How important is Todd Rundgrens part in Bat Out Of Hell?
JS – Well, I think Todd Rundgren is, first of all I think he’s a genius and I don’t use that word a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever used it about more than two or three people in pop music. He’s certainly the only genius I’ve ever worked with. He’s awesome. He actually takes my breath away, Todd. I wish people knew how brilliant he really is, even though his albums are staggering, they’re not even the tip of the iceberg. He was so instrumental in this being done. For one thing, he’s the only producer who would do it (laugh). JS – So just on that basis alone he was very valuable. Every other producer rejected it. Forgetting the record companies, we went to every producer and got comments like, it’s ridiculous, you can’t do this on a record. You can do this on stage, maybe, but you can’t do it on a record. You know, ’cause they’d see something like Paradise (UNINTELLIGIBLE) which was 20 minutes when we did it, with all the acted stuff, Meat Loaf making out with Ellen Foley, Phil Rizzuto spe
