Meat Loaf back with new album, ready to head north to Toronto

Hell in a Handbasket: his most personal record

Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut solo album, Bat Out of Hell, sold more than 43 million copies and still moves more than 200,000 every year. When you start off your career with one of the most revered and best-selling rock albums in history, what do you do for an encore? That’s the question Mr. Loaf has tried to answer for the last 35 years.

โ€ˆ He’s created some incredible musical moments, starred on Broadway and compiled a decent little acting career, but ain’t nobody ready to let go of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”

According to Mr. Loaf, in 2007, it, or rather he, almost fell apart from it all. At a concert in Newcastle, England, for the Bat Out of Hell III album, Meat Loaf’s voice disappeared (a cyst, he would learn). He cancelled the show and sat in the dressing room until five in the morning, wondering if it was time to unplug the mic for good.

“It was bad. After that I fired everybody around me. I said, ‘That’s it, I quit, I retire.’ And I literally got up every morning, got a coffee and just sat on my couch,” he says. “I didn’t know what I’d do, but I was in a real bad depression.”

But, as he has done time and time again in his life when faced with adversity, he confronted his demons — and one morning he decided to get back to work. And, man, did he work.

In 2010, he released his best record in recent memory, the concept album Hang Cool Teddy Bear. And this month his latest album, Hell in a Handbasket, which he describes as his most personal album to date, lands on March 13, proving there is a lot of life left over, ahem, in this meaty rocker.

“This one I sing through my eyes,” he says. “It’s really the first record I’ve ever put out about how I feel about life and how I feel about what’s going on at the moment.”

What confirmed the album’s philosophical intent for Meat Loaf was the reaction of some to the death of pop star Whitney Houston.

“I didn’t know her well, but I first met her in 1984 and had a conversation of about 45 minutes, and it was really an incredible conversation,” he says.

“After her death, there were these horrible comments being written, and I really wanted to just go through the Internet wire to that person’s house, put my hands around their necks and just strangle them. I was writing the album about that, about the extreme left and right, because we’ve lost our point of view as a human culture. There is no compassion and no humanity.”

So it is this feeling of empowerment, of seizing the day, facing fears, pursuing dreams and doing what you love that pervades the album. And it is a powerful one, aided in part by guest appearances by rap icon Chuck D of Public Enemy fame as well as fellow hip hop artist Lil Jon. In addition, Meat Loaf covers one of his all-time favourite tunes “Mad Mad World,” by Canadian rocker Tom Cochrane.

Meat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, in 1947. He formed his first band, Meat Loaf Soul, in Los Angeles, where he also joined the local production of the musical Hair, which eventually led to an offer to record with Motown Records — culminating in the release of Stoney and Meatloaf in 1971. More musicals followed, eventually leading the hefty rocker to his role as Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which he remembers fondly for the opportunity of “seeing Susan Sarandon in her underwear.” And it was about this time that Mr. Loaf and long-time collaborater Jim Steinman started to work on Bat Out of Hell.

He’s played most every bar, club, theatre and arena in Toronto, including the legendary El Mocambo in 1978 with the Bat Out of Hell tour — and he says he is looking forward to returning.

“I’m hoping to get there this summer … sometime in June. I said, ‘Just get me to Canada,’ ” he says.

Article exclusive to STREETS OF TORONTO