Jim Steinman

Jim Steinman

Jim Steinman (born November 1, 1947 in New York, New York) is an American rock and musical theater composer. He is notable for having written most of Meat Loaf's hit songs and hits for many other musical artists. His biggest musical successes are the album Bat Out of Hell (1977), sung by Meat Loaf, the Billboard number one singles "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (1983), sung by Bonnie Tyler, "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" (1983), sung by Air Supply and "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" (1993) sung by Meat Loaf, and a German musical Tanz der Vampire (1998).

Early years

Youth

Steinman was one of four National Merit Scholarship semifinalist in his graduating class (1965) at Hewlett High School, "a distinction mentioned not by Steinman but by Hewlett High School classmate Tony Kornheiser, now a Washington Post columnist. 'He must have been one of those kids who sat up at night and listened to the Beatles,' Kornheiser said. 'As smart as he was, he didn't have to study that much.' Steinman delights in telling the story of his academic experience at Amherst, which he portrays as a comic nightmare. During his freshman year, he amassed grades of 16 in physics and 33 in calculus (out of 100). Called before an academic committee, Steinman was asked to explain his performance. After pausing for a moment, he responded, 'I've always done better at math than science.' Steinman maintains he was almost kicked out of school four times and that he twice needed to use his healthy grandmother's death as an excuse for his poor grades."

His "father owned a steel distribution warehouse in Brooklyn and his mother was a retired teacher of Greek and Latin — but Steinman describes himself as vaporous until his sophomore year at Amherst College. He says his high school grades were so undistinguished that his Hewlett High School guidance counselor refused to sign his application to Amherst. Steinman believes he was accepted to the prestigious college only because he lied so creatively about how he had spent his summer vacation: hiking through the "Blue Mountains of Kentucky," writing an opera based on James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," which, he adds, he had not even read, much less adapted."

The Dream Engine (1969)

As a senior at Amherst College in Massachusetts, Jim wrote the book, music, and lyrics for The Dream Engine (1969), a musical about revolution. The story, set in the distant future, is about a young boy named Baal who, along with his rebel fellows, doesn't accept the restraints and limits of their society. Baal is the leader of a group of wild boys called The Tribe, whose mortal enemies are Max and Emily, the parents of the Girl, a young woman with whom Baal has fallen in love. Steinman himself played Baal in the original production, which was staged in the Spring of 1969. Critics hailed the musical as visionary and ahead of its time. Its Steinman-composed tagline said it all: "Makes 'Hair' look like 'Hello Dolly.'" Some themes from Steinman's later songs can already be heard here, like the "Turn around" line in "Total Eclipse of the Heart". This show was remade 8 years later as Neverland (see below).

Joseph Papp, founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival, saw the play and was so impressed he signed it up during intermission. He wanted to bring it to New York (either Broadway or Central Park), but balked when a number of leading citizens threateningly objected to its sexually explicit scenes.

More Than You Deserve

From the collaboration with Papp, another musical was born: originally titled "Souvenirs," it became More Than You Deserve (1974), co-written by Michael Weller. In 1974, Papp was producing a show; the author, Weller, said he was interested in adding a song or two to the show. Papp hooked up Mr. Weller with Steinman. Steinman had other ideas though. He envisioned a full blown Broadway musical, and pretty soon he had his way, with Jim writing the music and collaborating on the lyrics with Mr. Weller.

It was during the auditions for this show that history was made. This marks a very important encounter for Steinman. A young actor from Texas whose biggest show to date had been Hair showed up for a part in Jim's new show and tried out; his nickname was Meat Loaf. After hearing him sing a song from his album Stoney & Meatloaf called "(I'd Love To Be) As Heavy As Jesus" (Steinman commented that Meatloaf looked as heavy as at least two Jesuses ), they were so impressed that they gave him the script and asked him to tell them which character he would like to play. He surprised them all by picking Rabbit, a not-too-bright soldier who believed he was helping send his fellow comrades home by blowing them up with hand grenades and other ammo. The moment Steinman saw him, he realized that Meat Loaf was going to be his voice.

