacts me ..
. that I haven't been able to give to that audience what they deserve and what they needed. I'm in a constant search for the perfect moment.
I don't think it'll ever happen, but if it ever did, then maybe I would stop.
Rolling Stone thought you were done in 1982. Back then they said that you'd end up being the heftiest footnote in rock history.
I guess you proved them wrong.
Meat Loaf plays Toronto's Elgin Theatre on Nov. 4, 416-870-8000.
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