Meat Loaf Interview

In 1978 Meat Loaf, whilst touring in Germany in support of the "Bat Out Of Hell" album, gave an interview in which at one point he discussed the Stoney and Meatloaf album.

You can hear the relevant 30 second part of the interview by downloading the interview clip in MP3 format, though you will need to scroll down to the end of the page to do so

A full transcript of the interview clip follows.

Transcript of Interview

Meat

I always sing with, put it this way, I always sing with women from the time I started in 1967, whenever, it's sort of like Beauty and the Beast trip, you know, and so I'm the beauty and they're the beast and so, yes, Stoney and Meat Loaf, she was the beast and I was the beauty, always been that way, you know

Interviewer

What do you think about that record?

Meat

What Stoney and Meat Loaf? You can burn it if you own a copy, burn the damn thing. I don't want to see it, you know, people come up with it. They're getting ready to re-release it. I can't believe it. I hate that record. I had nothing to do with the record other than it said Meat Loaf and I did a few vocals

Other Comments from Meat

"That was my first record contract and I really didn't know what I was doing, so I just did what they told me to do" (Source: Sounds Magazine 1978)

"I didn't really have anything to do with the making of that album so it doesn't really count for anything. The Motown people just called me up and told me when I'd be going into the studio. They sent over a tape of the backing tracks, which they'd already cut, and copies of the lyrics. The producer was singing the rough medley on the backing tracks for me to copy. The only creativity involved came when Stoney and I got together and decided how we were going to do each song. Mostly I did that because I'm good at figuring out who sings where" (Source: Sound Magazine, Canada 1978)

Commentary from the Webmaster

These remarks made by Meat in the above interviews are very negative and rather unkind to all those involved in the project but to be fair to Meat it should be remembered that they are all over 20 years old. Meat made a number of similar disparaging comments about the Stoney and Meatloaf record at this time when Bat Out Of Hell was at the peak of its success. He would always give credit to Stoney's singing ability but having worked so closely and been so heavily involved with Jim Steinman in making Bat Out Of Hell he was always particularly critical of what he subsequently perceived as his lack of input into the record. Of course it may well be that Meat's views on the record have mellowed somewhat over the years. However I have no more recent comments from Meat to add to this site so for all I know he may still hold such negative views today.

In my opinion the album contains a couple of excellent tracks in "What You See Is What You Get" and "As Heavy As Jesus". There are a couple of others, that is "Sunshine (Where's Heaven)" and "It Takes All Kinds Of People", which though not as outstanding as the above two are also very good and the solo tracks ("Jimmy Bell" by Meat, and "Game Of Love" by Stoney) are also competent enough efforts. There are admittedly some what I would describe as mediocre tracks and here I am thinking about songs such as Jessica White, Kiss Me Again and Lady Be Mine and the less said about the half finished tracks dug out and put together for the re-release the better!! Even one of the producers on the original album Ralph Terrana was embarrassed about having to have his name on the re-release album!!

Below are some comments (reproduced with permission) from Ralph Terrana, which I think balances this section off nicely

Commentary from Ralph Terrana
(Producer on the Album)

I was disappointed to hear Meat's negative opinion of the Stoney and Meatloaf album. He was certainly enthusiastic while we were recording it. Also, it was "As Heavy As Jesus", a song I produced and co-wrote that got him his association with Jim.

Meat, if you ever read this...we were all young then doing the best we could. Looking back, there is much I would do to change things on that album, but it is what it is and I feel we all did the best we could. You and I were very close in those days. If you were not happy, why didn't you talk this over with me? I was thrilled for you when success came your way and I wish you continued good fortune Meat.

Ralph

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