The story is set in Vietnam during the war in a non-combat camp run by a commander who is impotent and who falls in love with a reporter sent to cover the camp, who turns out to be a nymphomaniac when she is gang raped by the other soldiers in the camp. However, she realizes at the end that she will be even happier giving up her new-found lust for sex to settle down with the impotent commander.

Neverland

In 1977 another musical saw the light (as a workshop in Washington, DC, and New York), Neverland. Basically a re-write of The Dream Engine, this time more overtly based on J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, but much more of an adult version, although it's questionable how much this 1977 version has in common with Steinman's finished concept of Neverland. Thematically all, or at least most, of Steinman songs and works can be seen as ongoing parts of his Neverland. Meat Loaf has joked about this, claiming "He [Steinman] thinks I'm Tinkerbell!"

The Meat Loaf saga

Bat out of Hell.

1977 was important for another reason for Steinman, as it saw the debut of the album Bat Out of Hell, which he had recorded with Meat Loaf as lead singer.

The album featured music of a bombastic and Wagnerian style, not quite the style that was considered hit material in the Seventies. When they started proposing it to music companies they had a lot of trouble finding someone willing to produce it. They still needed a label and it took them some more time before they finally settled with Cleveland International Records and producer Todd Rundgren.

The album was not an immediate hit but soon grew to become one of the best selling albums of all time, and featured a Billboard top 20 hit, "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad."

Bad for Good

File:Jim Steinman - Bad for Good.jpg

Bad for Good.

In 1981 a sequel to Bat Out of Hell was ready, but Meat Loaf's voice, after years of continuous touring, was not, so Steinman decided to sing on the album himself, as he had wanted to do a solo album anyway. Steinman and Todd Rundgren co-produced every track except "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through", which was co-produced by Steinman and Jimmy Iovine, who later headed Interscope Records. The album was released as Bad for Good. The album produced one hit, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through," which rose to position 32 on the Billboard charts in a six-week run in July 1981.

LP pressings of the album included, as a bonus, the tracks "The Storm" and "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" as a separate 7" inch single. The single's sleeve included a run down of who played what where. According to those credits Rory Dodd did lead vocals on both "Lost Boys and Golden Girls" and "Surf's Up". However, he is not credited on "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through". Steinman appeared in a music video for the song, lip-synching to (presumably) Dodd's vocals.

The song "Left in the Dark" was later recorded by Barbra Streisand on her album Emotion (Steinman produced the track) and released as single EP.

Dead Ringer

Dead Ringer.

When Meat Loaf's voice recovered, Steinman gave him some songs he had left over from Bad for Good, and they were collected in the 1981 Dead Ringer album. Meat Loaf later re-recorded some of the other tracks which were on the Steinman album as well, and also had a hit with "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through."

Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell

Bat out of Hell II.

During Christmas, 1989, Steinman made a visit to the home of Meat Loaf. Both Steinman and Meat Loaf began talks for a new collaboration. After several years worth of work, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell was released in 1993. The album skyrocketed to #1 in 20 countries. Sales for the album topped 11 million worldwide. The album returned Meat Loaf to prominence in the music industry and resulted in a massive tour. Among the new songs featured on the album, "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" went on to become a top selling single. As was the case with previous Steinman records, most of the songs featured were "recycled" from Bad for Good and Original Sin, with all written by Steinman.

Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose

Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose was released on Halloween in 2006. According to Jim Steinman, he and his engineer Steve Rinkoff are 'not involved with anything resembling Bat III.' Meat Loaf has recorded and marketed the album without Steinman's involvement in the project. It has fourteen songs, seven of which were written by Steinman; five of these have already been recorded on other albums, and the other two are adapted from a musical based on the comic book character Batman, which Steinman wrote years ago, but which was eventually cancelled.

Steinman registered the phrase "Bat Out Of Hell" as a trademark in 1995. Meat Loaf sued Steinman and his manager, in a complaint filed May 28 2006 in federal District Court in Los Angeles, California, for $50 million and to prevent further use by the writer/producer. An agreement was reached in Summer 2006. According to Virgin, "the two came to an amicable agreement that ensured that Jim Steinman's music would be a continuing part of the 'Bat Out Of Hell' legacy."

Other artists

Bonnie Tyler

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Faster than the Speed of Night.

