All pictures, video clips and quotes are from the IBIS "Classic Albums - Bat Out Of Hell" production now available on DVD from many fine video retailers.
"I describe it as feverous, strong, romantic, violent,
rebellious, fun, and heroic."
On Bat Out Of Hell...
"I didn’t want it to be just a bunch of songs. I
wanted it to feel like you were like entering a cinematic or complete theatrical
environment."
"I was totally thinking of theater. I did theater up at
school but it was a big piece of rock theater. It was three hour epic rock musical that I
wrote, a piece called The Dream Engine."
On the making of Bat Out Of Hell...
"We had no record deal and we had no idea whether this
would work or not. I don’t even think we knew what this was. "
"…Steve Popovich listened to the first 20 seconds of
‘You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ and apparently called David
Sonenberg and said I want to sign this. It is the best rock and roll into I ever
heard…It was pretty simple…it was your basic power chords…and all I added
was a bit of melody."
On Meat Loaf...
"…I’m not even sure he (Meat Loaf) knows who
'Meat Loaf' is. He definitely would become the person in the song."
On Bat Out Of Hell...
"That came out of my obsession with crash songs. I grew up
loving crash songs. …I know I sat down to write the most extreme car crash song of
all time."
"…To me it was very country, by the way, I wanted to
be a country singer when I was a kid too. I really heard it like the plains of
Texas…I just heard it like a dusty plain. That was perfect to transfer to Meat Loaf
who always had that in him anyway, that Elvis quality. I think there is a bit of Elvis, to
say the least, in Meat."
On Paradise…
"Just like I wanted to write the ultimate car crash song, I
wanted to write sort of the ultimate car sex song. Those are two important mythic icons of
rock and roll. So I thought I’d really take car sex to it’s ultimate extreme,
where it ruins lives."
On His Songs…
"I never thought of them as being personal songs in terms
of my own life…But they were definitely personally obsessive songs. They were all
about my obsessions and images. I mean none of them takes place in a normal world, for me.
They all take place in very extreme worlds, very operatic again. The key word is really
'heightened'. They’re all heightened. They don’t take place in normal
reality."
On Bat Out Of Hell – The Album…
Meat Loaf: "I think ‘Bat
Out Of Hell’ is more real than 95% of the records ever made."
Karla Devito: "It made a
commitment to something. It wasn’t a like rehash of somebody else’s junk …
It was very true to itself."
Ellen Foley: "There are just
some things that touch an emotional core that I think people are going to want to listen
to for a long time. This record is one of them."
Max Weinberg: "I think
‘Bat Out Of Hell’ will probably last forever."
Jim Steinman: "I think it is a
heroic record ultimately in content and execution. There is a sense of heroism which you
definitely don’t find in most pop music which tends to be domestic. "
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