Chocolate Starfish brings Bat Out Of Hell national tour to Albury in summer

Thompson was back stage with Meat Loaf after his Bat Out Of Hell 2 show in Melbourne on what turned out to be the latter's 50^th birthday.

"Within a few months we'd both launched albums on Hayman Island," he said.

"You do see a variation from the person on stage to the person backstage; backstage he was a very subtle man.

"Like an elite sportsperson, musicians have to be able to tap into the zone. But you can't maintain that level of intensity in your daily life.

"Looking back on his influence on me as a kid - and I'm a believer in universal karma - maybe it was something I manifested from when I was 14!"

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Growing up on a dairy farm in the Goulburn Valley, Thompson first heard the tracks from Bat Out Of Hell as a teenager.

"I was 13 and had little musical influence outside a conservative regional radio station," he said.

"Bat Out Of Hell songs and Meat Loaf's voice transported me out of that country isolation and into a fantasy world of sonic ear candy.

"Soaring hook-laden melodies, and adjective-filled lyrics around life, death, girls, cars and motorbikes, was everything a trapped teenaged boy could imagine outside his small world.

"On top of that, each song was an epic of dynamic proportions, and it shaped the theatrical and dynamic way I looked at song writing and performance ever since."

Now Bat Out Of Hell - the album and show that kicked off Chocolate Starfish's acclaimed Classic Album Series - is back next year - including Albury on February 10, after reigniting the stage at Melbourne's Palais Theatre in June.

Chocolate Starfish powered on to the Australian music scene in the early 1990s and established themselves with their cover of Carly Simon's You're So Vain, original hit Mountain and perennial favourite Four Letter Word.

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