Chat out of Hell

Chat out of Hell's Rory Dodd Interview

• Sam Wilkinson

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Behold, it's Chat out of Hell's Christmas Surprise!

Rory Dodd, lovely man and centrepiece of the Steinman Sound, was kind enough to sit down and chat with us about his life, work, and secrets of finding good bargains in Ontario.

It was an absolutely lovely conversation and we hope you like it too.

See you January 12th for the next series of Chat out of Hell!

Let us know what you thought of our Rory chat at chatoutofhell@gmail.com

Chat out of Hell is a is a review podcast: all music extracts are used for review/illustrative purposes. To hear the songs in full please buy them from your local record shop or streaming platform. Don't do a piracy.

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Emma:

What is this?

Sam:

This is Chat Out of Hell's Christmas present.

Emma:

Are very excited about this one.

Sam:

Yeah. Remember how last year we read out a load of Jim Steinman approved erotic fan fiction for an hour and made everybody feel really awkward? Well, this is the complete tonal opposite of that.

Emma:

A couple of weeks ago, we were lucky enough to speak with someone who we've learned to really love over the past couple of years, the one and only Rory Dodd.

Sam:

Yeah, Rory was, uh, Rory. Fuck me. Script is hard, isn't it? Rory was lovely enough to sit down with us and have a chat about, well, loads of stuff. Um, and in true Chat out of Hell fashion, a bit of it was about Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman

Emma:

have a listen

Sam:

here it is. Bow now, now, now

Emma:

ding.

Sam:

We're joined today by Rory Dodd Rory, thank you so much for joining us.

RORY:

Oh, you're quite, uh, unfortunate.

Sam:

I'm starting to realize that now. Yeah. But we've, we've started, so it'd be rude to hang up at this point.

RORY:

Really, because I don't know how,

Sam:

We'd have to do it for you.

RORY:

Thank you.

Sam:

Rory, this is our Christmas special, so I thought we'd start with just a little chat about how you celebrate Christmas, if you do, what your Christmas plans are this year.

RORY:

I celebrate Christmas two different ways or do now. When I was married, it was very expensive. When I met Ruth, she said,"we don't give gifts in our family". For anything. And I said"I love you". I, and so it's just family. We, you know, her family comes down. I was not allowed to come home for, like, 30 years. So when I first came back, I said,"I'm spending Christmas with my family, you know, for like six years. And then I learned to hate them. Uh, Not true, but it's a long way to go. It's like an hour and a half. We've had to cancel. We talked about winter.

Emma:

Yeah.

RORY:

We've had to cancel'cause of snow. But it's just, it's knowing I can, And I'm in touch with them the whole time. I'm on the phone to my sister, two to three times a week.

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

she's got a great sense of humor. and we riff on each other a lot. My brother Cal is, I can never get ahold of him, but after, like, you don't talk for eight months, he just picks the conversation up where he left off.

Emma:

That's really nice.

RORY:

You know, he'll say,

Sam:

That's lovely. Yeah.

RORY:

It depends on what you're talking about. Um, but as I told you, he was the original, uh, Wolverine

Sam:

In the X-Men cartoon. Yeah.

RORY:

So he's hard to get ahold of, period, because he's always doing the Comic Cons.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

So that's, that. When I was a kid, we did the whole thing. Uh, you know, the tree, well, Ruth's actually decorating outside today, for Christmas. But she has her grandchildren here.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

two and she has her daughters here. And she has me. So, you know, there's no really Santa Claus things. And the kids are at the age where you just give'em money,

Sam:

Mm-hmm. Well, that's nice and easy then, isn't it?

RORY:

Yeah, yeah. My ex-mother-in-law you know, she's the kind, you gotta give her like$2,000 earrings or something. And she gives you a, what's a cheap store in England? You know, I can't, I

Sam:

pound shop.

RORY:

Okay. Well, no, like a department store.

Sam:

Oh, a cheap department store. Um, oh God. They've all closed down. The economy's awful.

Emma:

stores are no longer a thing.

RORY:

Well, I'd get a shirt that costs$13 and she'd

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

She'd leave the receipt.

Sam:

Oh God.

RORY:

It was swell. Just swell. uh, no, that's fine. Now I, my sister, it became a thing where we would, exchange Tim Horton's coffee cards. Do you know what a Tim Horton,

Sam:

So Tim Hortons has recently come over to the UK. I'm sure it's not as good as Canadian Tim Hortons, but we do love it.

Emma:

My parents have Canadian friends, uh, and they came over to stay with them earlier this year. And so for a special treat as a break from the roast dinners, I think they're being constantly served. They were taken out to their local Tim Hortons and had a lovely time.

RORY:

Oh, it's great. And do they give you wifi there for free? You know, you have to hook up so they can send you shit all your life.

Emma:

Yep.

RORY:

In fact, in Dover, my hometown, and, well, every Tim Horton's looks the same. But in my hometown, because it's such a picturesque little fishing town, they said, okay, you can come in, but you gotta have a nautical theme. And it's the only Tim Hortons anywhere that's different, and they

Sam:

Wow.

RORY:

a big, you know, that a, that a boat would have and stuff

Sam:

Yeah. Yeah.

RORY:

really cool. But Tim Horton's great coffee. You know, when I first came back, we have Dunkin Donuts in the States. But you can tell'em what you want in it, you know?

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

cream, I'm, you know, so I would go in and I'd, when I first came back and I'd say, yeah, I like a, a, a large, uh, with like this much cream in it, and they don't understand. looking at me like a man with eight heads because it's, you say double, double, you know? So

Sam:

Double. Double. Yes.

RORY:

They had, I had no idea what I was doing whatsoever. if you like donuts, you know, it's a great place Do you eat the doughnuts?. I don't know what they make

Sam:

They have donuts. They have, um, they do like burgers. And

RORY:

have donuts in England or is this something new?

Sam:

English donuts are a little different from American or Canadian donuts. I would say. Uh, the traditionally, like the, the sort of the normal ones that we used to have when we were kids would just be kind of jam filled.

RORY:

Oh, I hate those.

Sam:

Yeah. The, that.

RORY:

No, no, no. I, I hate stuffed donuts. I'm sorry.

Sam:

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that's the only kind that we had though. Or the, or the kind of the sugared ring donut. But then when I first, so my wife is from the us um, as well, we've discussed it and we've mentioned it on the podcast, but when I first flew over and they took me to a New England Dunkin Donuts, it was like, whoa. My eyes were open to the possibilities.

Emma:

my first time experiencing that was, a holiday to Florida when I was maybe sort of 13 or so. And I think we went into a Krispy Kreme.

RORY:

I mean, come on. Krispy Kreme

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

No, no, no. The best

Sam:

About five years ago, Dunkin had stores everywhere in the UK and then I think they've all slowly closed for whatever reason. They just weren't making as much as they wanted to, I guess.

RORY:

It all went south when they started making things other than donuts.

Sam:

Agreed. If your sign says"donuts", you sell donuts.

RORY:

A dunking donut. it's a plain donut that you dunk in your coffee.

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

No, thank you. You know, I drink my coffee. I don't dunk anything in it. Uh, they had good coffee, dunking Donuts. They

Sam:

They do have good coffee. Yeah.

RORY:

And you could tell'em how much cream to put In you know,

Sam:

In my case, none because, uh, we britishers aren't we, we're scared of putting cream in our, in our coffee.

RORY:

I have to tell you a story. Believe it or not, I have a story. In Canada, and as I'm sure it is there, when you order a pot of tea in a restaurant, you get a pot of tea.

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

So I moved to New York My first day in New York. I stopped to get breakfast down from the hotel on the way to Radio City, Music Halls. Merton's Texas Steakhouse, breakfast served. So I go in, I'm just from Port Dover, as I've said before, a small 3,200 people, uh, to a city of 7 million. And I walk in and this waitress comes over and she's chewing her cud. You know,"what do you have?" I said, and I'm polite. I said,"yes, I'd like, uh, uh, two eggs, side by each, uh, with bacon and a home fries and a pot of tea, please." And she goes away and she comes back and puts a cup of lukewarm water with a teabag on the side. She came back and I said,"excuse me"."What?" I said,"no, I asked for a pot of tea.""And who are you? The queen of fucking England." Welcome to New York. Seriously. I'm like, who are you? The queen of fucking England. That is when I started drinking this

Sam:

because you had to.

RORY:

it came hot. I mean, tepid, tepid tea.

Sam:

Yeah. It's awful. I, yeah,, I learned that pretty quickly to never order tea in the US.

RORY:

Oh, oh. And I grew up with tea. We were Irish, right?

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

hot on. And when you ask for tea, cozy, you use cozies,

Sam:

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

RORY:

Oh, they have no idea what you're talking about. What a tea. Cozy. What's a tea? Cozy. And you want to go fuck off.

Sam:

It's a perfect lead in let's go back to that young man on his first day in New York

RORY:

What

Sam:

who's just been disappointed by a, an atrocious cup of tea,

RORY:

oh Jesus. Can you.

Sam:

Luckily your day was gonna improve slightly after that. So that was the day that you

RORY:

that's when I met the big guy. Yeah.

Sam:

So tell us about how you met Meat and Jim, and, and what you thought of them.

