Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell singer dead at 74

The US singer and actor Meat Loaf has died aged 74, his agent has confirmed. No cause of death was shared.

Born Marvin Lee Aday and later legally known as Michael, the musician died on 20 January with his wife Deborah Gillespie by his side.

“We know how much he meant to so many of you and we truly appreciate all of the love and support as we move through this time of grief in losing such an inspiring artist and beautiful man,” Meat Loaf’s family said in a statement. “From his heart to your souls … don’t ever stop rocking!”

Written and composed by Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut album Bat Out of Hell is one of the biggest-selling albums in history. Steinman and Meat Loaf’s 1993 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell produced the global hit single I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That). It was his only UK No 1 single, spending seven weeks at the top. He completed with Bat Out of Hell trilogy with The Monster Is Loose in 2006. The three albums have sold more than 65m copies worldwide.

Meat Loaf also had a breakout role ion the 1975 film version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show playing Eddie, a feral and ill-fated delivery boy who sings the song Hot Patootie. He also starred in more than 50 films and TV shows, among them Fight Club, Wayne’s World and Spiceworld the Movie. In 2021, he signed a deal to develop a relationship competition series titled I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).

Stephen Fry recalled performing a sketch with him on the UK sketch comedy show Saturday Live in the 1980s. “I hope paradise is as you remember it from the dashboard light, Meat Loaf,” he tweeted. Of their appearance together, he wrote: “He had the quality of being simultaneously frightening and cuddly, which is rare and rather wonderful.”

Aday was born in Dallas, Texas, on 27 September 1947. He was an only child, his mother a school teacher and gospel singer and his father a former police officer who developed alcoholism after being medically discharged from the US army during World War II.

Aday acted in high school productions, studied at Lubbock Christian College and later North Texas State University. After his mother’s death, he moved to Los Angeles and formed his first group, Meat Loaf Soul, taking the name from a cruel nickname given to him by a football coach.

He turned down three early offers of recording contracts and the group plied their trade live, supporting acts such as Van Morrison’s band Them, Taj Mahal, Janis Joplin, the Who, the Fugs, the Stooges and the Grateful Dead. As band members came and went, the group changed its name with every new lineup – among them Popcorn Blizzard and Floating Circus.

Success on the west coast led to the release of a single, Once Upon a Time. Meat Loaf, however, complained that he was not taken seriously in the music industry and joined a Los Angeles production of the musical Hair.

His role led to an invitation to record for Motown in the form of a duet with Shaun “Stoney” Murphy. An album, Stoney & Meatloaf (misspelled) was released in September 1971. They had some singles chart success but Meat Loaf left the group when Motown replaced his and Murphy’s vocals on the song Who Is the Leader of the People? with those of Edwin Starr.

He found success again on stage, starring in an off-Broadway production of Rainbow and a Broadway production of Hair. Auditioning for a production of More Than You Deserve, he met his future collaborator Jim Steinman.

In 1973, Meat Loaf was cast in the original Los Angeles cast of The Rocky Horror Show, playing Eddie and Dr Everett Scott. He took on the role of Eddie in the later film.

His rising fortunes dovetailed with the proper start of his collaboration with Steinman on Bat Out of Hell in 1972, which prompted him to all but leave the theatre world. The album had a long gestation, rejected by many labels who didn’t understand its genre-defying style. Todd Rundgren proved the album’s saving grace, producing the record and playing guitar. Finally, Cleveland International Records took a chance on the album, and history was made. Meat Loaf’s debut solo single, You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth, was released in 1977 and charted in both the US and UK Top 40.

A follow-up, Bad for Good, was blighted by Meat Loaf losing his voice thanks to a combination of touring, drugs and exhaustion. Instead, Steinman sang on and released that album and wrote 1981’s Dead Ringer for Meat Loaf. The title track was a duet with Cher. The album was accompanied by a mockumentary in which Meat Loaf played himself and a fan, Marvin.

However, Steinman and Meat Loaf fell out and sued one another, leaving the latter to resort to songwriters-for-hire for his next album, Midnight at the Lost and Found. He was unable to convince his record label to pay for two Steinman songs that Meat Loaf said were written for him – Total Eclipse of the Heart, later a No 1 hit for Bonnie Tyler, and Making Love Out of Nothing at All, a No 2 hit for Air Supply.

Although a big live draw, Meat Loaf’s records foundered commercially in the 1980s. That decade, he made forays into comedy, trying standup and performing in the UK with Hugh Laurie.

But Meat Loaf’s crowning moment was yet to come. Reunited with Steinman, and defying industry commentators sceptical about the idea of a comeback, he released Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, a global smash that won him Grammy and Brit awards. His subsequent 90s albums went platinum in the UK.

His profile remained high into the new millennium, but on 17 November 2003, during a performance at Wembley Arena, Meat Loaf collapsed of what was later diagnosed as Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. After a surgical procedure, he continued to tour and recorded Bat Out of Hell III with Steinman, released in 2006. A single, It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, charted in the UK at No 6, his highest chart position in almost 11 years.

He released his 12th and now final album, Braver Than We Are, in 2016. That year, he collapsed on stage in Canada – leading the New York Post to prematurely report his death – and subsequently committed to better protecting his health.

On 19 April 2021, Jim Steinman died of kidney failure. Despite the death of his long term collaborator, Meat Loaf told fans in November that he was due to return to the studio in January 2022 to record songs for a new album.

He is survived by his wife, Deborah Gillespie, his daughter Amanda Aday and stepdaughter Pearl Aday from his first marriage to Leslie G Edmonds.

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