Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947), better known by his stage name Meat Loaf, is an American rock musician and actor of stage and screen. He is noted for the Bat out of Hell album trilogy that he created consisting of Bat out of Hell, Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell and Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, and several famous songs from popular films. The Neverland Express is the name of the band he fronts as its lead singer. In 2001, he changed his first name to Michael. Despite setbacks (including multiple bankruptcies), Meat Loaf has had a successful music career, spawning some of the largest-selling albums, and breaking several records for chart duration. Bat out of Hell, the debut album which had been four years in the making, has sold over 43 million copies. After more than 30 years, it still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually, and stayed on the charts for over 9 years.
Although he enjoyed success with Bat out of Hell and Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell, Meat Loaf experienced some initial difficulty establishing a steady career within his native United States; however, he has retained iconic status and popularity in Europe, especially the UK, where he ranks 23rd for number of weeks overall spent on the charts, and is one of only two artists with an album never to have left the music charts. With the help of his New York collection of musicians — John Golden, Richard Raskin and Paul Jacobs — his European tours enjoyed immense popularity in the 1980s. In Germany, Meat Loaf became notably popular following the release of Bat out of Hell II but has enjoyed most of his success among pop/rock fans. He ranked 96th on VH1's '100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock'.
Meat Loaf has also appeared in over 50 movies or television shows sometimes as himself, or as characters resembling his stage persona. His most notable roles include Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Robert "Bob" Paulson in Fight Club, credited as "Meat Loaf Aday". He also made an appearance in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, playing JB's father. In 2007 Meat Loaf granted filmmaker Bruce David Klein exclusive access for a backstage documentary, Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise, shot in February 2007 at the beginning of the singer's tour in support of Bat out of Hell III. The film was an official selection of the Montreal World Film Festival in 2007.
Meat Loaf also performs a considerable amount of charity work, and in June 2008 took part in a football penalty shoot-out competition on behalf of two cancer charities in Newcastle, UK. He auctioned shots to the 100 highest bidders and then took his place between the goal posts.
Meat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, United States. He was the first child of Wilma Artie (née Hukel), a school teacher and a member of the Vo-di-o-do Girls gospel quartet, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a police officer. His father was an alcoholic who would go on drinking binges for days at a time.[8] Marvin and his mother would drive around to all the bars in Dallas, looking for Orvis to take him home. Because of this, Marvin often stayed with his grandmother, Charlsee Norrod.
Meat Loaf relates a story in his autobiography, To Hell and Back, about how he, a friend, and his friend's father drove out to Love Field to watch John F. Kennedy land. After watching him leave the airport, they went to Market Hall, which was on Kennedy's parade route. On the way they heard that Kennedy had been shot, so they headed to Parkland Hospital, where they saw Jackie Kennedy get out of the car and Governor John Connally get pulled out, although they never saw the president taken out.
In 1965, Meat Loaf graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, having already started his acting career via school productions such as Where's Charley? and The Music Man. After attending college at Lubbock Christian College, Marvin transferred to North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas at Denton). While there, he was called in for an Army physical, which he tried to fail by gaining sixty-eight pounds (31 kg) in four and a half weeks. They determined that he was fit despite being color blind, having a trick shoulder, and being very concussion prone.
In 1967, when his draft notice arrived, Meat Loaf ignored it. Instead, after seeing his mother hospitalized and her health deteriorating, Marvin stole his dad's credit card and moved to Los Angeles, where he became a bouncer at a teenage nightclub.
In his autobiography, Meat Loaf claims that shortly after his mother died, his father, in a drunken rage, tried to kill him with a knife, and that he barely managed to escape after they had a bad fight. After Marvin got his inheritance from his mother's death, he rented an apartment in Dallas and isolated himself for three and a half months. Eventually a friend found him. Marvin bought a car with his inheritance and drove to California.