RORY:

Well after a terrible cup of tea. I walked down to Radio City Music Hall, And it's the same thing you were talking about snow. They said a major snowstorm and there was like a dusting. and people were falling down, you know, taxi, running into one another. And I, I just put my vest on and you know, slammed a tepid tea. Uh, and, and, uh, I go to Radio City Music Hall. This is a big city, man. I, it's not Port Dover. And I get there, find my way up to the rehearsal hall. There was a show called Good Morning America, which was a huge show on, uh, ABC and the director, Gower Champion had a friend was a host and, and he owed him a favour and they came to film the first day. It was a show called Rockabye Hamlet And, uh, I was this kid from Canada and I was getting an attitude from people like I was taking a job away from someone'cause it's very convoluted, very inside."Who is this guy?" So I'm just standing in the corner by myself and the guy that had written the show had called me. Um, he said,"oh, you're not gonna believe it down here Rory. There's all these people. There's this big guy whose name is Meat Loaf. He wears a cowboy hat and cowboy boots..." I said Meat Loaf? He said,"Yeah. He's huge." So I'm standing over in the corner and I hear,"Hey, you" and, and I look over and there's a behemoth, with cowboy hat and cowboy boots on, and he's looking at me and I pointed to myself. He said,"Yeah. you. Come here". And as I somebody that big says, come here. You were here. He looked at me and he said,"I know who you are" Meat's from Dallas, Texas. I said, and I, I know who you are". He said,"why aren't you up in front of all them cameras?" Which everybody was trying to get on camera dancers. And I said,"well, the same reason you're not." He said,"good, let's go have lunch." And I'm, we just got here. He said,"oh, come on. They won't miss us." I'm terrified. My first day, let's, so we left. went around the corner to a restaurant called Beefsteak Charlie's. And his girlfriend worked there. Her name was Berrs. Uh, we came back. Nobody had missed us, of course. So he sits down and he starts singing a, a, a song by the Everly Brothers called Wake Up Little Susie. And I popped up a third, which is a harmony, and he stopped singing. And I said,"what is it?" He said,"nobody sings higher'n me." I said,"excuse me","nobody sings higher'n me". And I went,"well, apparently I do"."Y'all gotta meet Jimmy. You gotta, y'all gotta meet Jimmy." And I said,"Jimmy", he said,"Jimmy Steinman, me and Jimmy Steinman, we're gonna do a record together." And I'm like,"what?" He said,"yeah, yeah. Jimmy. You gotta meet Jimmy." And I'm like,"Jimmy?" Next day he says to me, at rehearsal,"y'all gonna come up now Jimmy's here, come on up". So we up a couple of flights and walked into a small room with a grand piano in it. And there's this guy with hair past his shoulders, turning a little grey. And he brings me in and he says,"Jimmy, this Rory. Rory, this is Jimmy." Jim says to me,"uh, nice to meet you" and"Meat says you're good with harmony". And the man heard me sing a third on Wake Up, Little Susie. He said,"Meat says you're really good with harmony." I said,"I suppose." He said,"can you think of a harmony for this?" So he played a progression and I just sang. He said,"oh, you are fast." So on my first Day in New York City, I meet Meat Loaf and on my second day in New York City, I meet Jim Steinman. And what are the odds of that, okay, so they then proceed to play me the whole album of Bat Outta Hell. Just piano and voice. And with the piano open'cause the piano was never closed around Jim Steinman. And I was, pinned against the wall just'cause Meat had a voice then. Very powerful. And Jim played thunder on the piano and the songs were ludicrous. And I said, um,"I don't know who these weirdos are, but I'm hooking my star to this wagon."

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

how it all started.

Sam:

Day one in New York. So you were 20 years old, were you, was that right?

RORY:

Yeah, just had a bad cup of tea.

Sam:

So when Meat said"nobody sings higher than me," was that out of amazement that you could do it or was he just annoyed that you were doing it?

RORY:

Um, I think he believed, no, he thought nobody could sing higher than him.'cause

Sam:

Wow.

RORY:

you know, he was like an operatic

Sam:

Yeah,

RORY:

tenor. Never trained, but he had this massive voice and he sang really high. And here was this scrub from Canada, 128 pounds who just sang higher'n he did."Nobody sings higher'n me. Nobody sings higher'n me." I guess I do though. He just wasn't right for that, I suppose. I don't know. But then to directly say,"y'all gonna meet Jimmy" because I could sing higher than him. It's just, it's in the stars or something, you

Sam:

Yeah, I that he sensed something about you that you had to be in on the band.

RORY:

that all happened within two days.

Sam:

You'd not even unpacked your suitcase yet.

RORY:

Who had a suitcase? You know,

Sam:

Sorry. I was 20 years old, You know. You are right.

RORY:

Paper bag, You know?

Sam:

folded up your paper bag and put it in the closet.

RORY:

no, no, I got it from Dunking Donuts. Right. But yeah, that's, that was the start. And, and uh, from there it was just, you know, the show closed. And, I didn't, I, I didn't know I'm 20 years old and I didn't want to go home a failure, you know,'cause all my friends and I'm going Broadway, and I'm only just out of high school. You know, everybody I knew went to college, to university, and I, I didn't, couldn't afford to go, first of all. Now they're in their second year and I'm doing Broadway and then I'd have to come home. I've always been intimidated by people with, uh, an education. Still to this day, It intimidates me.'cause I feel stupid around them. they could have a, a BA in bullshit and I would still feel inferior. Does that make any sense?

Sam:

makes sense. Yeah. I, I you are a very erudite man, and you, you speak very well, and you come across to me as very

RORY:

that's my parents. That's my

Sam:

Yeah,

RORY:

I have a firm grasp of the English language. Let's just say that. I'm a raconteur as they like to

Sam:

absolutely, yes.

RORY:

My education was, my mother thought it was wonderful I could read a newspaper,

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

you know, they couldn't read newspapers, we were encouraged, uh, corrected when we were not,

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

you know, there's no such word as"anyways", do you know what I mean? It's any way, we were corrected like that, and all, my whole family is the same.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

sister Fiona became a teacher. She's very well spoken. Cal, uh, he went on to be in high school. He was sent to a private school to become a priest. Now, you would fall over backwards if you knew Cal. Okay? You're not supposed to date girls and steal things when you're gonna, so

Sam:

That's rule one of priest school.

RORY:

Right there, right there, they actually asked him to leave. why? Don't know why. You can imagine him in the convent, you know, I was, you know, lights out at 10, Cal out at 11, but he learned, because he was in the semi-. It's a junior seminary, Latin, all

Sam:

Hmm.

RORY:

is based on Latin. So he speaks... we have arguments or words and I always have to go,"okay, so you know Latin," you know, this is always correct. No, it comes,"it comes from the Latin ba ba ba." You know, he could be blowing it out his ass, I don't know. But

Sam:

Oh, you did the, I mean, I think everybody with a sibling will recognize that voice, you just did there."Oh, so you know Latin."

RORY:

Always the older brother syndrome too, you know,"Hey, aren't you Cal Dodd's brother" and a fine person in my own right? Eh, you know, but,

Sam:

Do you not carry your gold discs around? Just so that you can,

RORY:

and we

Sam:

Carl Dodd's, my brother. Look at this.

RORY:

You try. Oh God, you're gonna love this. I'll get to that at some point. Um, but we both chose the same profession.

Sam:

Of course. Yeah.

RORY:

Knew from the time, that's the whole mom story, from the time I could stand up that I was gonna be nothing but a singer, you know? And Cal was the same, but I was four years behind him, and that's why"aren't you Cal Dodd's brother?

Emma:

Hmm.

RORY:

Okay. So the beginning of my career started with him helping me get into the business and, but then you get tired of being his younger brother. Everywhere you go,"aren't you Cal Dodd's brother, aren't you Cal Dodd's brother?" And you get real tired of it. And when I got the opportunity to come to New York City, I was pretty scared. And, uh, my mother, um, in her wisdom, stopped me the night before I'm supposed to go. And she said,"darling, darling, what? What is it?" I said,"I don't know, mom. I'm, I'm just afraid." She said,"what?" I said,"it's, uh, you know, this is Dover and New York City. I mean all these p" and she took me by the shoulders and she said,"darling, if you don't go, you'll be Cal Dodd's brother the rest of your life." I got the next plane out. Because I went someplace they didn't know him. I could be.

Emma:

from your mom there? Wise words.

RORY:

She did that a lot, you know. So like I said, nobody knew him there. I could become who I And then you meet Jim fucking Steinman and you meet fucking Meat first two days, and, and then you're, you're, you're, it's written. Okay. It all goes on from there. Cal did, uh, commercials and he had his own TV show, called Circus where he... with another girl and they'd do these songs and stuff. And they did animal acts on, circus acts on, he was the top jingle singer in Canada. and uh, he's doing all this and I'm doing record after record after record. So we, we just did the same thing and we got into kids' TV at the same time, but I'm doing it in New York. We actually did a show, the same show, and neither of us knew a, a show called Raccoons. I'm doing it in New York. Funny story. We're on the phone talking one day and I said, and that's, uh, that's when I was doing Raccoons. He says,"you didn't do Raccoons"? I said,"yeah, I did.""You didn't do fucking Raccoons", you know, and Cal talked on here like I said,"yes. You didn't do fucking Raccoons. I did fucking Raccoons", you know, we're Irish. Every other fucking word is fuck. Right. And we realized then that we were both doing the same fucking show in two countries. it's nuts. Two Dodd boys, one in Canada, one in,'cause Canada wasn't big enough for the both of us. So I thought I'd go down here and we'd have a country be between us, but we'd work together, you know?

