Although he is known first of all as a composer and a producer, whose records have been sold 100 million times, the “Richard Wagner of Rock’n’Roll” (according to LA Times) started his career after graduation from Amherst College at the theater! His mentor Joe Papp (N.Y. Shakespeare Festival) invited him to Papp’s Public Theater after he had seen his famous rock-epos “The Dream Engine”. He staged his first musical MORE THAN YOU DESERVE there and worked 5 years with Joe Papp. The day when he met the singer Meat Loaf was one of 10 most important meetings in the history of Rock’n’Roll, according to Spin Magazine. In 1977 the first joint album appeared, the legendary “Bat Out Of Hell”. It is not only the 3rd sold albums, but also the only one among TOP 50, which has both music and lyrics written by the same person. Thus he is the most popular songwriter and “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” 16 years later is on top of charts in 38 countries. He is the author of such Number1 hits as “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”, “Dead Ringer”, “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All”, “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”, “Holding Out For A Hero”, “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” – the most popular rock-singles – and “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”, which was played more than 1.6 million times on the radio and was announced The Song of the Year as the most popular BMI single. Jim Steinman wrote his probably most successful song “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” in memory of the film “”Nosferatu”. For this reason he couldn’t refuse to integrate a new version of this song to “Dance of the Vampires”. In 1996 being the producer of Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You” he won the Grammy Award for Best Album and reached Platinum with his own album “Bad For Good”.
Jim Steinman created music for such films as “Footloose”, “Streets Of Fire”, “The Shadow”, “The Mask Of Zorro” and the MTV-film “Wuthering Heights” (2003), in which he was the executive producer as well. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, for which Steinman wrote lyrics, again can be heared in West End. He has written a new show for DisneyTV and now is writing a new song every day for the new format of Disney’s cartoons, JET-X. The show will be called “Round Table Bikers”. At the moment he is working on the stage production “Jim Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell – Live On Stage”. The opening night will be in 2011 in London, in a specially projected theater and then the show will go on a tour in Europe and America. The show will include motorcyclists, BMX-cyclists, skateboardists and an international dance ensemble. Along with this show a new fashion line “Bat Noir” and a new perfume “Nuit Noir” will be launched. Together with Steven Rinkoff he has established a society called “The Dream Engine”, which sells songs in an unusual way, besides he is the President of Rave-nous Entertainment, a label, represented all over the world by Sony.
