Meat Loaf Sues Over Use Of Bat Out Of Hell

Meat Loaf holds a very special place in all of our hearts? You want a fat man to sing a song on a motorbike on a stage, or hopelessly muddle up a video concept, or play a man with boobs in a film about punching? Meat Loaf is your guy.

But all is not so rosy in the Meat Loaf camp at the moment, and it's all down to the title of his most-loved song. Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are? No, you hopeless dolt - Bat Out Of Hell. Meat Loaf is suing Jim Steinman, the guy who wrote and produced Bat Out Of Hell, for trying to claim the phrase 'Bat Out Of Hell' as his own.

Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman are real old-fashioned rockers. Show them an autotune or a computer or clothes that aren't made entirely out of leather or a piece of soap and some hair-scissors, and they'd both smack you in the mouth before roaring away to some grimy bar on their Harley Davidsons to chat up women with massive hair, hotpants, fishnet stockings and too much make-up. That's their way, and don't you ever forget it.

But ask them who owns the phrase 'Bat Out Of Hell' and Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman will just start arguing like a couple of toddlers about it. On Monday, Meat Loaf filed a suit filed at the Federal Court in Los Angeles, claiming that
Jim Steinman unfairly filed for a patent for the phrase 'Bat out Of Hell' in 1995, despite Meat Loaf using it all the bloody time since 1977, when the first Bat Out of
Hell album was released. Meat Loaf's attorney Skip Miller said in a statement:

"The law protects the user of the mark and here there is only one user: Meat Loaf. We were forced to file suit to uphold these rights."

The Bat Out of Hell lawsuit comes as Meat Loaf prepares to release Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, the final record in the Bat Out Of Hell trilogy; the trilogy that made Meat Loaf's name almost 30 years ago and then, in 1993, filled him with so much ridiculous confidence that he decided to make the video for I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) a Beauty And The Beast story where Meat Loaf was inexplicably revealed as the handsome prince at the end. Anyway, Jim Steinman, who played no part in Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, still claims that the phrase 'Bat Out Of Hell' is all his, as he told CNN:

"That's ridiculous. The trademark in America is one I own. I own the trademark 'bat out of hell.' [Meat Loaf is] doing the 'bat out of hell' without me and marketing it illegally…. To me, it's like Frances Coppola being fired before Godfather III and being replaced by some hack. I'd be willing, if he wanted, to let him use it for the record, even though I think it is insulting to the audience. But he's turned down the settlement every time."

That settlement, according to Jim Steinman, is:

"That he leaves me alone, and I leave him alone."

What's so special about the 'Bat Out Of Hell' phrase, anyway? If we were Meat Loaf, we'd bite the bullet and change the title of the album to another one of his old song titles, perhaps Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back III: The Citrus Is Loose.

Read more:

Meat Loaf: It's My 'Bat Out Of Hell' - CNN

[story by Stuart Heritage]