MEAT Loaf learned a valuable lesson during his visit to Australia last year as a guest of the National Rugby League. That is, when you're going to tackle someone, get down low, put your head to the side, lead with your shoulder and drive with your legs.
It was one good thing to come out of his singing at the NRL grand final.
Mr Loaf was apparently rather peeved that the television network cut short its coverage of the pre-game entertainment due to scheduling limits.
So much so his record company wanted to coathanger somebody.
``But I had fun at the rugby (league) final the quick, little time I was there at least," Loaf says.
``I'd been to a championship game before. I went to the rugby and I also went to whatever that game is they play in Melbourne (sorry, couldn't help him there)."
Anyway, Loaf had his bulky knees bent and his ample shoulder primed when a ``wild monkey" leapt on stage during one of his recent comeback-from-illness concerts in England.
But an over-enthusiastic roadie quickly pulled the furry intruder to the ground, denying the frontman an ideal (padded) opportunity to display his rediscovered tackling skills.
Loaf came in late, jumping on what turned out to be a fan dressed up as the simian mascot for second-division soccer team Hartlepool United.
``It was all planned, but it was still pretty hammy because there I was wrestling with this giant monkey," Loaf explains.
``What could I do? He went after Patti (co-singer Russo, as opposed to cousin Meat Patti) on stage.
``My monitor engineer got too excited and tackled him before I did. He plays rugby so he took him to the ground real fast."
Make no mistake, Loaf had the monkey covered.
After all, he was a massive hit as a junior-school gridiron player, and it's clear with what code his loyalties still rest.
``In American football, you've got guys who are six-foot six-inches (about 200 centimetres) and weigh over 400 pounds (180 kilograms) and they're running head-on into each other as fast as they can go," Loaf says.
``Not only that, but they're in on every play.
``I'm not taking anything away from those rugby guys it's a tough sport but when the whistle blows in American football, you've got 22 guys hitting each other.
``Yeah, they're padded but the force is incredible.
``If you're on the field, when they hit, you go `oh my god'. In rugby, you just go `oooh'.
``You figure out the differences."
In his amazing 1999 autobiography To Hell And Back, Loaf admitted he has ``always been a big ham". Little wonder he put the porky press on the geezer in the monkey suit.
Turns out the mascot, known as H'Angus, is a very popular character in the north-east coastal town of England that its soccer team calls home (legend has it the Hartlepool faithful hanged a monkey during the Napoleonic wars after accusing it of being a French sympathiser).
Indeed, H'Angus was voted Mayor of Hartlepool at the 2002 local government elections seriously! with a campaign slogan ``free bananas for schoolchildren". And you thought Newcastle Knights supporters were rabid.
``The mascot sure was a smelly monkey," Loaf says. ``His costume was very dirty. I think it needed to be cleaned."
A Sydney journalist had the hairy hide to suggest the singer was ``on the nose" when he appeared on the Footy Show, alleging that his ``odour" was a talking point among the panel members (one of whom has a super-sensitive proboscis).
Maybe it was something Meat Loaf ate.
Yes, politics, music and football can all be dirty pursuits. Just ask self-confessed westie, Opposition Leader and one-time taxi-driver tackler Mark Latham, who rates Meat Loaf's seminal Bat Out Of Hell as his favourite CD. And Latham is by no means alone.
Bat Out Of Hell, released a quarter of a century ago, has sold 30 million copies around the globe accounting for half of Loaf's career album sales.
Loaf has spent the past six months exorcising the chart-possessors from that classic album Paradise By The Dashboard Light, You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth and Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad while promoting a new LP.
But since his dramatic collapse on stage during a show at London's Wembley Arena in November he's been having a devil of a time convincing the media to inquire about anything apart from his health.
Medical tests revealed that the man born Marvin Lee Aday in 1947, 1949 and 1951 depends who you believe had a rare condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. He underwent surgery to fix the heart irregularity and is expected to make a full recovery, if he hasn't already.
Loaf has been in the game long enough to know that any publicity is good publicity. But then again the booming-voiced entertainer who was once figuratively, but not quite physically, bigger than his former home state of Texas has experienced more than his lean times.
There has been a lonely childhood (according to his book, he was ``too fat to play" with other kids, then his mother died of cancer when he was still a teenager), voluntary bankruptcy, sidelining bouts of laryngitis, expensive lawsuits, an unexpected split (then successful reconciliation) with long-time musical partner Jim Steinman and a divorce from his wife Leslie after 25 years.
``Just get over the health scare," says a rather lithe Loaf he's currently about 115kg after once tipping the scales at almost a third that again.
``The health scare was a one-time thing. I went in, had a procedure and it will never come back."
Meat Loaf is renowned for his sweat-soaked, energy-sapping concerts.
He prides himself on keeping just enough in the tank to make it back to his Tarago after a gig.
