Meat Loaf talks about his new album at the Soho Metropolitan Hotel April 25th, 2010 Photo by Dave Abel / Toronto Sun / QMI Agency.

Meat Loaf's 1977 album Bat Out of Hell remains a classic -- one of the best sellers of all time with 43 million copies sold worldwide. It remains his personal artistic high-water mark.

By contrast, 2006's Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose brought the 62-year-old theatrical rocker to his lowest ebb.

Meat Loaf was almost emotionally and physically broken after a legal battle with Jim Steinman, the producer of the first and second albums who didn't helm the third record but did end up contributing seven songs.

At Meat Loaf's lowest moment, during a 2007 concert in England in which he was suffering from acute laryngitis, he told the crowd it would be his last performance -- and walked off stage after being unable to sing Paradise By the Dashboard Light.

"Bat III was such a horrible experience," Meat Loaf said in Toronto recently, in advance of his summer concert tour whose first Canadian date is Tuesday in Oshawa. "Even though it sold over four million copies in the world, that doesn't make any difference because it wasn't a success to me.

"It was just negative. I didn't like the songs. It wasn't my record. I felt betrayed by management. I felt betrayed by everybody. And then Jim Steinman felt betrayed ... And it was just a wholly, really bad experience. Basically, what happened is they pushed me a bridge too far until I wore out, got a cyst on my vocal cord, and those things come from being really exhausted and tired, and stressed. And so I went into this depression for about a month and then I came out of it and I fired everybody across the board -- agents, lawyers, managers, there was nothing left. I started over."

Born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Meat Loaf is back with a new album, Hang Cool Teddy Bear, named after a line from Russ Meyer's cult classic, Beyond The Valley of The Dolls, that has nothing to do with the Bat series.

Not that the powers that be wouldn't be happy if he called it that.

"They'd push me to call it Bat Out of Hell IV," he said. "I wouldn't have been able to present it the same way that I can present this. I would have just been mortified by calling it that. Because it has nothing to do with any Bat Out of Hell record. It's not like a Bat Out of Hell record, it's recorded completely different, the vocals are completely different, the tracks are completely different, the songs are different.

"All of Jimmy's stuff is really about angst, and really all about some guy that can't get laid, and that's really what his songs are about, every one of them. It's like that's what you play. This record, the whole lyrical aspect of it, is more about the human condition, about where we are as humans, and how we react in situations, and what we do."

Produced by Rob Cavello (Green Day, My Chemical Romance Paramore, Fleetwood Mac), Hang Cool Teddy Bear is a concept album told from the point of view of a 24-year-old soldier struck down in battle, dying and flash-forwarding to what his life could become in 13 scenarios, via song.

It was based on a short story by L.A.-based screenwriter and director Kilian Kerwin, a long-time friend of the singer.

"It was like writing a musical," said Meat Loaf, who has lived in Los Angeles for the last 13 years.

"We were writing music and the book at the same time."

In the end, Hang Cool Teddy Bear features tunes co-written by American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi, Jon Bon Jovi, Our Lady Peace's Raine Maida and The Darkness' Justin Hawkins -- with guest appearances by guitarists Brian May of Queen and Steve Vai .

Just three years from the official age of retirement, Meat Loaf maintains there's still so much more for him to do.

"I haven't done anything yet," said Meat Loaf, who is rumoured to be a contestant on the next season of The Celebrity Apprentice. "There's so much stuff to do. There's too much to learn, too much to do. I don't know anything."

Still, he'll admit touring at his age means taking better care of himself and his voice.

"You really have to be disciplined," he said. "It's really, really, a tough life. It's not like a guitar where you can just change the strings from night to night. You're dealing with your vocal chords, and mine are 62 years old now and have gone through a lot of trauma from me not being disciplined early on. So it gets really hard, it gets really tough. Because you want every show to be perfect. Because people are paying money ... It's like a plumber, if you don't come to fix their pipe, you're in big trouble. So, yeah, I'm a service. I perform a service." Meat Loaf pals join in on new album

Two actors of note -- Hugh Laurie and Jack Black -- perform on Meat Loaf's new album, Hang Cool Teddy Bear.

Laurie plays piano on the song If I Can't Have You, while Black sings a duet with Meat Loaf on Like A Rose.

Meat Loaf, who has acted in more than 50 films and TV shows (most notably The Rocky Horror Picture Show), reconnected with Laurie during a guest appearance on House, although the two had appeared in three comedy sketches in 1985 in England.

"There's only been two or three actors I've ever worked with that have ever been that giving, and that generous, on a set," Meat Loaf said. "And so we just got along, and on the fifth day, that night, I came home early and House was on, so I was watching an episode that I wasn't in. And at the end of it, I'd seen him play little pieces of piano before, because I'm a fan of the show. This particular night, they gave him a good minute and a half, maybe longer, to play piano. And I was sitting there watching this thing and I'm going, 'He can really play,' and I turned to my wife Debra and I said, 'I think I'm going to ask Hugh if he wants to play.'"

As for Black, Meat Loaf had played his father in the Tenacious D movie, although before that Black was going to play Meat Loaf in a biopic but the project died.

"It is absolutely perfect," Meat Loaf said of his duet with Black. "I couldn't find a better song to complement his voice with mine."

MEAT LOAF'S CANADIAN TOUR DATES:

* July 6 Oshawa, Ont. General Motors Centre

* July 20 Windsor, Ont. WFCU Centre

* July 24 Sault Ste. Marie, MI USA Kewadin Casino 25th Anniversary Festival

* July 27 Winnipeg, Man. RBC Theatre at MTS Centre

* July 29 Edmonton, Alta. Rexall Place

* July 31 Dawson Creek, B.C. EnCana Events Centre

* Aug. 2 Calgary, Alta. Pengrowth Saddledome

* Aug. 4 Prince George, B.C. CN Centre

* Aug. 6 Abbotsford, B.C. Abbotsford Entertainment & Sports Centre

* Aug. 8 Penticton, B.C. South Okanagan Events Centre

jane.stevenson@sunmedia.ca