‘Warm, loving, generous – but he had demons’: inside the life of Meat Loaf

Steve Buslowe, centre, performing with Meat Loaf: ‘You had to always watch him to make sure that you understood what he was going to do.’ Photograph: Bill Tompkins/Getty Images

The morning after Meat Loaf died, his former bass player Steve Buslowe was reading through the many celebrity tributes to the bombastic singer when he came across one that made him laugh.

“I saw a comment that Stephen Fry had made about Meat being cuddly and frightening at the same time. I laughed because that’s perfect. He was such a big teddy bear. He was sometimes warm, but then he could also get a little manic, a little out of control, maybe a little violent. So you never knew who he was going to be. He was kind of fearless in being warm and generous, but also in his anger. If he got frustrated with something, he wouldn’t go in a corner and pout. He’d throw a chair. He’d be in your face to let you know how he felt.”