Meat Loaf during a performance in Amsterdam in 2008
An obese, sweaty man with long hair who stood singing as if he was about to collapse. It doesn’t seem like a formula for success, but it turned out to be. Singer Meat Loaf became famous in one fell swoop in the late 1970s with Paradise by the Dashboard Light. A song that still fills the dance floor at every party.
Paradise was on the album Bat Out of Hell which sold over 40 million copies, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Also the number You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth, which became a big hit a year later, was included on this album.
In the early 90s he had another monster hit with I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) for which he received a Grammy Award.
Marvin Lee Aday, as Meat Loaf was called at birth, was not only a singer, but also a creditable actor. He acted in several theater productions and had roles in more than 50 films and television series, such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Wayne’s World (1992) and Fight Club (1999). He also guest-starred in series such as South Park, House MD, Monk and Glee.
Aday grew up as an only child in Dallas. His mother sang in a gospel band and his father, a police officer, was an alcoholic who regularly disappeared. Meat Loaf and his mother would drive past all the bars and cafes looking for him. Because of the problems at home, he often lived with his grandmother.
He was bullied at school for being fat. “My dad called me Meat, everyone called me Meat, only the school doctor said Marvin. Of course I was bullied. But moderation doesn’t suit me. I ate more than I could eat, like us in Texas everyone more everything, more and wants more. Everything had to be superlative for us, and that still appeals to me,” he said in an interview in the Volkskrant in 2003.
Inflated stop
After graduating from school, he moved to Los Angeles where he started the band Meat Loaf Soul founded. During the recording of their first single, he shot so high that he blew up a plug on the recording equipment.
He was immediately offered three record deals, all of which he declined. He did accept a role in the musical hair. In New York, at an audition for another musical lyricist and composer, he met Jim Steinman. At that audition he sang the song (I’d Love to Be) As Heavy as Jesus, to which Steinman would have said: I actually think you are as heavy as two Jesuses. They became friends and started the album together Bat Out of Hell to produce.
Images from the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show:
When the album was almost finished the duo could not find a producer. The bombastic, operatic rock music combined with Meat Loaf’s theatrical performance on stage deviated too much from what was common in the music industry.
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So we made epic songs about fat, ugly boys, full of silly jokes.
Music producer Todd Rundgren dared to release the album in 1977. He considered it a parody of Bruce Springsteen.
“You take all of its elements — overlong songs, teen scares, handsome boy — and reverse them exactly. So we made epic songs about fat, ugly boys, full of silly jokes,” he told Mojo Magazine in 2009.
Oxygen
In fact, against all expectations, Bat Out of Hell a great success and performances followed in quick succession. The great success broke Aday. During his performances he gave himself completely and because he struggled with asthma he regularly had to take oxygen after the show.
A combination of drug use and exhaustion caused him to have a nervous breakdown and lose his voice while recording his new album. Bad for Good, causing Steinman to have the album recorded by someone else. The relationship with Steinman cooled as a result and even ended in a long-drawn-out lawsuit that left him almost bankrupt.
The seven albums that followed did not produce any major successes. Only when he and Steinman reconciled and in 1992 together Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell released, the tide turned. With sales of 15 million copies and a number 1 hit with I’d Do Anything for Love in 28 countries he was once again in the spotlight.
In addition to a Grammy in 1994, he also received the honor of The Star Spangled Banner to sing at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. He considered it one of the biggest highlights of his career.
Meat Loaf has since regularly released new albums, of which Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose (2006) was the most successful. But he was never able to match the success of his first album.
Fainted
In 2001, he changed his name from Marvin to Michael and divorced his wife Leslie Edmonds, whom he had been married to since 1978. Aday and his wife had one daughter, the actress Amanda Aday.
In 2011 and 2012, Meat Loaf passed out several times during a concert. In 2013, he retired from touring to focus on his acting career. But in 2015 he started a new tour. In June 2016, he collapsed during a performance in Canada.
Meat Loaf passed away yesterday at the age of 74 surrounded by his wife Deborah. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
