Bad For Good - History

History

In the midst of the success of Bat out of Hell, management and the record company put pressure on Steinman to stop touring in order to write a follow-up, provisionally titled Renegade Angel. Steinman joined Meat Loaf and his band for a live performance in Toronto, Canada in 1978 with the intention of going through the songs for the new album after the show. However, someone broke into their dressing rooms during the show and stole several possessions, including the new lyric book. Many of the stolen songs would later appear on Bad for Good: "Surf's Up", "Left in the Dark" and "Out of the Frying Pan." Meat Loaf jokes that he doesn't think that Steinman ever got over that theft.

Meat Loaf lost his voice and was unable to record Renegade Angel. Steinman says "I spent seven months trying to make a follow-up with him, and it was an infernal nightmare. He had lost his voice, he had lost his house, and he was pretty much losing his mind." Not being able to "bear for people not to hear those songs," Steinman recorded the album, retitled Bad for Good, as a solo project, although Rory Dodd contributed lead vocals on some songs. Many musicians and backing vocalists from Bat out of Hell performed on Bad for Good, including Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

Like Bat out of Hell, Richard Corben illustrated the cover. Describing the cover, Sounds magazine says "the flesh, the puppy-fat on the mid-calf, the breasts, the upturned American nose ... Corben's evocation of teenage femininity is so right! The cover, though, is the product of an alternative universe, like everything else about this album. The nude gymnasium scene is out, along with the other title 'Renegade Angel'."

Around this time, Steinman contributed all eight songs for Meat Loaf's Dead Ringer album, which was also released in 1981.