In Los Angeles, he formed his first band, Meat Loaf Soul. During the recording of their first song, Meat Loaf hit a big note and blew the board dash; he was immediately offered three recording contracts, which he turned down. Meat Loaf Soul's first gig was in Huntington Beach at the Cave, opening for Them, Van Morrison's band. While performing their cover of the Yardbirds' "Smokestack Lightning," the smoke machine they used made too much smoke and the club had to be cleared out. Later, the band was the opening act at Cal State Northridge for Renaissance, Taj Mahal and Janis Joplin. The band then underwent several changes at lead guitar, changing the name of the band each time - including Popcorn Blizzard, and Floating Circus. As Floating Circus, they opened for The Who, The Fugs, The Stooges, MC5, Grateful Dead and The Grease Band. Their regional success led them to release a single, "Once Upon a Time" backed with "Hello." Meat Loaf joined the Los Angeles production of "Hair."
With the publicity generated from Hair, Meat Loaf was invited to record with Motown. They suggested he do a duet with Stoney Murphy, to which he agreed. The Motown production team in charge of the album wrote and selected the songs while Meat Loaf and Stoney came in only to lay down their vocals. The album, titled Stoney & Meatloaf (Meatloaf being shown as one word), was completed in the summer of 1971 and released in September of that year. A single released in advance of the album, What You See Is What You Get, reached number thirty six on the R&B charts and seventy-one on Billboard Hot 100 chart. To support their album, Meat Loaf and Stoney toured with Jake Wade and the Soul Searchers, opening up for Richie Havens, The Who, The Stooges, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper and Rare Earth. Meat Loaf left soon after Motown replaced his and Stoney's vocals from the one song he liked, "Who Is the Leader of the People?", with new vocals by Edwin Starr. The album has been re-released after Meat Loaf's success, with Stoney's vocals removed from all songs from the original Stoney and Meatloaf album. "Who Is the Leader of the People?" was released with Meat Loaf's vocals intact, only Stoney was missing and the album failed. Stoney, in Meat Loaf's absence, brought out a solo single which flopped and she quit Motown shortly after. Stoney, aka Shaun Murphy, went on to sing backup with many acts, including Bob Seger and Eric Clapton, and became a full time member of Little Feat in 1993. She continues to work with Little Feat and Seger.
During the winter of 1973, after returning from a short production of Rainbow in New York in Washington, D.C., Meat Loaf received a call asking him to be in The Rocky Horror Show where he played the parts of Eddie and Dr. Scott. The success of the play led to the filming of The Rocky Horror Picture Show where Meat Loaf played only Eddie. About the same time, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman started work on Bat out of Hell. Meat Loaf convinced Epic Records to shoot videos for four songs, "Bat Out Of Hell", "Paradise by the Dashboard Light", "You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth" and "Two out of Three Ain't Bad". He then convinced Lou Adler, the producer of Rocky Horror, to run the "Paradise" video as a trailer to the movie. Meat Loaf's final show in New York was Gower Champion's Rock-a-bye Hamlet, a Hamlet musical. It closed two weeks into its initial run. Meat would later return occasionally to perform Hot Patootie for a special Rocky Horror reunion or convention, one of which was recorded for his Live Around the World CD set in 1996.
During his recording of the soundtrack for Rocky Horror, Meat Loaf recorded two more songs: "Stand By Me" (a Ben E. King cover), and "Clap Your Hands". They remained unreleased until 1984, when they appeared as b-sides to the "Nowhere Fast" single.
In 1976, Meat Loaf recorded lead vocals for Ted Nugent's Free-for-All album when regular Nugent lead vocalist Derek St. Holmes quit the band. Meat Loaf sang lead on 5 of the album's 9 tracks.
Meat Loaf and friend/songwriter Jim Steinman started Bat out of Hell in 1972, but did not get serious about it until the end of 1974. The two-year gap in the production was due to controversy surrounding his son born in Afton, Wyoming. Meat Loaf decided to leave theatre, and concentrate exclusively on music. Then, the National Lampoon Show opened on Broadway, and it needed an understudy for John Belushi, a close friend of Meat Loaf since 1972. It was at the Lampoon Show that Meat Loaf met Ellen Foley, the co-star who sang "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with him on the album Bat out of Hell.
After the Lampoon show ended, Meat Loaf and Steinman spent time seeking a record deal. Their approaches were rejected by each record company, because their songs did not fit any specific recognized music industry style. Finally, they performed the songs for Todd Rundgren, who decided to produce the album, as well as play lead guitar on it (other members of Todd's band Utopia also lent their musical talents). They then shopped the record around, but still had no takers until Cleveland International Records decided to take a chance. On October 21, 1977, Bat out of Hell was released.