Sam:

That's incredible. Raccoons was a, um, quite a big show in the UK when Emma and I were, were kids.

RORY:

Yeah.

Emma:

big fan of the Raccoons. I have several t-shirts and everything.

Sam:

Hopefully you got a few cents through each of those t-shirts. I don't know, but,

RORY:

Oh, we made, yeah. No, I wish we, but that was, you know, I did a show called Shining Time Station, which in England, I don't know, what it's called, but, but it was with Ringo

Sam:

Hmm.

RORY:

Thomas the Tank Train. Uh, and Ringo owns Thomas the Tank train. But it was a show, uh, that we did for public broadcasting. I love, my mother said to me, she was a teacher 35 years, a legend up here. Seriously,

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

and she said to me once, she said,"darling, you've been given a gift. Give back." So I figured this with me'cause it was for kids, it was a kids' TV show and I felt like I was giving back was, this was a teaching show, you know, it was not just books, but teaching about

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

manners and, you know, things, how to treat people and that everybody was the same. There was not black people, yellow people, red people, but everybody was a person to be treated with respect. So I felt that I was doing my bit just with that show. I did a lot of kids' TV. Did you ever listen to the Danny Boy thing

Sam:

Yeah. So I was just about to,

RORY:

Was I correct?

Sam:

So this is... just to, to fill the listeners in. You did a version of Danny Boy for that show,

RORY:

Yes.

Sam:

when we were chatting the other day, you said it was the song you were most proud of and

RORY:

Yeah.

Sam:

I think rightly so. It's, it's absolutely lovely.

RORY:

Mm-hmm.

Emma:

good.

RORY:

You can see where I was at the end, I went, oh my God, they've changed the key again. And I

Sam:

Yes.

RORY:

panic when that happens in your head. Oh my god. You know, I see if I can get even higher than that. Right? And as I told you, it was a one take vocal. We were just

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

level on the microphone, and then they just..."come in, you're done." you know, when the producer's wife is in, in tears on, that's a,"it was beautiful thing I've ever heard in my life.""Well, I wanna fix it. I, I won't". No, they wouldn't let me. They just said, that's it. On your bike. Goodbye. So, of all the stuff I've done and I've done quite a few things as a vocal, that is probably my favorite vocal I've ever done.

Sam:

it is very good. I would recommend to our listeners to, to find it on YouTube. There are two versions on YouTube, which I love. So there's a version with kind of beautiful rolling hills of Ireland and kind of beautiful visuals. And then there's the version from the actual show where,'cause you, you voiced the two puppets, didn't you? The p the cowboy Puppets. Who are them? Yeah,

RORY:

Was a jukebox

Sam:

yeah,

RORY:

Uh, they had a band within the jukebox. Puppets.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

And I played two cowboys called Tex and Rex. And the whole thing was that somebody would put a nickel in the jukebox and they'd say, what do they want us to play? And we'd play whatever songs we were gonna do. And that, that one was Danny And is it too funny with the puppets?

Emma:

It's. charming.

Sam:

It's charming. It is lovely. The puppets are sat next to each other. One of them is strumming the guitar, and the other one is doing the chords on the fret. Have two people ever played a guitar together like that?

RORY:

The problem is you don't listen. You're watching that,

Sam:

Yeah,

RORY:

listen to the vocal,

Sam:

I, do agree. Yeah, I think if you want to just appreciate the beautiful vocal on it, find the version with the rolling hills of Ireland

RORY:

But that was so precious, to me.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

Was so precious. son would watch this show. He'd be like two years old, and he kept, because he knew my voice even then. he would look at the TV and then he'd look over his shoulder and look at me, and he couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

Sam:

Oh,

RORY:

Right.

Sam:

so lovely.

RORY:

isn't it, it? I, but I, but kind of thing. And you can't explain it to them, it was, it was a joy to do. And, and, I am known, uh, in some circles as a rock and roll singer but in other circles, I'm known for kids' television. So there you go. I enjoyed both, and neither of them paid. I chose a great profession, you know, you do it because, you know, I got screwed every which way but loose, um, by Jim, you know, Meat, but, but by Jim a lot. But, uh, I do it all again

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

because there was nothing like Jim and I in the studio together,

Sam:

I was gonna ask about that, like what was it about Jim that was so special that made you keep going back and working with him so much?

RORY:

Uh, well, I thought he was brilliant. First of all, there's very few people I trusted musically that I would listen to musically. Maybe three people. The only time Jim interfered with me as a vocalist, he would teach me the song and he trusted me enough to deliver the goods on what he wanted. His only interference, and I wouldn't say it was interference, would be a feeling thing. Like, can you give me a little Elvis inflection there, some other singer, or, can you give me a little pain there? Do you know what I mean?

Sam:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

RORY:

You know, he trusted me enough to know that I can, we had a symbiotic relationship because I could deliver for him.'Cause I knew what he wanted and he knew I could give it to him. Uh, and without thought, without having to beat it into me like he had to do with Meat.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

he could just, here's the song, Icy. Go do it Icy.'cause I was Canadian. They called me the Ice Head and they shortened it to Icy. So I was known in the business as the Ice Head or Icy. And he called me Icy, but I trusted him implicitly, because, you know, we just had this thing happen. And, and he would let me do me, and would only make like said, can you give me this? So I would, but other people would come out, not in that situation, but other records or other things, and they'd say, yada, yada, yada. And I want, B bah B I'd nod my head and Yeah. Okay. And then I go whenever I fucking wanted. I just, you know, uh, because they were wrong. I'm a singer. I know what I'm doing,

Sam:

And you did.

RORY:

and I did. I did all right.

Sam:

Yeah, you did very well. You know, the demos of the stuff that you and Jim did together, kind of,

RORY:

favorite.

Sam:

they're, they're on YouTube. They're absolutely wonderful. I think many of them are the best versions of those songs that are out there. I was listening to, um, your version of It Just Won't Quit earlier today.

Emma:

it's

RORY:

Oh, really?

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

Yeah. Uh, Yeah. I sang it first. You know, that's always the way. The thing with Jim was, did you listen to, uh, I'm Gonna Love Her for Both of Us.

Sam:

Yes.

RORY:

Does it get high enough at the end?

Emma:

Oh yeah.

RORY:

You know, I think I'm done."Hey, Icy.""Yeah.""Do you hear anything" it's always Jim's quest is to get me to do something else. Usually when he said,"Hey, Icy" that meant another part, meaning, uh,"what is it, Jim?""Is there a higher part?" Always is there a higher part. But that vocal was just a vocal and I was heading out and he said,"Hey, Icy, do you hear anything?" Said where? He said"at the end." I said,"you want something high maybe?" Well, yeah. And I just made that up. That was just off the top

Sam:

That's

Emma:

Amazing.

RORY:

that

Sam:

Wow.

RORY:

And I don't know if we checked it out, but we lifted that we, he lifted that and we put it on something on a Bonnie Tyler record. I can't remember which song it was. I didn't like the way my voice sounded on it, so he brought Holly Sherwood in to do it. but that's the kind of stuff that he trusted me. Did you, uh, Making Love out of Nothing at All? Did you, did you listen to the Air Supply tune?

Sam:

Yes. Yeah, we've, yeah. So there's a, I think there's a demo that you and Jim did and there's the Air Supply one.

RORY:

He calls me up and he says,"Hey, Icy, I wrote a song. Do you want to sing it?" Which meant how fast can I get there? You know, to bring somebody's music to life the first time,

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

Especially Jim, there's a certain, I don't know how to explain it,

Sam:

you are, you are the go-to guy. You are the first guy that's hearing all the new Jim stuff.

RORY:

Call the Ice Head, right?"Hey, Icy it's me. I wrote a new song. Do you wanna sing it?" You know, get down 12 blocks and go in. And he would take me to the piano and say,"okay, Icy it goes like this." And he would play it for me and then he'd play it for me again. And I'm very quick. and I would know the song he'd play the piano. And while he played, put the piano track down. I would sing with him so could have my voice to reference, then I'd do my vocal. And, you know, this is what I've said before about singing and why I never really jumped out was because it was more fun to do background vocals. You know, a lead singer comes in and you know, you beat a song to death. If you don't get it in an hour, you're not getting it.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

And you punch and you punch and you punch and it loses its vitality. Its spontaneity. Which is... you go and do backgrounds and you're there for hours and you're making stuff up in your mind and you're hearing it and you're putting it all together. but I was, I did that and as I'm leaving,"Hey, Icy," and I'm like, what?"Do you hear any backgrounds?" And I said, sure. Oh, do you want to put'em on? Sure. So I did all the choruses on the demo. So that's all me.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

other singer.

Sam:

Yeah. Amazing.