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Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire.

The collaboration with Meat Loaf went on hiatus, and Steinman started working on other projects; he produced Bonnie Tyler's Faster Than the Speed of Night, with the hit song "Total Eclipse of the Heart," written by him as well. At the same time, he had written and produced a song for Air Supply, titled "Making Love (Out of Nothing At All)" and Barry Manilow's hit "Read 'Em and Weep." In October 1983, for four weeks in a row, Steinman had two songs at the top of the US Billboard chart: "Total Eclipse" at number one, and "Making Love" at number two. Steinman is said to be the only musician to achieve this on the Billboard list.

In April 1983, Faster than The Speed of Night shot straight into the UK album charts at #1, making Tyler the first ever female artist to achieve this feat, and earning a Guinness World Record in the process. She then earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. "Holding Out For a Hero," a Steinman-Dean Pitchford collaboration, was a highlight of the 1984 film "Footloose." Two years later, Steinman produced and contributed songs to a second Bonnie Tyler album, Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire. In January 1996 Bonnie returned to the UK Singles Chart with "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All", a track written and produced by Steinman. The single peaked at No. 45. The album that followed featured a re-working of "Two Outta Three Ain't Bad", also produced by Steinman. In December of 2003, "Si Demain (Turn Around)" was released -- a version of "Total Eclipse" as a duet in French and English. Sung by Bonnie Tyler and Kareen Antonn, it went to number one in France, Belgium and Poland, selling two million copies all over the world.

Fire Inc.

In 1984, Steinman created Fire Inc., which was a "fake band" with the sole purpose of singing his songs for the soundtrack of the film Streets of Fire. The band featured Rory Dodd, Holly Sherwood and Laurie Sargent as lead vocals. Despite a minor chart entry with "Tonight is What It Means to Be Young", the Fire Inc. songs were a commercial flop, however his fans have persisted with loving them and they have since been covered by several artists.

Projects in the following years

In the following years, Steinman continued to produce and write songs for artists like The Sisters of Mercy. Others, like Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow and Celine Dion, sang covers of earlier Steinman works. For example, Streisand featured a cover of "Left in the Dark" from Bad for Good on her 1984 release Emotion (and also filmed her first-ever video to promote the song). Manilow's version of "Read 'Em and Weep" topped the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart for six weeks earlier in 1984.

Pandora's Box

In 1989, Steinman gathered a group of female singers and formed the one-album band Pandora's Box. Band members were Ellen Foley (who had already played Wendy in 1977's Neverland workshop production and sung with Meat Loaf on Bat Out of Hell), Holly Sherwood (formerly of Fire Inc.), Elaine Caswell, Gina Taylor and Steinman.

The album was released along with a video, scripted by Steinman and directed by Ken Russell, for "It's All Coming Back to Me Now", but a planned tour was scrapped. The album was not released to the United States originally. Sales for the album were modest, though Steinman continues to be very proud of it. The track "Original Sin" was recycled several times: it is featured prominently in the musical show Tanz der Vampire, in 1994, singer Taylor Dayne covered a slightly reworked version of "Original Sin" (produced by Steinman) on the soundtrack of the movie version of The Shadow and Meat Loaf also covered it on his 1996 album Welcome to the Neighborhood. The album's final track "The Future Ain't What It Used to Be" was re-recorded for the MTV movie of Wuthering Heights starring Erika Christensen. Celine Dion's take on "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" was a U.S. #2 Pop and #1 AC hit in 1996. Meat Loaf recorded "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" and "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be" on his album Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose.

Musicals

In the late 1990s Steinman returned to his old love: musicals.

Whistle Down the Wind

He wrote lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind that went on stage in the US in 1996, and then revamped for a more successful London production in 1998. Many of the songs from Whistle Down the Wind were recorded by performers popular in Great Britain and released on a theme album in the UK, produced by Jim Steinman. The title track, performed by Tina Arena became a minor hit, but another number, "No Matter What," was recorded by pop group Boyzone, and became a huge international hit, later appearing on the soundtrack to the film Notting Hill. Meatloaf later recorded a version of the song, combining it with another composition from 'Whistle Down the Wind' - a track named 'Home By Now'.

