WHILE MOST people breeze into a room, Meat Loaf positively hurricanes in with everyone in his wake wondering what the fuck's just hit them.

The larger-than-life singer is in Dublin today as part of a madcap promotional dash which will take him to six countries in a week. This involves pressing flesh, meeting the media and generally ensuring that no man, woman, child or furry animal is unaware that 16 years after the original stormed its way into the charts, Bat Out Of Hell II is on the loose and heading straight for the jugular.

The nice guy act slips momentarily when he snarls, "You're not from The Sun or News Of The World, are you?" but returns when I assure him that at no time have I worked in or near Wapping.

"I'm not trying to tar all you guys with the same brush," he explains. "It's just that I did this long interview with a woman from the News Of The World, we discussed pretty much everything I've ever done career-wise and the only stuff that got printed was this bullshit about me being 'a dad from hell' and not talking to my 18-year-old daughter Pearl for a year. The quotes were all made up - they had me saying crap like 'hot dang, if that ain't the truth' and making out I was some sort of redneck hick from Mississippi who's never been out of the state.

"I don't care what those papers write about me personally because I can fight my own battles but when they bring my wife and kids into it, I get kind of freaked."

wild animal

Although still a few pounds away from landing a sponsorship deal with Slimfast, Meat Loaf is more of a 1/4-pounder with low calorie dressing these days and reckons he's fitter now than he has been since his teens. He certainly looks a lot younger than his 46 years and displays a passion for the rock trade which puts most fresh faced wannabes to shame.

"The reason I'm real excited about this album," he gushes, "is that it's given me the chance to work with Jim Steinman again. He is, and I use the word advisedly, a genius. The way Jimmy writes is unique. It's not melody motivated. It's not lyric motivated. It's not guitar motivated. And it's not drum motivated. Rather, it's scene and character motivated and what we do, between us, is bring those elements to life.

"I've done albums without Jim Steinman which I'm proud of but they're not in the same league as Bat Out Of Hell. I'm in this business to make the best records possible and as long as Jim's able to help me achieve that, I'll keep going back to him."

With such gloriously melodramatic titles as 'I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)' and 'Good Girls Go To Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)', you won't be surprised to learn that the Bat sequel finds Steinman at his bombastic best, throwing everything - including the kitchen sink - into the mix and not forgetting that most essential of ingredients, humour. Okay, you won't need a corset to stop your sides splitting but the whole thing is so kitsch and over the top that the odd chuckle is unavoidable.

You'll be able to judge first hand when the Back Into Hell world tour roars into Dublin on December 19th. Meat says he's looking forward to the gig, having had an absolute blast the last time he was here in 1991.

"Ever since I holidayed in Ireland with my wife, I've loved this country and when the opportunity came along to do a full tour rather than a couple of one night stands, I jumped at it.

"There were two dates in particular," he recalls, "which, for entirely different reasons, will stick in my mind forever. The first was way down the country in what I can only describe as a barn and when we turned up there was no power in the building. The guy bringing the generator arrived three hours late because his wife wasn't well and the crew nearly had a nervous breakdown getting everything working in time. Anyway, from the size of the place I reckoned you'd just about be able to squeeze a thousand people in but they sold 3,500 tickets and somehow they all fitted. The only trouble we had was up near the border. The promoter put half the crowd into a building adjacent to the one I was actually playing in. They couldn't see or hear anything, so I decided not to take a fee for the show and told them to demand their money back. The promoter's brother got his nose broken when this wild animal masquerading as a bouncer took a swing at me, missed and hit him instead. It was real Dodge City stuff!"

And this hasn't put him off coming back?

"God, no. That was child's play compared to the shit I grew up with in the States. I'm telling you, I've served my apprenticeship for this job!"

Meat, old chap, consider yourself qualified.