RORY:

those parts we put'em on the record, recreated them on the record. So there's beauty in that.

Emma:

It's a huge part of the overall sound.

RORY:

The Steinman sound. Yeah.

Emma:

Of the, of the overall Steinman sound. I think it, it's, it's sort of integral to those huge songs.

RORY:

Yes, yes. Like a major, part of the Steinman sound was us, was the background vocals. It defined. if you listen to any Steinman song, guitar, piano and background vocals and the background vocals smokey, man, they are all in your face.

Emma:

As a kid listening to this before I, I knew anything about any of it really. Um, I just assumed that there was a big old choir involved.

RORY:

It was two guys,

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

No girls. No girls, just two guys squeezing them so that when he is there, a higher part, let, lemme get a vice. get a vice. You know, you get to the point, no, only where doggies can hear Jim."Well, woof woof, off you go." You know? Uh, but he loved the sound of my partner, Eric Troyer, fabulous singer. We did, I don't know how many records together. Um, I mean, the first time we ever sang together was on an album for a guy named Garland Jeffries. Uh, it was, uh, American Boy and Girl, I believe was the record. And the first time we sang anything together was one line, first time, first song. And it was perfect. And I said to myself, it's all different now. Cause when you can find someone you trust, as I said with Jim, when you find someone you can trust, it's, it's, it's unbelievable. And when I found out that, that he has theory, he was a trained musician, Eric, it was perfect.'cause I know nothing, you know, I don't read music. I, I can't play it. What I do is I hear it. And I'll go out and just do what I hear. He'll say, oh, we can't do that." And I said,"what d'you fucking mean? We can't do that." That was the first day. He said"we can't do that." And I'm like, what do you mean? Nobody tells me. You know, I'm Cal Dodd's brother, you know. So he said, you know, not knowing theory."So we have a demented five over the nine six." And I'm like, the fuck are you talking about? But then I would just, then I knew and if I had a part he'd say,"we can't do that." So we'd have to come up with something else. Or if he had a part and sang it, all I had to say was, I don't like it. I couldn't explain it. And I did it just to piss him off'cause he would do it to I said, well, I don't like it. I can say things like that too, know. But yeah, we were very lucky in that respect. So all that stuff on, on Total Eclipse, um, it was a duet

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

as I told you before. Uh, it was presented to me as a duet one, I go, Hey, Icy I wrote a song, do you wanna sing it?" And I went down and it was Total Eclipse of the Heart. And uh, I had to sing both sides of the song. So I'm singing to myself, you know, that's all fucked up. When you hear the song, but I did half that tune. And they just call it the turnaround song and they think I'm the, turnaround guy. I don't know if you ever listened to, uh, did you listen to that Without,

Sam:

The, the vocals only version. Yeah. Like those, those background vocals are incredible

RORY:

Thank

Sam:

they're, they're, they're drowned out by big crashing chords, but

RORY:

course. Of course. But did you hear that I sang the whole thing with her,

Sam:

yeah.

RORY:

but people don't that

Sam:

yeah.

RORY:

that. think it's her. People actually think it's her. She can't even think that fucking high. But, you know. Yeah. Those backgrounds on that were brilliant. I

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

Eric and I arranged them. did you listen to the Billy Joel thing I was

Sam:

Yes. The, uh, so that's, um, oh no,

Emma:

Uptown Girl.

Sam:

Thank you. I nearly said, Tell Her About It. Um,

RORY:

a masterclass in background? Saying

Sam:

yeah, so I,

Emma:

as well.

Sam:

I put the, the vocals only version of Uptown Girl on, and, the rest of it's so unnecessary.

RORY:

I said without those, it's just a song. Right. Like the guy who arranged the song, Tom Baylor, called me. Just went over a billion plays of Uptown Girl on Spotify." A billion,

Sam:

Wow.

RORY:

plays. Just went over a billion plays of Total Eclipse on YouTube.

Sam:

That's amazing.

RORY:

And how much did you get, Rory? Well, as much as I got for doing the record. How much was that? Um, uh, nothing but it was a Steinman song. He fucked me over. Whatcha gonna do? You move on.

Sam:

I mean,

RORY:

the bridge. And, uh, if you, if you,, if you let it, you gotta it go or it will eat you alive.

Sam:

which is such a healthy attitude.

Emma:

It is. It really is.

Sam:

I, and we're, I, I, I know we said this when we spoke before, I'm blown away by how calm and how collected you are about kind of just looking out over the whole thing. And I got to do Steinman songs and forget the bad stuff. Just focus on the good.

RORY:

come on, if you, for I, you know, what are you gonna do? Can you do anything about it? Can you?

Sam:

You cannot,

Emma:

Not

RORY:

You can't. What are you gonna fucking do? You let it go.

Sam:

it's so healthy, Rory.

RORY:

When has success had anything to do with happiness?

Sam:

Absolutely.

Emma:

indeed.

RORY:

It's just to be able to have been a part of that, It will kill you. It will kill you if you let it,

Sam:

Yeah,

RORY:

you you look back, I, I was screwed outta millions and millions of dollars and I would like to have the money, as I've told you before, Jim's dead, Meat's dead. They got the money, they got the fame, and I got the girl,

Sam:

you win.

RORY:

I win. I'm happy despite them, or to spite them, you know?

Emma:

Living well is the best revenge, something like

RORY:

right. But, uh, you know, I would never have met her if everything had gone well.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

You gotta look at it like that. But you can you imagine if I let that bother me, I

Sam:

I can't imagine you letting it bother you, but I can imagine a lot of people in similar situations just getting bitter and, and, but as you say, it doesn't achieve anything.

RORY:

That's right.

Sam:

ruins your life.

RORY:

Let'em, you know, there's nothing I can do. And like I said, they became like Meat and Jim, um, had their ins and outs like lawsuit and lawsuit and this and that. Um, how do I say this without sounding... we were all vehicles for Jim. It was always about Jim. Took me a while to figure that out. But anything that anybody did was to further Jim and his career. Meat was just a vehicle for him. Like I was, not to the extent that Meat was. but... how do I put this? he, he wasn't interested in what Meat had to say. Uh, he didn't think Meat had any, uh, taste? I don't know if that's, I can't think of the right

Sam:

I think No, that, that, yeah,

Emma:

yeah,

Sam:

he didn't, he,

Emma:

mean with that?

Sam:

I, correct me if I'm getting it wrong, but like the idea that me didn't have anything to contribute other than being a performer to perform Jim's stuff.

RORY:

Yeah. He wasn't artistically had nothing to

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

He would try to do stuff when we were way back. At the beginning, we would rehearse, Meet, Jim, Ellen and I every day for four hours at the Steinway building, and Meat would say, let me do this. And Jim would say, let's not let you do this. All he had to do was go, that's wrong. You're not doing that. And that was Meat trying to be involved.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

drove him insane. you know, left To his own devices. saw what happened.

Sam:

Yes. Yeah.

RORY:

Without Jim there to lead him. You saw what happened.

Sam:

Hmm.

RORY:

Meet's only success came with Jim. Now I'll explain if I might, Jim wasted nothing, Jim wasted nothing. Those demos when we did the final tracks, Hey, Icy, we should put a vocal on this so they can learn the vocal" or"we should put a vocal on so we can put the backgrounds on". Those vocals were never thrown away. They were always kept. So when you listen to a lot of those records, if you recognize the voice, it's me.'cause Jim would push my vocal up into the mix at the point where he thought it was needed. I Would do Anything for Love, but I Won't Do That. We were putting backgrounds on that record, Todd, uh, Kasim and I, and he said,"Hey, Icy we're doing this song. Would you throw a vocal on this so we can do the backgrounds to it?" So he taught me the song all of 15 whole fucking minutes, and I laid a vocal on it. Now, if you listen and go back and listen to that record, now that you know how I sang, give it a listen.

Sam:

So your guide vocal is still there at the bits where he needed it.

RORY:

Pretty much the whole thing, um, at least in the

Sam:

Yeah. But it's kind kinda brought up at the bits where he thought it needed a bit more

RORY:

Well, you gotta understand that vocal I did in 15 minutes, a half hour. They were at, they were punching words. Do you know what I mean?

Sam:

Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. Just kind of clipping out individual phrases and words from.

RORY:

they were doing words. Words. They were punching words.

Sam:

Just to build Meat's vocal.

RORY:

And then they would autotune it. You know, that should be put back in Pandora's fucking box.

Sam:

Agreed.

RORY:

just awful. which to a singer is like, you know, to me.'cause I like to sing in tune. That whole concept of using something to make pitch, uh, I'm sorry. It just doesn't work for me.

Sam:

It's so off-putting.

RORY:

Yeah. So anyway, yeah, that was one of the number ones that I sang,

Sam:

So it's 11 number ones in total. Is it?

RORY:

Yeah, I was trying to remember what they were. I don't know how many top fives, but, but we had, It's All Coming Back to Me Now. I'd Do Anything for Love, But I Won't Do That. Holding Out For a Hero. Um, Billy only went to number two with, Uptown Girl. I think. Air Supply only went to number two with Making Love out of Nothing at All.

Sam:

Yeah,

RORY:

like cause Bonnie held them back. So I had the number 1, 2, 3 songs in the country at the same time.

