Meat Loaf & Chicken Noodle Soup
Our Tour Survival Guide checks in with rockers about life on the road. Here’s Meat Loaf on his beauty rest, soup preferences, and recording obessions. His upcoming tour dates are here.
Pissed Off and Pushing Petty. . .
In the ’70s, I had Tom Petty opening up for me for awhile. I had Dire Straits opening up for me. I had Eddie Money opening up for me. There’s more: I just can’t remember them all. I was warming up my voice one night and Tom Petty told me to shut up. I guess the walls in the dressing rooms were thin. I’m loud. He was like, “Shut up!” I think at the moment, it pissed me off. Back then — that would have been early ’77, we were in Cleveland, at the Agora — I’m surprised I didn’t bust through the wall of the dressing room into [his] room, throw [him] back into mine and say, “Come here, you’re listening anyway!” That was my intensity, then. I’m pretty intense now, but back then — whew!
Beauty Rest
Sleep is the most important thing on the tour - a key issue for me. [I have to get] eight hours, or we don’t move. The road managers get e-mails from me if I can’t sleep: “Bill, it is now 5:30 in the morning. I am not asleep. We will not leave at 1 p.m. I’m predicting that I’ll be asleep in half an hour, which means we’ll leave at . . . 6, 12, 2 . . . 2:30 p.m.” I’m a night owl on tour.
