Cathie
26 Jul 2003, 19:09
I found this article from the TV Times. The interviwer is Chris Pointer.
I think the interview is from about 1999 and I ahven't seen it on here before. Sorry if it has already been posted.
Leaner Cut of Meat – How A Rock Legend Consigned His Fat Back Into Hell
An unremarkable looking middle aged guy with close-cropped hair fiddles with a few levers in the control booth of a recording studio. Then he starts to sing. “I swear I saw a young boy down in the gutter, he was starting to foam in the heat…”
Wow, doesn’t that sound like Meat Loaf? Suddenly it hits you. Yes, it really is him. Meat, the old rocker himself, is there before you, streamlined, neat and tidy in head-to-toe designer black.
But where is the man mountain, where is the shoulder length wild hair, the body like a 10 ton truck in straining frilly white shirt the size of a small marquee? If it’s true that inside every fat man is a thin one trying to get out – then imprisoned inside the old monster-sized Meat Loaf was JR Ewing from Dallas.
You remember the mystery that gripped the nation: Who shot JR? Now we know. He didn’t get the bullet, he was eaten. Meat Loaf had him for lunch. And now, tons and tons lighter with hair miles and miles shorter, Meat has adopted the US oil millionaire look.
“I don’t know about looking like JR,” he muses. “But I like the way I am now. I looked horrible in the past, but everybody thinks they look horrible in the past. I’ve lost weight, had my hair cut and I look better.”
Though he may appear to be a different man, the spine-tingling voice is still there as you can hear in this week’s Classic Albums, charting the phenomenal worldwide success of Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, which has sold 34 million copies since it’s 1978 release.
So what makes the album’s title track about a motorcycle crash so remarkable that it’s still played with affection – sometimes even at funerals?
“It was a combination of great lyrics and my ability to make those real,” he says. “If I say it was a great piece of acting everybody comes at me with guns loaded. But it’s no different to Shakespeare and Laurence Olivier doing a great Hamlet. People always go, “That’s not rock and roll”. But it is.”
Acting or “the work” appears to get Meat Loaf’s knickers (size medium to large rather than jumbo) in a twist. “My whole career is about the work. It’s not about money or fame, it’s not about being seen as a rebellious guy.”
And he’s perhaps entitled to be intense about “the work” with two new movies out this month – Crazy in Alabama and Brad Pitt’s Fight Club. There’s also an autobiography to be launched in Britain next week.
The time when newspapers were full of his woes – from the collapse of his health to money and marriage problems – now seem far behind him. His wife Lesley, whom he married more than 20 years ago after a three week courtship, is still by his side. Their daughter Pearl is a singer and youngest child Amanda, an actress. Now he’s fifty something and he’s happy living in California.
Cool and calm, then. Oh, yes, the old rocker now has anti-freeze instead of calories in his blood stream. “Everything’s, you know, wonderful,” he says. But though he’s found his bit of heaven he’s still, as this week’s film shows, the Bat Man from Hell. Delighted, he laughs. “Hey! I’ve still got it 22 years later.”
I think the interview is from about 1999 and I ahven't seen it on here before. Sorry if it has already been posted.
Leaner Cut of Meat – How A Rock Legend Consigned His Fat Back Into Hell
An unremarkable looking middle aged guy with close-cropped hair fiddles with a few levers in the control booth of a recording studio. Then he starts to sing. “I swear I saw a young boy down in the gutter, he was starting to foam in the heat…”
Wow, doesn’t that sound like Meat Loaf? Suddenly it hits you. Yes, it really is him. Meat, the old rocker himself, is there before you, streamlined, neat and tidy in head-to-toe designer black.
But where is the man mountain, where is the shoulder length wild hair, the body like a 10 ton truck in straining frilly white shirt the size of a small marquee? If it’s true that inside every fat man is a thin one trying to get out – then imprisoned inside the old monster-sized Meat Loaf was JR Ewing from Dallas.
You remember the mystery that gripped the nation: Who shot JR? Now we know. He didn’t get the bullet, he was eaten. Meat Loaf had him for lunch. And now, tons and tons lighter with hair miles and miles shorter, Meat has adopted the US oil millionaire look.
“I don’t know about looking like JR,” he muses. “But I like the way I am now. I looked horrible in the past, but everybody thinks they look horrible in the past. I’ve lost weight, had my hair cut and I look better.”
Though he may appear to be a different man, the spine-tingling voice is still there as you can hear in this week’s Classic Albums, charting the phenomenal worldwide success of Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, which has sold 34 million copies since it’s 1978 release.
So what makes the album’s title track about a motorcycle crash so remarkable that it’s still played with affection – sometimes even at funerals?
“It was a combination of great lyrics and my ability to make those real,” he says. “If I say it was a great piece of acting everybody comes at me with guns loaded. But it’s no different to Shakespeare and Laurence Olivier doing a great Hamlet. People always go, “That’s not rock and roll”. But it is.”
Acting or “the work” appears to get Meat Loaf’s knickers (size medium to large rather than jumbo) in a twist. “My whole career is about the work. It’s not about money or fame, it’s not about being seen as a rebellious guy.”
And he’s perhaps entitled to be intense about “the work” with two new movies out this month – Crazy in Alabama and Brad Pitt’s Fight Club. There’s also an autobiography to be launched in Britain next week.
The time when newspapers were full of his woes – from the collapse of his health to money and marriage problems – now seem far behind him. His wife Lesley, whom he married more than 20 years ago after a three week courtship, is still by his side. Their daughter Pearl is a singer and youngest child Amanda, an actress. Now he’s fifty something and he’s happy living in California.
Cool and calm, then. Oh, yes, the old rocker now has anti-freeze instead of calories in his blood stream. “Everything’s, you know, wonderful,” he says. But though he’s found his bit of heaven he’s still, as this week’s film shows, the Bat Man from Hell. Delighted, he laughs. “Hey! I’ve still got it 22 years later.”