Tanz der Vampire

Steinman's big musical success, though, was "Tanz der Vampire" (in English: Dance of the Vampires), which opened in Vienna, Austria on October 4, 1997. From the day of the world premiere, to January 7, 1999, Steve Barton played the leading role of Graf von Krolock here.

Based on Roman Polanski's movie The Fearless Vampire Killers, and directed by Polanski himself, Tanz der Vampire won six International musical awards, at the International Musical Award Germany (IMAGE 1998), in Düsseldorf. The musical played in Stuttgart from March 31 2000 until August 31 2003 and in Hamburg from December 7 2003 until January 22 2006. In December 2006, the show premiered at the "Theater des Westens" in Berlin, where it can be seen currently.

However, about 70% of the musical score written by Steinman was recycled from his earlier projects, mainly from his less-known shows like The Dream Engine and The Confidence Man (co written with Ray Errol Fox), although it also features music from his widely known records like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (remade as "Totale Finsternis") and the melody, but not the lyric from a Bat Out Of Hell 2 song called "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" (remade as "Die Unstillbare Gier").

The English version opened on October 16, 2002 on Broadway in a new production without Polanski, directed by Urinetown's John Rando. This production had a new script, written primarily by David Ives, that was very different from that of the German show, featuring a lot of jokes. The humor received some laughter, and also much criticism. The English version borrowed a lot from Steinman's lyrics for his previous English versions of his songs. It was critically lambasted and closed on January 25, 2003 after 117 performances. The work of lead performer Michael Crawford, who had played the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera in the 1980s, was reviewed particularly harshly. To date, it is the biggest financial flop in Broadway history, losing roughly $17 million, easily eclipsing the infamous Carrie (based on the film of the same name). Rumor has it that Steinman did not attend opening night as a showing of disapproval for the project. On his blog Steinman writes "DOTV as we know was UTTER SHIT!" in one post, and describes the production as a "shit pile" in another, also stating in separate blogs that his music was "wasted" on the show.

Future projects

The Dream Engine

Along with co-producer and engineer Steven Rinkoff, Steinman has created a music performance group called The Dream Engine. The group is currently working on a debut album that has no announced release date at this time. Presumably this album would be released on the Ravenous Records label that Steinman and Rinkoff formed in 1998.

Bikers Of the Round Table

According to the Dream Pollution website, Steinman is working on an animated television series called Bikers of the Round Table which Steinman created and that will feature his music. He is to be Executive Producer of the show. The show is associated with Disney TV, and is to air on the new JetiX channel.

Jim Steinman's Bat Out Of Hell — The Epic Live On Stage

The same source announced that Jim Steinman is working on an elaborate musical theater show featuring his songs. He has said that the show is based on his "Neverland" story/concept. That show is to include visual stunts such as motorcyclists, skateboarders, BMX bicyclists and acrobats. In a July 9, 2006 entry to his blog, Steinman referred to this project by "Jim Steinman's BAT OUT OF HELL—the Epic Live On Stage."

He wrote that this show will be "containing up to 15 songs, at least, from BAT1 and BAT2". Steinman also said that his new song "We're Still the Children We Once Were" will be featured in the show.

A Movie, Title Yet To Be Announced

The Dream Pollution website says that Hollywood screenwriter Stuart Beattie is writing the script for a film that will include Steinman's music. In an article on ntlword.com, singer and actor Meat Loaf is quoted as saying that he will appear in, and will be co-producer for a movie of Bat Out Of Hell.

External links

• Dream Pollution, by the Rockman Philharmonic, The Jim Steinman Society For The Arts
• Neverland Hotel, comprehensive site including biography, discography, news, lyrics and photo gallery.
• Realm of Dreams Smeghead's Jim Steinman fan site, contains comprehensive material.
• Steinman's blog Highly informal blog, where he comments on his projects among other things.
• Bat Out Of Excess The Works Of Jim Steinman
• Jim Steinman at IMDb
• Official website for The Dream Engine

See also

• Wagnerian Rock
• Richard Wagner
• Fire Inc.
• Pandora's Box
• Meat Loaf
• Todd Rundgren
• Bonnie Tyler