Meat Loaf's first gig in support of the record was opening for Cheap Trick in Chicago; the audience started out hostile, but by the end of the show, they had been won over. Their next stop came a couple of days after the release of the album in New Jersey. The show was a complete sell-out, and people lined up to see it hours before it started. Things really started to take off after Meat Loaf appeared on Saturday Night Live on March 25, 1978 as Musical Guest to Guest Host Christopher Lee. That evening Christopher Lee introduced him by saying, "And now ladies and gentlemen I would like you to meet Loaf. (pauses, looks dumbfounded) I beg your pardon, what? (he listens to the director's aside) Oh! Why...why I'm sorry, yes, of course...ah... Ladies and gentlemen, Meat Loaf!" The huge success of the album caused a rift to open up between Meat Loaf and Steinman: the group, named after Meat Loaf for ease of labeling, seemed to Steinman to sideline his work as creator, and Steinman started to resent the attention that his partner was getting.
During a show in Ottawa, Meat Loaf fell off the stage and broke his leg. He toured with the broken leg, playing Nassau Coliseum from his wheel chair. Unable to handle the pressure, Meat Loaf resorted to cocaine, ultimately culminating in a nervous breakdown where he threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the ledge of a building in New York. Then, in December 1978, he went to Woodstock to work with Steinman. It was at the Bearsville studio that Meat Loaf met his future wife, Leslie G. Edmonds; they were married within a month. Leslie had a daughter from a previous marriage, Pearl, who has since followed in her stepfather's footsteps to become a singer. In the middle of recording his second album, Bad for Good, Meat Loaf lost the ability to sing; it is unclear as to the exact cause - the tour was a punishing one, and the vocals and energy intense. However, his doctors said that physically he was fine and that his problem was psychological. Nevertheless, Steinman decided to keep recording Bad for Good without Meat Loaf.
Just as his singing career seemed to be reaching a dead end, he got the role of Travis Redfish in Roadie. The movie had cameos by Debbie Harry, Roy Orbison and Hank Williams, Jr., but still was a box office flop.
Over time Meat Loaf got his singing voice back and got off drugs. The struggles that Meat Loaf faced making Bat out of Hell paid off. It now has sold over 43 million copies worldwide, making it one of the highest selling albums of all time. In the UK alone, its 2.1 million sales put it in 38th place. Despite peaking at #9 and spending only two weeks in the top ten in 1981, it has now clocked up 480 weeks on the UK album chart, a figure bettered by nobody. In Australia, it knocked the Bee Gees off the number #1 spot and went on to become the biggest-selling Australian album of all time. Bat out of Hell is also one of only two albums that has never exited the Top 200 in the UK charts this makes it the longest stay in any music chart in the world, although the published chart contains just 75 positions.
From August 26 to August 28, 2006, Meat Loaf took part in an annual celebrity golf version of the Ryder Cup called The All*Star Cup in South Wales, UK. August 26, 2006 was a practice day, while August 27 and August 28, 2006 were the two days of actual competition. Europe won the Cup for the second consecutive year. Meat Loaf lost his two games, but was a major hit with the crowds, entertaining them with lots of laughs and fun as he made his way around the course. Alice Cooper was a fellow member of the US team. The event was a big success, with large crowds attending, and the two main days of competition were shown live on UK television.
Meat Loaf is said to have cheated death on numerous occasions, having crashed in a car which rolled over, been hit on the head with a shot put, and being struck by Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. In October 2006, his private jet had to make an emergency landing at London's Stansted Airport after his plane's forward landing gear failed.
He is also the father in law of Anthrax rhythm guitarist Scott Ian. Meat Loaf was a vegetarian for 11 years but has since resumed eating meat.
Meat Loaf is a supporter of the northern English football team Hartlepool United and, in 2003, the BBC reported he was seeking a residence in the nearby area. Meat Loaf currently resides just outside of Calabasas, California, near Saddle Peak and Calabasas Peak.
Paradise by the dashboard light
I'd Do Anything For Love
It's All Coming Back To Me Now
Bat out of Hell
you took the words right out of my mouth
Meat Loaf - Cry Over Me (External Embedding Disabled)
Cry Over Me
Black Betty
Couldn't Have Said It Better
Is Nothing Sacred