Sam:

how many people can claim that?

RORY:

How many people, Jim can only take, take two.

Sam:

Amazing. That is a record that won't be matched for a very long time, isn't it?

RORY:

Eric, Eric can say it? too

Sam:

Oh, okay. Oh, fair enough. Eric was there. Yeah,

RORY:

but we had number one with, uh, no, uh, Tell Her About It was, was, uh, wasn't Uptown Girl. Tell Her About It. Uptown Girl went number one. Tell Her About It was when number 1, 2, 3, we had Leave a Tender Moment Alone. Um, we had, uh, uh, they escape me. I'm sorry.

Sam:

It's okay when you've got as many number ones as you have, Rory is, it's really hard to keep track, isn't it?

RORY:

bragging. I'm not, I sorry if it sounds like that. But this is the reality of the situation is

Sam:

Um.

Emma:

every right to brag given the situation, you know,

RORY:

whatever I did, I did what I did and I enjoyed it. I got to do some really fun things. I got to sing at Madison Square Garden, another Mom story.

Sam:

please tell us that story. I love this story.

Emma:

such a good story.

RORY:

I called her up and I said, you know, I'm 20. Uh, I'm not a mommy's boy. I really aren't. But I loved this woman. I respected her'cause she was so much to me and gave me everything that I ever had as far as, as a singer, I guess, as far as a human, I suppose. Uh, but I always called her and to this day, she died in 1998. I, something will happen. I gotta call Mom, you know? But then you realize, I was asked to do, the national anthem at Madison Square Garden for a New York Ranger game. I'm a major hockey fan, being Canadian, and they were my team after I moved to New York. So I called my Mom up. I said,"Mom, Mom, you're not gonna believe this.""Oh, darling, what is it?" I said,"I'm singing at Madison Square Garden"."Oh, wonderful. What do you, what do you sing?" And I said,"I'm singing the national anthem.""Oh." What, what?""You must remember one thing, darling." Well, what's that?""It's not about you. It's an anthem. Sing it like one." So I sang it like one, you go out, you sing it, you do none of this oh, say can you see? Yeah. We're out there, baby. you just sing it. You got 18,500 people screaming at the top of their lungs, and they're not screaming for you. They want you to fuck off the ice. They want a hockey game. It's, it's incredible. Uh, I, I, they called me to get two seats and 25 bucks, you know. Oh, can't get seats to a Ranger game game. So the two seats were wacko and they called me to see what to do with the$25. And I told'em to give it to a charity, uh, uh, Phil Esposito Foundation. And then they called me the next day, said, we're sending you a schedule. Uh, pick whatever games you want. And you think I was happy. I'm picking the teams that are number one and stuff. Take that 25 bucks and give it to Phil. And got two seats to the Ranger games. I used to actually use them to bring business people with me. And it's terrifying. you're standing alone at centre ice and people, 18,500

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

are, you know, I've sang in front of 80,000 people. Okay, but you're alone. My mom, she said to me, I had to pick a key. I had to go up to the organist. He said, what key key I said,"I don't give a crap". He goes,"well, you know, if you start it, too high, you're screwed."'Cause it goes really"oh, say", and to make that comfortable when you get to the top end, you're dead meat. They stopped using the organist, so you had to, uh, go acapella. So I called her work and I said,"Jesus, mom, what am I gonna do?""Don't be daft." I said,"what?" Says,"get a pitch pipe and find your key." I'm like, what an idiot. Of course. And then it hits me. What if I blow the wrong fucking note? So I called her back and I said,"mom, what if I" she,"God, Rory, what did I raise, idiots?" And I'm like,"what do you mean?" She says,"you tape the rest of the bloody holes. So there's only one hole to blow in." I loved this woman. She was

Sam:

Ingenious.

Emma:

I love this woman

Sam:

Yeah.

Emma:

As

RORY:

was.

Emma:

that regularly has to go to my mum for advice, still, I can

RORY:

Never stop. That's what they're,

Emma:

definitely,

RORY:

they love it. They love it. Rory has very simple rules. If you can't pay cash for it, you don't need it. Okay. Never pay full price. Would you pay full

Sam:

This is, this is a great way to live

Emma:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

It's not so much as being, I'm not cheap. I'm not frugal. there's something, you know, I don't deny

Sam:

yeah,

RORY:

I just$300 worth of cheese, I don't do that a lot. I this is my one guilty pleasure. Right. Um, I only have one credit card and I pay it off at the end of every month. The don't pay full prices. Is, is the, is the rush of the chase.

Emma:

I love that.

Sam:

I love this.

RORY:

Am I right?

Sam:

Are you the kind of guy that Haggles in the supermarket?

RORY:

Oh, oh. I do the shopping, I know the prices, babe. Look, she'll be in the car. She'll wait for me in the car'cause she pokes. I'm not a poker. I know where everything, and I'm going and I'm in and out.

Sam:

You get in, you get the exact thing you need, you get out.

RORY:

Bob's your uncle and you're out of the place, you know? And the girls that work there love me. You know, these, these older women, they all get nicknames. I won't give'em to you, but they, hey, you know, they're like sixty, sixty-five, whatever, and they always come up and give me a big hug. How you

Sam:

Oh,

RORY:

Even when Ruth's with me, it's precious. Right? But she likes to go in and she likes to go up and down each aisle. I don't wanna, this is not what I do. So I'm in and I'll see, uh, chicken and it's$4 off a pound. So I'm on the phone to her and she'll just laugh and she'll say,"how much?" I said,"it's chicken breast, no bones! It's$4 off a pound." How many in a, how many in a pack?""Four."Okay." I said,"how many packs?"'Cause we don't know how much room they have in the freezer, you know? She said,"okay, pick up two packs." You know? Um, I know what everything costs. Tell me this. If you had the opportunity pay 9 99 for a six pack of Coca-Cola, 16 bottles or 3 50. Okay. For the same

Sam:

Uhhuh.

RORY:

No, I must pay 9 99. I couldn't possibly. No, no.

Emma:

Absolutely.

RORY:

No. No. I must pay you full price. You know, I've been to a place called Value Village. Okay? I love going to these stores. They're secondhand, I guess you'd call them. Uh, they're not Salvation Army, but they're just places. I have so many fucking leather coats, man. You wouldn't believe it.

Sam:

I,

RORY:

I go directly to, to, uh, sports jackets like suit sports jackets, and unfortunately, my, my, my, my brother's wife died about, uh, two weeks ago and I, had to go, of course, we had to go to the

Sam:

yeah,

RORY:

and I have this jacket that I wore, and I'm talking to his son, trying to explain to him the rules that I just gave you, And he's right on there. He does the same thing. Oh no, my wife, ba blah, blah. And I said, well, you know, I bought this jacket and it off the rack and it fit me fucking perfectly. I said, I got it home. And I put it on to show Ruth and I reached into the pocket and the price tag was in there, and it was$265, and I got it for 10 bucks. No, no, no. I'd rather pay$265, right?

Sam:

I love this. I love this so much. You mentioned the Salvation Army. It's probably the same in Canada, but like there's a lot of charity shops, a lot of kind of donated, like I spend hours in those looking for perfect jackets and.

RORY:

oh, no, go pay full price. It's more important.

Sam:

And now I can say that, rockstar Rory Dodd has the same shopping techniques as me.

Emma:

You've gotta prioritize as well. You know, you can only spend$10 on a jacket if you're gonna spend 300 on cheese.

RORY:

No, no. Fuck off. This is what it's, you want a story? I got a story about, coffee. Okay. I drink coffee. I drink a lot of coffee. So does Ruth. Not as much as me. I've tried to cut back my body one day, said uh-uh. So I'm a musician. I would drink 12 cups a day, but I've had to cut back. But not before this. I go to my drugstore and as I'm leaving they have, you know, a flat of six tins of coffee, like the big round ones. Maxwell House, which is What I drink, and it says it's on sale for$4 and 53 cents. And I'm like, what? I said, can I get a couple of these right? They say, we're trying to get rid of them, you can take them all. and there's two flats, okay. They said,"Hey, we've got four more out back if you want'em." I came home with 32 cans of coffee. No laugh if you must.

Sam:

I'm laughing because it's,

RORY:

I come into Ruth, go, I need some place to put coffee. I have, uh, 32 cans of coffee in the car. You know, the car was like this the whole way home because I put She said"32 cans?". I said,"yeah, I got them for$4 and 53 cents a can." She's like"32 cans." I said,"look, they're$14 at the grocery store. you know how many bottles of fucking rye that is? Do you know how many cartons of fucking cigarettes that is? Because I just saved$300." Are we going to drink it? Are we?

Sam:

How long does it take you to get through one can?

RORY:

Well, we don't drink like that anymore. We got one of them curry fancy things. I'd go through a can of week.

Sam:

Okay. Oh, that's not so bad. That's not so bad.

RORY:

No, but it, and it was just before COVID. And everybody was,

Sam:

Oh.

RORY:

look at Rory's got can ha ha ha ha. Who was knocking at my fucking door? You have any, you know, we ran outta coffee Rory. Yeah. 14 bucks. Fuck off. Do you want it? But that's the kind that's like, wow. That's a thrill to find a deal like that.