Loaf apparently still keeps oxygen cylinders off stage, but that's because he suffers from asthma as opposed to any precaution related to his ``scare".
The father-of-two, who's aged between 52 and 57, promises punters who attend his Newcastle Entertainment Centre show on March 2 that he will hold nothing back.
``Do I put everything into every show?" he asks.
``Of course I do. There's no point going on stage if you don't. I'm absolutely fine. You'll see."
The Dallas-born Californian started his Australian agenda in Melbourne this week, recording two shows with a symphony orchestra at the Rod Laver Arena for a pay-per-view broadcast as well as a live CD and DVD.
Loaf's theatrical delivery of his operatic rock tales, including the aforementioned hits and I'd Do Anything For Love (from 1993's Back Into Hell, which went No.1 in 38 countries) all written by Steinman and the title track from his new album, Couldn't Have Said It Better, seem made for such a collaboration.
Not that he wants to take much credit for such orchestral manoeuvres in the lark.
``It wasn't my idea," he says. ``It was the promoter's idea. He put that together and I thought it would be really cool.
``We have so many songs that we want to record that we won't be able to fit them into one night.
``There will be some songs that I haven't done live in 30 years. They lend themselves well to that sort of environment.
``That's Jimmy's influences. Even the stuff that Jimmy didn't write Testify, Couldn't Have Said It Better comes from his influences."
With Couldn't Have Said It Better only his eighth studio album, Loaf believes quality is more important than quantity when serving up music.
His album collaborators include songwriter Diane Warren, Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx, composer Stephen Trask, Kevin Griffin (Better Than Ezra) and stellar producer Peter Mokran (Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys, R Kelly, Maxwell).
``Records just come when they come," Loaf says sagely. ``They happen when they happen, there's no rhyme or reason for it.
``I don't know how people come out with an album every couple years. It's impossible.
``By the time you record it, promote it and tour it, you're lucky to come up with a decent one every five years. You've got to have some time off.
``I mean, anyone that can do it faster than that and do it right, well, more power to them."
Meat Loaf swears this will be his ``last world tour". In fact, that's the title of the tour.
He wants to build on a surprisingly diverse film career that has included roles as a steroid freak in Fight Club (got to love those ``man boobs"), a cameo in Spice World, a baddie in Black Dog, crooked cop in Crazy In Alabama and a crime heavy in Formula 51.
But the no-more-tour announcement may be premature.When it comes to retirement, some performers can't help themselves, especially when the right honey carrot is dangled. And Meat Loaf does have a reputation for, err, adjusting the truth to suit his situations.
Take his date of birth, for example. In his biography, he writes ``I was born on 27 September, 1947". But he tends to tell interviewers he was born in 1951, even offering to show them his passport.
At least it's a talking point, and there are few middle-aged celebrities not guilty of being at least vague about personal particulars.
It's difficult to tell when Loaf is not in character.
He pours so much into performing his Wagnerian songs that you want to believe every word, no matter the lyrics.
``That's my base," he says. ``Every performer has a base of some sort.
``Musicians have a base of music and mine is acting that's what I've done my entire life."
There is some conjecture about how Meat Loaf gained his famous nickname. Some stories point a chubby finger at teasing classmates and others to a flattering school football incident.
From what Weekender can gather, his father, who was either a policeman or salesman or both and may or may not have been a knife-wielding alcoholic, gave him the moniker when he was just a baby.
Take your pick on who christened him and why.
One out of three ain't bad.
Either way, the Grammy winner now prefers to be ``Michael Lee Aday" or Meat Loaf in movie credits, apparently haunted by a jeans commercial with the tagline ``Poor Marvin, can't wear Levi's".
Blame it on his impressive thespian roots. Long before he was a rock and screen star, Loaf was putting his beefy vocal cords to use on the boards.
His first major musical was Hair on Broadway in 1969, then he did New York's prestigious Shakespeare In The Park before being cast as zombie Eddie in the original stage version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and reprising his role in the cult film adaptation.
``By the time people knew me through Rocky Horror I'd already had six years of real heavy theatre under my feet," Loaf says.
Although he has been busy for almost two years with musical commitments, Loaf/Aday has managed to squeeze in two films.
``And after we finish Australia, I'll do another one," he tells Weekender.
Both films are yet to be seen in Australia. One is a ``little comedy" called Extreme Dating and the other a ``dark piece" titled A Hole In One.
``A Hole In One is not a golf movie, it's about lobotomies," he reveals.
With 36 roles and counting, it appears the cinematic slice of Meat Loaf's life has turned full circle. He's gone from playing a brain-dead Eddie to a lobotomy patient while maintaining his grey matter, enhancing his ability to gratify audiences and losing much of his girth.
Perhaps he will even add an Oscar to his Grammy when he finally gets this overseas touring monkey off his back.
It's difficult to tell when Loaf is not in character. He pours so much into performing his Wagnerian songs that you want to believe every word, no matter the lyrics.
