Meat Loaf Talks Stage Collapse, New Album And Musical

That was June and the international interest still astounds him.

“What floored me was the fact that it literally went around the world,” he says.

“I did an interview with a woman from Japan and that was her first question. Then I did an interview with someone from Thailand and that was their first question. I finally said, ‘There’s a lot more to report about in the world than me falling down on the stage in Edmonton.’“

The reason for the fall, he says, was dehydration.

“We don’t have the kind of show where we play a song, the singer goes back and gets a drink of water or whatever. The music never stops and so I have very little chance to get back.”

His new album Braver Than We Are, out on Friday in the U.S. and released last week in Europe, features old and new songs written by Jim Steinman. It’s the latest collaboration from the partnership which started over 40 years ago and includes 1977’s Bat Out Of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell (1993).

In an interview with The Associated Press, Meat Loaf talked about the legacy of the Bat albums and the collapse.

On The Collapse

“It was dehydration. That’s all it was. … I don’t remember being scared. … I kind of woke up on stage, but I don’t remember what was going on.”

On What Would Happen If He Died On Stage

“I have a plan if I die. The band plays, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ and then they all get off their instruments and they lead the audience in a song, ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game.’ And if it was too morbid to leave me on the stage, take me off the stage and still do the same thing.”

On The “Bat Out Of Hell” Musical

“That has been Jim Steinman’s dream, before he met me. And that’s what ‘Who Needs The Young’ (opening album track) was written for. Every song that Jim Steinman has ever written has been for this musical. I won’t give anything away but I’m just happy that my friend and someone who I love dearly and have worked with for over 40 years is finally seeing his dream come true.

On The New Album

“Every album I’ve ever done; get a song, record it, done – down the line. But with this one, we wanted it to be cohesive. I tried to never finalize a song so that it flowed right to the next one so it’s a very hypnotic record. It also fits in the same category as Bat Out Of Hell – nothing like Bat Out Of Hell – but there is nothing else out there in the world musically like this piece of music.

On His Sense Of Humor (And Whether People Get It)

“They don’t because, take a song like ‘Bat Out of Hell’ — it’s really silly. That I’m dying in the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun, torn and twisted. it’s funny. If you’re doing a comedy, you have to play that character real and the minute you go for comedy, it’s never funny. So on songs like ‘Bat,’ you have to be honest and you have to be truthful and you have to be in that moment so it works.”

On Touring

“We will get this (pinched nerve in his back) taken care of and then we will sort out the tour dates.

(On tour), I’m really disciplined. After a show I try not to talk. Days off I don’t talk. I never leave my room. I stay by myself most of the time. Frances (his assistant) – her ritual is at 4 o’clock in the afternoon she comes in and checks on me, on a day off, like a nurse in an old folk’s home.” (He laughs)