Sam:

You heard about Cal Dodd's brother. All he does is find bargains.

RORY:

right. He'd pay full price. Okay.

Sam:

Oh wow. What an insult.

RORY:

Yes. Oh yeah. He wouldn't even think it's an insult. When I first came home, when I met Ruth, I, I came home in the summer, but then fall came and all I had was shorts and t-shirts. So I ended up at Value Village and I got a, a, a beautiful, um, Ralph Lauren down vest that I paid$15 for. Inside the pocket. Ralph Lauren, inside the pocket.$320. It had never been worn before. Like the jacket. Imagine the rush there.

Sam:

Please tell me you keep all the price tags sort of pinned to a wall somewhere.

RORY:

oh, oh. Just to show people I got a couple hanging on and framed, know,

Sam:

Right next to your gold discs.

RORY:

I have the Maxwell House, 32, can this was a$10 jacket. Yeah. Yeah. I know it sounds stupid, but It's fun.

Sam:

It's not, it's fun. Exactly. It's a hobby in itself. It's, yeah.

RORY:

It's a rush. This week, this fucking weekend, how much do you pay for a pair of jeans,

Emma:

Oh, at least 50 pounds.

RORY:

which would be an American money. Canadian

Sam:

Oh, uh oh God. Let's call it a hundred dollars in Canadian, roughly

RORY:

Right, so that's what a pair of jeans cost. A hundred bucks. They had a sale on for 40% off a pair of fucking jeans. So under$60 for a pair of fucking jeans. What? I'm only gonna buy one. I bought

Sam:

32 pairs of jeans.

RORY:

No, no. I wish. You don't fucking see sales like that. I'm sorry. You have to be there. And the rush of knowing I'm screwing them outta 60 bucks.

Sam:

I, I, I, I, I expected a few things from our conversation today. I never expected. Rory Dodd's home stocking money, saving advice. You could honestly have, there's, there's a guy, um, our UK listeners will know this name. You, you probably won't. There's a guy called Martin Lewis, who goes on sort of daytime TV in the UK and he tells you how to save on your electricity bill or cheeky little ways to pay less tax. You could fit into that slot perfectly.

RORY:

Perfect.

Emma:

it'd be much more watchable as well.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

So what do you wanna talk about the music then?

Emma:

Oh yeah, that.

Sam:

Oh yeah. You've painted such a lovely picture of Port Dover life.

RORY:

You have no idea.

Emma:

Speaking of Port Dover, um, so I was talking to my mum after our previous conversation,

RORY:

yeah.

Emma:

and last year

Sam:

my

Emma:

parents flew out to Canada to go and visit some friends of theirs, who were based in, uh, Burlington?

RORY:

Oh, get out. My sister lives there.

Emma:

Yeah, well, they spent the day in Port Dover as well. I've seen the photographs. They had a really nice ice cream.

RORY:

At Hewitt's?

Emma:

It's entirely possible. I, I dunno exactly where they went,

RORY:

Yeah. Well if it was down at the beach, it was Hewitt's Ice Cream. But if they went to the Dover Dairy Bar, uh, it would be a Porter's. We went last night to Dover to have dinner. Uh, got to wear my new black jeans. You can either dress up or dress down

Sam:

Of course. Okay.

RORY:

Didn't wear the jacket, Ruth and, and her daughter Mandy and I went to have... dover's known for perch. That's the fish.

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

It's just a small fishing in town on Lake Erie. And the fish that they catch is perch. So every restaurant has a different recipe for perch there. We went to the Erie Beach last night. That's, I used to work there, uh, uh, slinging when I was 18. Uh, the girl cuts my hair, her parents owned it. Uh, but their perch is to fucking die for. So there you go. There I was in Dover night having perch. Maybe they went to Tim Horton's and saw the steering wheel.

Sam:

uh, Emma, I think we need a full report from your parents about what they get up to in, in Dover.

Emma:

I'll speak to them. Um, I'm seeing them at the weekend, so I'll have a, a, I'll have a word then and see what, what's going on. They were on holiday there. My dad was talking to some of his family back home, And found out that his grandma, so my great grandma was born in Kincardine.

RORY:

Kincardine

Emma:

Kincardine, sorry.

RORY:

That's Northern, Ontario.

Emma:

yeah. Yeah. So I've had like blow by block accounts of this, so yeah, we, we've got Canadian ties somewhere.

RORY:

love it. I love it that they were in Dover, I'm blown away.

Emma:

Oh, I was so excited because the name rang a bell. She told me about it when they were on the holiday. The name rang a bell. I thought, ah, would be too much of a coincidence, but here

RORY:

Oh, really?

Emma:

we are.

RORY:

What a small fucking world, isn't it?

Sam:

It's amazing. So obviously we, we discussed, we this.

RORY:

Did you get coffee? Or jeans, sorry, you were gonna say

Sam:

I was just gonna say, we, we've discussed this off podcast, but we're not on the recording. Emma's mum is, a Steinman and Loaf super fan, and she was so excited when we were gonna be speaking to you, Rory,

Emma:

Oh,

Sam:

now,

RORY:

Oh, you silly thing you, well, ask me a Steinman question and, and I'll,

Sam:

yeah. Um, I forgot that's why we were here.

Emma:

Oh

Sam:

Um,

Emma:

That bit.

Sam:

yeah. So back to serious conversations. Of course. Um,

RORY:

do you wanna save money? Jim wore the same fucking shirt every day

Emma:

I can believe that.

RORY:

And we were recording, he wore the same, when we were doing Bad For Good. Same fucking shirt every day. He wore the same sneakers. They had holes in the bottom.

Sam:

That ties in with everything we've heard about Jim.

Emma:

Yep.

RORY:

did.

Sam:

It was so weird because like that's, he's got this reputation of kind of buying the whole menu at a restaurant or ordering thousands of dollars worth of stuff while you were doing a record, but he's wearing the same pair of sneakers for.

RORY:

Yes. But I wasn't confused by that. You know, it was like, that's Jim. That's just Jim, you know, you wouldn't look, oh, he is in that shirt again. Or look at those fucking sneakers. That was just Jim.

Sam:

Look, if you only need one shirt, why buy spare shirts?

RORY:

And you know, we can put newspaper in the, in the sneakers, you know,

Emma:

Oh, no,

RORY:

so, I'm sorry I jumped in there.

Sam:

It's quite all right. Um, the only question I had, um, uh, we can, we can sort of close out on this is about, um, one of the things we're obsessed, well, not obsessed. We are not, we are not obsessives honest.

Emma:

no. We're fine.

Sam:

We're what

RORY:

for

Sam:

only one's shopping for fantastic value at Value Village. That's value. I am available for records.

Emma:

you could do the voiceover.

Sam:

Hello people of Ontario. Do you like bargains?

RORY:

would say Value Village. The fucking stock exchange, Value Village. It's on the American Stock Exchange. Seriously.

Sam:

And yet they can still offer such excellent prices.

RORY:

Yes. And people bring them and give them things to sell.

Sam:

Oh, oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, that I, I, I'd only just twigged that bit that they're trading, but people are donating clothes for a publicly traded company.

RORY:

a leather,

Emma:

a

RORY:

leather file.

Emma:

model.

RORY:

Yeah, I have a leather jacket. One of those jackets you go, you see somebody in it and you go, man, that's so cool.'cause it's broken in, you

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

got, I bought it for 10 bucks and I know it's one of those things where the husband goes,"honey, see my brown leather jacket?" And she'll go,"yeah I, gave it to Value Village" and he'd just explode."You gave my fucking leather jacket to Value..." and I'll walk by.

Sam:

Cal Dodd's brother's taken my leather jacket.

RORY:

That's the kind of place It is, though. On the stock exchange. Anyway, I cut you off again,

Sam:

It's alright. Um, so yeah, our, our, our obsession, our interest is Meat and Jim say so much about their relationship with each other, and sometimes they say they're best friends and sometimes they have a massive falling out and sue each other, and then they're back together again. What do you think of it all? Do you think they were ever best friends?

RORY:

They were never best friends.

Sam:

Hmm.

RORY:

were never, they would, they never hung out, um, that I ever knew. I mean... best friends... when Jim just didn't show up, for like a week. You know, we, I told you we rehearsed and stuff and he never showed up. And Meat finally got ahold of him. Um, Jim lived in the city, um, about 20 blocks, 15 blocks from, from Meat. His father had died. He never bothered or wanted to tell

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

So good friends would, wouldn't you think call and say Dad died? You know, I, I, that might

Sam:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RORY:

you know what I'm saying?

Sam:

That's what friends are for.

RORY:

you know, Meat had a ball team. I played on his Meat Loaf ball team in, in the

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

And the show league, Jim never show, of course it was during the day. So Jim was not a day person. He only came out after dark. No, if you must. He, he did. He wanted, he was a, I don't know how to, I mean, you see the pictures of him after with the leather he Dracula kind of thing happened with the glasses. He was not a day person. He never went out until it was dark That's why he was so pasty faced. Waxen,

Sam:

Mm.

