![]() Then in May 1978 he fell off the stage at a gig in Ottawa, breaking his leg and leaving him unable to perform. He raged at the band members and audiences, throwing microphone stands at them. However, as detailed in his 1999 autobiography, To Hell and Back, the singer increasingly struggled with the demands of touring. But he also knew that instead of it just being like a theatrical show, he had to be more aggressive on stage and make it more rock’n’roll. ![]() “As the tour developed, Meat got a more dominant role because he got the attention. “There were some people who said, not that I would use this expression, it was like Frankenstein and the monster – where Jim was really the brains behind the songwriting and Meat was just the singer,” he says. Buslowe recalls how the balance of power shifted towards the singer as that first tour gained momentum and his star rose. Steinman and Meat Loaf’s musical partnership was infamously fractious. But that was Meat’s personality: he could get really angry with you, and after he gets that out of his system, he can be your best friend.” “I’m sitting there going: what did I get myself into? This is madness! Of course, Meat and the guy wound up being friends again. Meat went nuts and he goes: ‘Pull over!’ Well they pull over at a rest stop right off of this highway and the two of them get out and start beating the crap out of each other!”īuslowe remembers looking through the window of the band’s RV at the songwriter Jim Steinman, the creative mastermind behind Bat Out of Hell and Meat Loaf’s other most epic hits, watching bemusedly the fight on the grass in the truck stop. “Meat had gone up to the front and said slow down, everybody’s going a little crazy,” says Buslowe. On the way to a gig in Youngstown, Ohio, the friend’s fast, nausea-inducing driving led to a punch-up. Buslowe recalls how the singer hired one of his friends to be their driver-cum-tour manager, despite having no relevant experience. This rocky start to the tour was amplified by Meat Loaf’s erratic behaviour. But I think it got us revved up, no pun intended, to say screw you, we’re going to push it.” “People were swearing at us, throwing things, saying really nasty things about Meat Loaf being overweight,” says Buslowe. The band was met with a hostile crowd at their first gig in Chicago, opening for the rock group Cheap Trick. He was not alone in having this initial reaction. “I said to myself: I can’t believe I just joined a band that has a song called Paradise by the Dashboard Light. As time went on, I saw how complicated he would become.”īuslowe, who had been playing with funk fusion bands before the tour, admits he didn’t immediately get Meat Loaf’s dramatic sound. I knew I was dealing with somebody very special but complicated. “I still remember having chills watching this man sing four or five feet away from me. “When I first met him at the rehearsals, I knew he was a unique person,” he says. The singer’s talent and temperament made a strong impression on Buslowe from their first meeting, after the bass player auditioned to join Meat Loaf’s live band, later called the Neverland Express. The musician and backing vocalist, who is my uncle, played with Meat Loaf for the best part of the singer’s career, witnessing his rise to megastardom during the Bat Out of Hell tour in 1977-78, the wilderness years of dwindling sales in the mid- to late-80s, and his resurgent global success in the early 90s with Bat Out of Hell 2: Back Into Hell. ![]() Buslowe, 67, is in a contemplative mood as he speaks via Zoom from his home in Connecticut. ![]()
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