Meat Loaf is one of the most enduring artists of our time having enjoyed a career that has spanned over forty years.
But this week sees him return with a new album Hell In A Handbasket, and it is the most personal record that the rocker has ever made.
Meat reveals how he feels about the world we live in - and it all starts with the title of the new album.
“The reason it’s called Hell In a Handbasket is because The World Has Gone To Hell In A Handbasket was too long and that is really what it’s all about; in the last five or six years that is what has happened and I really believe that the world has gone to hell in a hand basket.
“Financially, mentally and I believe that we have lost our compassion for people and I believe that we have lost our way as a human race. It has gone to extreme and no one wants to walk the middle ground anymore the world has gone to an extreme; either to an extreme left or an extreme right. - and then you have the extremist of both sides.
“Everything has gone to extreme - someone put on my Face book ‘I can’t believe you have put hell in the title you have lost your way’ and this is what I am saying, people speaking without understanding they just go off.
“I didn’t put hell in the title other than the world has gone to hell in a handbasket and it had nothing to do with Bat Out Of Hell and the cover has nothing to do with it, it’s a completely different thing.”
Not only is it an album where Meat experiments with different ideas and sounds it is also an album where we get his point of view on the world for the very first time.
Throughout his career Meat has sung songs through the eyes of different characters, his last album Hang Cool Teddy Bear being a perfect example, but this time around there is a more personal feel to the record - and he admits that recording it was an emotional experience.
“This album talks about all the problems in the world without hitting you over the head with a hammer, expect one track Mad Mad world which really does hit you over the head with a sledgehammer, it’s all in metaphors and it is talking about the human condition.
“It is all coming from me, unlike Hang Cool Teddy Bear where I was singing through the eyes of a character called Patrick, all my albums have been sung through the eyes of characters, this one was sung through my eyes and it’s how I feel.
“On other albums I could sing songs about anything and be that character and have the emotion of that character but when it came to me singing and my emotions I cried several times during this record, I would just start crying singing these songs, because I had such an emotional attachment to them.”
And while there are a whole host of new songs on Hell In A Handbasket there is also a great cover of California Dreamin’ - which fits nicely into the album’s theme of struggle.
But this is not a direct cover of the Mamas and Papas version, a song that we all know so well, as Meat has slowed the track down and really put his own stand on it - Patti Russo’s vocals also feature on the track.
But the singer has his own theory on what the story behind the track is all about.
“We did a cover of California Dreamin’ and I feel that John Philips could walk in the room and he would shake my hand and say ‘you understood the song’. Everyone hears California Dreamin’, and I have been guilty of this myself, but one day I heard it and I was like ‘oh, that’s different’.
“Everyone remembers the Mamas and Papas and this nice little pop song and it’s this happy little diddy thing but if you really listen to the lyrics ‘all the leaves are brown and the skies are grey’ those aren’t happy lyrics.
“I believe that this song is about fear and it’s about fear of a person following their dreams and in this world and this time people are more afraid and don’t have the advantage that people before to be able to follow their dreams.”
Paul Crook is on producing duties this time around and the album has not only teamed up with Patti Russo but also rappers Chuck D & Lil Jon.
And Meat revealed that it was through his brother in law that he was able to get Chuck D’s vocals on the track Mad Mad World.
“He is best friends with my brother in law, Scott Ian from Anthrax, and I said I needed rapper and Paul Crook said to me Chuck D, who everyone has followed and is the god father of rap, is best friends with the brother in law.
“So I called up Scott and said ’ I want Chuck D’ and he said ’ok’. He sent an email to Chuck ‘Chuck meet Meat and Meat meet Chuck’. So we started talking and about four days later I had that.”
But when it comes to picked artists to collaborate with Meat says that he is not interested in the fame of the artists he is only interested in the musical ability.
“I look at people and what their abilities are and what they do I don’t… I needed a rapper and I said well I know LL I have a number, I am not sure if it’s still working, but he is doing that TV show so it’s going to be impossible for him to turn this around in four days, we needed to turn it around fast.
“I have known Trace for a few years, I don’t know him well but I known enough to say ‘hey man do you want to sing?’ I just met and worked with Lil Jon, and I really love Lil Jon, so I though ‘how cool is this?’
“I have never done this and I am not trying to be hip or cool, that has never been my forte; I have never bee hip or cool. I just deal emotionally with what is right for the song I don’t go ’listen Katy Perry has just had a number one single let’s go and get her’ it’s got nothing to do with the reality of show business - it has to do with my reality and my reality really has nothing to do with show business.
Meat may have had a very successful four decade career, selling over 100 million records in the process, but he admits that he is learning something new every day - and that is the main reason why he has stayed in the industry for so long.
“Yeah I am coming up on forty six years. But I am still learning the minute you ever think you can’t learn anything else just shoot you in the head, put you in the box and bury you.
“If you talk to any scientist, biologist and those people are always on the look out for something new… and school teachers, my mother was a schoolteacher and she was always on the look out for a new technique or a new something to make teaching better for her kids; not for herself but the kids that she taught.
“And I would hope that you as a journalist would always be looking to improve your writing to improve your questions, not that you aren’t asking good questions because you are, but you always want to be better - you want to be better tomorrow than you are today.”
And while the rocker may have just released his latest album it seems that 2012 is set to be a busy year for him with plenty of projects in the pipeline.
“I have got film offers and I have got tours. Listen I never stop working, I am not social, I don’t go to the Golden Globes and events like that.
“I am a worker and that is all I want to do, I want to do TV, I want to do films, I want to do shows and I want to do my records and then go home.”
Meat Loaf’s new album Hell In A Handbasket is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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