RORY:

But as far as friendship, you know, uh, I would never say they were best friends. No. Uh, a working relationship. Yes. He thought Meat would think that they were best friends, but I would just say they were, I wouldn't even say acquaintances. Um, somewhere in the middle of that,

Sam:

Yeah, I think that's the impression I get from, obviously, you know, they did a lot of press stuff together and kind of gave off, they gave off that impression in order to, well, from Jim's perspective, it seems like it was in order to sell records and to

RORY:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. When we signed, I keep saying we, it wasn't, we, I always thought it was gonna be we,'cause we had started the whole thing together. You know, we worked together to get the record

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

When they signed the record deal, David pulled Jim out of the meeting and he said, only Meet is signing the record deal." And Jim was being aced outta the deal Meat never told of that, right? So Jim said, well, you can't have my songs. Which created Total Panic when you look on the front of Bat, it says"with songs by Jim Steinman." And that's why that happened.

Sam:

huh.

RORY:

It's Meat's record, but it's"with songs by Jim Steinman" and"with songs by Jim Steinman was the only person to make money on Bat out of Hell". And Todd did too. But those are the only two people I know. I got a thousand dollars for Bat out of Hell. uh I did a lot of work on that record, I think, you know,

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

Uh, I was promised half a point, which at that point would've been nine five. So four and a half, 5 cents at that point. Okay?'cause records are 9.99, so it would've been a nickel, but it's gone up since then. So you take a nickel on anywhere between 43 and 50 million records. You do the math. Oh, put a dollar sign in front of it. I know how much that is. Take it.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

once the blows, once the blows started... in Canada, when you shake someone's hand, in Port Dover, it's a deal. Go to New York, not so much. You have to get it on a piece of paper. And I never did. So when the blows started, all deals were off. Um, live and learn, but if you let it bother you, it'll eat you up, then you'll die. You asked me once what I was most proud of about my career and

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

records, I believe I said that, that I made it through. And I, I got out the other side and relatively unhurt. But I got out the other side and I found love waiting me. On the other side, I, I found someone who loved me and loved me for me. I had to deal with people who loved me because I was quotations Rory Dodd and Ruth fell in love with Mrs. Dodd's son. But it was a tough, it's a tough business. It's a hard business. You can sink quickly, which is why, you know, I'm an alcoholic. I'm a recovering alcoholic. You're never not an alcoholic. I just celebrated my 45th anniversary of soberness, on August 13th, um, I'd be dead if I hadn't. Um, these are things that happen and that happened on the road. And I brought that problem with me off the road, uh, and had, uh, at least the, the, uh, good sense to realize that I had the problem. Uh, falling down the same flight of stairs twice not realizing you've done it either time

Sam:

God,

RORY:

might be a hint. Okay? So I just decided it was time. And, and, and I never went to meetings, you know, I never did AA, which I probably should have, but I just said, put a bottle on the table in front of me and I said, it's either you or me. My father was an alcoholic. I should have known better. And I just sat there and cried and cried and cried and cried. And then I took it and I poured it down the drain. And the last drink I had was, August 12th, August 13th. I quit 45 years ago. Um, so to make it through it was huge for me. And then to find someone I love who loves me back for me. You can't beat that. They got the money, they got the fame, and I got the girl. Right?

Sam:

What else do you need?

Emma:

so lovely.

Sam:

We're genuinely stunned into sort of loving silence. That's, that's really sweet. Rory and I, I reflective of you as a person, it it, we've had a few chats recently and Yeah. You've, you've always just come across as a really well balanced, very nice man indeed. So I.

RORY:

Drugs help. No, I do. I do. I'm epileptic. So this, this was, uh, was a prescription. Uh, that's my story and I'm fucking sticking with it.

Sam:

Sorry, I do have to add funny on top of that. Um, yeah, we, we were talking a little while ago, and you said all singers want to be comedians

RORY:

Oh, yeah, yeah,

Sam:

and all comedian. Well, we said all comedians want to be singers. I,

Emma:

Yeah.

Sam:

if you had chosen that standup comedy route,

Emma:

You'd have done really well

Sam:

you would've done so well.

RORY:

really,

Sam:

Yeah, I think so. You've got the timing, you've got the charm. You, you are, as we said, you're a raconteur, you know?

RORY:

But you put yourself on the fucking line, man. Every time you guys walk out there, you're naked. And I don't mean that because you don't want that kinda laugh,

Sam:

Oh. But

RORY:

but you're, you're naked, you're out there, you're alone. Your ass is on the fucking line. What if they don't laugh?

Sam:

That's what everybody thinks at first. What if they don't laugh? And then it happens to you and it's awful, and you go home and you sit down and you're booked for another show the next night. So you've gotta get off your arse and go do it again. And then they laugh again, and it's fine.

RORY:

Yeah. It's terrifying. I, I couldn't do It you know, I applaud you for your pluck

Sam:

Oh,

RORY:

again.

Sam:

oh, you.

RORY:

You know, that's, I mean, I can't imagine fear. Do you have fear?

Sam:

Um,

RORY:

You know,

Sam:

sometimes to start with, there is a lot of fear

RORY:

my mother always said, if you're not nervous, you're not going to do well.

Sam:

that I was about to say that. So sometimes you just get too relaxed into it. You're too sure that I'm gonna do well and I know this stuff inside out, so they're gonna laugh and then they don't laugh at the point that's supposed to be really funny. And that throws you and you are off for the rest of the show.

RORY:

Oh, I bet. Well, we used to have comics open for us, actually.

Sam:

Wow. That's, I mean, talk about

Emma:

a tough gig.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

Yeah.

Sam:

Oof.

RORY:

where I got the, the hamburger helper line. Like if, if I write the book everybody, you gotta gotta write a book, Rory. You gotta write a book. I said, yeah, I'll call it. I was hamburger helper. One of the guys, I was just out back hanging with Meat's man, hamburger helper and I, that, you know, I just picked that up. You know, I, I never give him credit'cause I can't remember his name as I should give him credit, you know? Uh, but I, would die, man. I if somebody didn't laugh, I would, I would, hamina hamina hamina gonna, you know, I would freeze.

Sam:

I do have to say, I think, you know, when it's a night of comedy and everybody's paying money to go and see comedy, that's one thing. If you are paying money for Meat Loaf, and then I come out on stage and say, Hey guys, how about some silly stories that occurred to me this week? You know, that's, that's a hard sell.

RORY:

gotta understand, everybody's fucked up in the audience,

Sam:

yeah. You know,

RORY:

You know, anything's funny. And then you got the assholes to go at, uh, You know, I didn't come to see you. Fuck

Sam:

uh

RORY:

see a hockey game. Okay. Uh, you know. Yeah. It's gotta be tough. You guys, I give you so much credit. But I guess if you came out and tried to sing

Sam:

Oh, Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I,

Emma:

Yeah.

Sam:

I,

Emma:

wants to hear that.

Sam:

There's gotta be something so different about performing, well, particularly a Steinman but any song in front of a crowd, in a way that hooks everyone's attention and sort of, you are the only thing in the room for four, five, whatever minutes. Well, a Steinman song, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12 minutes,

RORY:

Yeah.

Sam:

half an hour.

RORY:

Paradise was 13 minutes

Sam:

Oh,

RORY:

till Todd said no. And I think they got it down to 11.

Sam:

Todd's a wise man.

RORY:

Very, very now, I'll be totally honest with

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

I don't listen to stuff that I've done. Okay.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

I listen to the, the vocals only things like Eclipse and stuff. I, I never sat down and listened to Bat Outta Hell

Sam:

Never. But I guess it, it makes sense though that you spent all that time rehearsing and, and recording the album and then playing it every night on tour. You, you probably don't need to listen to it at all, do you?

RORY:

Oh no. I've never, I've never sat down. I don't listen to stuff that I'm on. Something comes on the radio, Eclipse comes on the radio, I turn, the fuck I Do you know?

Sam:

Do you know what I, uh, I hate to take this back to us and me, um, but I think comics have that thing. So when you do comedy, you have to record yourself to

Emma:

Yeah,

Sam:

of see what's worked and what hasn't and change things. But it is excruciating watching that back.

RORY:

says,

Emma:

horrible.

RORY:

I can't imagine

Sam:

Yeah. But I guess that's, that's exactly the same thing, right? You can always, that could have been slightly better or whatever, you know?

RORY:

If I'd gone up here. If I'd have left a hole this big, you know,

Sam:

yeah,

RORY:

big. should have left it that big and went this big. That's gotta be, that's

Sam:

yeah. You,

RORY:

a big,

Sam:

you're a perfectionist.

RORY:

I hear every fucking mistake. You are hearing a song and you're hearing the song and you think it's brilliant. I'm hearing every fucking mistake that goes by.'cause that's

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

hearing. It's, it's like, well, I'm under there, or, or I'm, or we hung, I hung over. on, on the vocals only thing, and it could only be this much, but one of us hung over at the end of a line. And to me that, that that is perfection of what a background singing, what background singing should be. And that's what it was with Eric. It was a, a, didn't matter what we were doing, as soon as I saw him walk in the studio, it was gonna be great. The two of us, they called us the Blendos. It sounds like a fifties group, you

Sam:

It does.

RORY:

on that it does. And now the Blendos, uh, you know, but I told you the first time we sang

Sam:

Mm-hmm.

