Michael Aday (Metloaf) has passed away.

He was a great performer! 

I still know every word in the lyrics of "Paradise by The Dashboard Light".

RIP wildman!

Then like a sinner before the gates of heaven…..

Todd Rundgren agreed to produce Bat Out Of Hell because he thought it’d be a funny Bruce Springsteen parody, and eventually got stuck with the recording tab after a deal with RCA fell through, then Todd’s label Bearsville turned it down, as did others.

Well, considering how hard it was to even get the record made, you obviously had no idea it would go on to be such a huge success, but after it came out and started gaining traction, was there a point where you thought “okay, yeah, we’ve actually got something here”?

Yeah, it was when I got my first royalty check. I remember Albert [Grossman, of Bearsville Records] was there because he had — you know, I had ostensibly a deal with Bearsville if they were to distribute the album, but once it went to another label, I was not part of the negotiation, so my production had to be negotiated between Meat Loaf and Steinman’s lawyer and the label. Mostly actually between Meat Loaf and Steinman’s lawyer, because I was taking a cut of artist royalties. There was not a separate production royalty cut out of their deal.

So I don’t know how many months the record had been out, but it was long after I had finished the record, and we’re sitting in the office and Albert’s there, and they’re going to cut me a check for the outstanding royalties that I hadn’t collected in the whole time between when I had finished the record and when we had settled on what my production cut would be. And the check was between $700,000 and $800,000. One check! (laughs) The biggest check I had ever seen in my life. And at that moment I realized, “Wait a minute, this wasn’t such a goofy idea after all.”
 

• A guy with an album titled, “Bat out of hell”.
• Wuhan bat virus,

The irony.

I remember that album being out when I was in college, not my cup of tea, but everybody had that cassette tape of that album in their car.  Paradise by dashboard lights is a memorable song.

In a way, it's amazing that he survived as long as he did given his size.

@holmz great observation.