NASHVILLE |DATE: MARCH 7, 2012
FROM: TODD BRODGINSKI/MITCH SCHNEIDER/AARON FETERL
MEAT LOAF
TO PERFORM ON ‘TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO’
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14 IN CONJUNCTION WITH
RELEASE OF NEW SONY/LEGACY CD
‘HELL IN A HANDBASKET’
ICONIC SINGER AND ACTOR TO ALSO APPEAR
ON ‘TAVIS SMILEY SHOW’
Iconic singer MEAT LOAF will return to the television airwaves March 14 with a live performance of his new song “The Giving Tree” on NBC’s “Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” The performance coincides with the March 13 release of the new HELL IN A HANDBASKET CD (Sony/Legacy). MEAT LOAF will also sit down that week for an interview on PBS’ “Tavis Smiley Show” (airdate TBA).
Check out “The Giving Tree” (click here to listen), a song about his life as a performer, giving his all in a Faustian bargain. “It’s not all about the money, like the public thinks,” MEAT LOAF says. “I’ve never done a single thing for money.”
MEAT LOAF–whose 1977 breakout album Bat Out Of Hell defined the arena rock genre and remains as one of the world’s five top-selling albums of all-time, with more than 43 million copies sold to date–is excited about HELL IN A HANDBASKET. It’s his most autobiographical album to date, a thematic record that easily crosses any number of genres, featuring such unlikely contributors as rappers Chuck D and Lil Jon, country star Trace Adkins, and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath. It’s an album about feeling alone and disconnected from the world around you, at the same time as it tries to tap into what unifies us as fellow humans on this topsy-turvy planet in 2012.
“Hell In A Handbasket is the most personal record I’ve ever made,” said MEAT LOAF. “It’s really the first record I’ve ever put out about how I feel about life and how I feel about what’s going on at the moment.” The album, produced by Paul Crook, is an expression of life’s metaphors, driven by excellent musicianship, and of course, the passionate vocals of Meat Loaf. “Making this album was a great experience,” said MEAT LOAF, “and I hope my fans enjoy hearing it as much as I did making it.”
Musically, HELL IN A HANDBASKET ranges from the southern country blues feel of “Live or Die” (co-written by Grammy-winning band The Civil Wars’ John Paul White), the DEVO-esque New Wave feel and Beatle-esque interlude in “Party of One,” the gospel/R&B of “Our Love and Our Souls” (duet with Patti Russo), to “Stand in the Storm,” which segues from country to rock to rap all in one song, featuring Lil Jon and Mark McGrath, along with Trace Adkins. Other tracks include “All of Me,” a cover of Tom Cochrane’s 1991 “Mad, Mad World,” (which is part of a trilogy including the dreamy “Blue Sky” before it, and Chuck D’s virulent rap, with “The Good God is a Woman and She Don’t Like Ugly” as a coda), the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” (duet with Patti Russo), “Another Day,” “40 Days,” and “Fall From Grace.”
Website: www.meatloaf.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/meatloaf
Twitter: www.twitter.com/realmeatloaf
For more information, please contact:
Todd Brodginski/Mitch Schneider/Aaron Feterl at MSO, 818.380.0400
Toddb@msopr.com, Mschneider@msopr.com , Aaron@msopr.com
Tom Cording at Legacy Media Relations, 212.833.4448
###