RORY:

um, after that one pass, the producer, his name was Roy Cicala, he owned the record plant. He'd worked with Lennon, he worked with, I mean he recorded American Pie. You know, he'd been around forever. He'd he he hit the talk back and said, Jesus, you guys are the Blendomatics" after the first pass. So we became known as the Blendomatics, and they cut it back to the Blendos you want a hit, you call the Blendos. One fucking day we did James Taylor and Carly Simon. On the same fucking day, James in the afternoon, and Carly at night.

Sam:

Wow.

RORY:

doesn't happen to a kid from Port Dover. I'm from fucking Port Dover. You know, I can't explain it. From this little teeny tiny town and I'm walking into a studio saying, Hey Billy, what's going on? You know, and it's Billy fucking Joel. Hey Billy, what's going on? Barbara Streisand? You know, you walk in Lou fucking Reed. Hey Lou, what's happening? You know, I was in high school it was, Hey babe, take a walk in the wild side, you know? And then there he is.

Sam:

I love that

RORY:

keep,

Sam:

you've never left Port Dover behind. It's, it's always been a part of your life and it's always been what's keeping you grounded. And you went back there and, oh.

RORY:

All I've ever claimed to be is a kid from Port Dover. All my friends are still there, I know their names. I was just talking to Ruth the other night and she said something about Ice Wamsley, I went, Ice is married? I don't know his first name. I said, what about Whipper? His brother Whipper, I don't know their first names. These people grew up down the street from me. There was Ice Wamsley and Whipper Wamsley, you know, Dumbo Greenslade, Monk Doherty. I can go on and on. Cooney Ricola, Shotgun Earls. These are guys I went to school with. I have no idea what their names are.

Sam:

This is, I love this so much.

RORY:

And you miss it, man. I, there's things that I miss about New York. I miss bagels, I miss pizza. Oh fuck. I miss Chinese food. But you don't get that in New York down here.

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

the lake. You don't get the lake, and you, you don't get Coony and Shotgun, you know? First time I came home, perfect story. I came home after 30 years, when I was finally able to, after I got a divorce. And maybe your parents did it. They might've gone out on the pier. Did they say anything about going out on the pier?

Emma:

I think they might have.

RORY:

when I first came home, I went to the pier three or four times a day. And I would just sit there. But the first day, uh, I got home late at night. I was staying with friends. And I got up and I was down at the lake, at the pier at like six in the morning. And there was nobody on the pier but me and the sun is coming up. And I am looking around at the inner basin where the tugs are, you know, tug boats for fishing. I'm looking and I look around and there's the lake and there's Long Point and there's the cliffs with the houses on them. I start to weep. I start to weep. Here I am weeping the, the tears coming down from my sunglasses. And out of the blue get a tap on my shoulder and I turn over and I go,"yeah"."Aren't you Cal Dodd's brother?" So I turned to the lake and I went, I'm home,

Sam:

I think that.

RORY:

did, never did anything on my own in life. Aren't you Cal Dodd's brother? I am home. I am home.

Sam:

I think that's a,

RORY:

doesn't believe it. He doesn't believe it. I'm like, yeah, you fuck. It's, but on the other hand, we were out, I live by a, reservation, uh, an

Sam:

yeah, yeah,

RORY:

It's called Six Nations and they have six different nations there. But we go there for gas, we call it the trifecta. Uh, you go for gas, butts and weed'cause there's no tax.

Sam:

of course.

RORY:

Okay? So we go and this is 17 miles from here and I'm at the res getting gas and it goes, ding. So I, you know, I have my credit card on my phone, is the only way to go by the way.'cause you take it out and all the pocket go everywhere. So I'm doing this and I go over to pay and I hear the guy that's been pumping gas. He goes,"is that Rory Dodd?" And I'm like, oh. And I hear Ruth say,"do you know him?" He goes,"is that Rory Dodd?" She said,"yes." So I'm trying to scurry and said"Rory?" I said,"hi, yeah." And he introduced himself he goes,"can I get a selfie?" I'm on the fucking reservation and somebody's asking me at a gas station for a selfie, what the fuck this? so I gotta go into the little booth where they sit to take the money. this guy's doing this. And I said,"how do I fucking know you? Did we do time or something?" Actually, I, I, I should start with these. Are you Rory Dot I said, does he owe you money? Which is what I, when anybody asks my pat answer, do you, does he owe you money? know, yes, I am. And he's going, I said, those fucking posters never work. Do he said, no. I said,"how do I know you did, did we, did we do time? Is my picture from the post office? The wanted posters still up?" And he goes, he goes,"no, Nancy told and I said,"Nancy told you." And he said,"yeah". I said,"who the fuck is Nancy?" I have no idea. Nancy told him that I was Rory Dodd. He said,"the guy from Meat Loaf and, and Bonnie Tyler", I'm on a fucking Indian reservation and they want a selfie with me. It's just this shit doesn't happen.. I told my brother Barry, and he said, well, you know, Rory, that's what being a star will do for you. Oh. The price of, of the price of star being stopped at the reservation a, for a selfie. Yeah. Doesn't happen to Cal.

Sam:

I'm sure you remind him of that every chance you get.

RORY:

Oh, oh, when he, when he calls and starts the conversation with, what was I saying about myself? Um, I love my brothers. I really do. They're wonderful people. And my sister, I adore, you know, actually I was talking to her and Mandy, Ruth's daughter. We hung up after laughing. She said, she's got like a mother complex with you. And I said, I, I guess'cause being raised, I have a younger brother who was, my mother had, uh, the German Measles when she was, eight months pregnant. And my brother Sean was born blind and deaf and, uh, no kind way to say it, but severely mentally retarded. So my mother spent a lot of time with him, which left Fiona

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

us. So there's always been a soft spot here because I understood it and I realized it. They don't, the others don't, but I do. So there's this, I'm everybody's favorite brother, which is nice. But family man, you can't. Love'em or hate em, but they're yours. And after COVID it was like, you know, hang on

Sam:

Yeah.

RORY:

siblings? You do. So you know what I'm talking about. We used to have press on, uh, patches. Okay. Mine had so many fucking patches that the iron, my knees were never the They were just, you know, so yeah, we got'em as they came down. You know, we were Irish and poor, so... wasn't that Dod Anyway, any more questions about the fat guy and, uh, Meat had many names.

Sam:

Emma, do you have anything else you wanted to ask?

Emma:

Um, I think, I think we're kind of Okay.

Sam:

If you are done, then Emma, I think I'm done as well. Yeah.

Emma:

Yes.

Sam:

Rory, you've been incredibly generous with your time and with your stories and we from the heart.

RORY:

I got my cheese man. I didn't have to be anywhere I before

Sam:

Yeah. I know you, you wouldn't share your cheese if we were there. I get that, but I.

RORY:

Good cheese panic. Holy fuck.

Sam:

But honestly from the heart, thank you so much for agreeing to do this and chatting to us.

Emma:

time. Thank you.

Sam:

Um, and

RORY:

having,

Sam:

on behalf of all the listeners,'cause I know a lot of them will be wanting us to say this, for all of the songs that you've given us everything you did to make the Steinman sound what it was. Thank you.

RORY:

well Thank you. for me and happy Christmas to all!

Sam:

Merry Christmas to everybody.

RORY:

Thanks for having me, and I hope to talk again

Sam:

Oh, that would be amazing. Oh, lovely.

RORY:

Anytime.

Sam:

Oh, well thank you for coming on, Rory. Cheers. Right,

Emma:

so much, Rory.

Sam:

Emma, that was brilliant, wasn't it?

Emma:

It was, it was so much fun as well.

Sam:

Yeah. I was buzzing for days after speaking to Rory.

Emma:

I was genuinely sad that the following week we didn't have another Rory chat scheduled.

Sam:

It was good. Yeah. So, um, as Rory mentions a couple of times in the record, we actually had a couple of other one hour chats with him before we even sat down to record the chat. He was so generous with his time and his stories.

Emma:

such a lovely man.

Sam:

An absolute fount of knowledge and niceness. So

Emma:

yeah. What a guy.

Sam:

Rory Dodd, the true. Spirit of Christmas presents. I hope he brings joy to all of your hearts this Christmas like he has to to us. It's good that innit?

Emma:

Aw, that's really sweet.

Sam:

Thanks

Emma:

Thank you, Rory.

Sam:

And thank you listeners. Have a lovely Christmas. We will be back with regular Chat out of Hell in January. I've forgotten what date I said, but you know, just keep an eye on your pod feed, isn't it?

Emma:

Merry Christmas. Oh, no,

Sam:

No.

Emma:

I mean, maybe, yeah, but also,

Sam:

all right, you have a go.

Emma:

I've got nothing better.

Sam:

This is awkward, this bit, isn't it?

Emma:

It is, it is.

Sam:

um, yeah. Thank you guys for listening to all of the Chat out of Hells this year, and, uh, we'll see you all in the fresh New Year.

Emma:

Merry chatmas

Sam:

Yeah, you're right it wasn't good.

Emma:

it doesn't, it doesn't work, does it?

Sam:

No

Emma:

bow.

Sam:

Now. Now, Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle.