We meet Steve Steinman Productions frontman and chat all things Vampires Rock

As a big fan of rock artists such as Meatloaf, musicals, and naughty humour, to say that Steve Steinman’s shows are right up my street is an understatement.

So when Steve announced a new original rock musical — Vampires Rock: Eternal Love, the latest in the Vampires Rock saga (read more about it here) — my excitement reached a fever pitch and I was desperate to meet the brains behind these brilliant shows.

We went along to meet Steve at Steve Steinman Productions’ HQ in North Muskham, and were instantly treated to an office packed full of props, posters, and paraphernalia from his many shows — and I felt like a giddy fangirl when I spotted Baron Von Rockula’s famous throne.

In his still-strong Oldham accent, Steve explained that unlike many famous singers, he had never harboured a long-held ambition to be a singer, and in fact worked in his family’s restaurant business until he was well into his 20s.

It was performing at one of his restaurant’s dinner dances that the band who performed alongside him submitted a tape of him singing a song by Meatloaf to popular talent show Star in their Eyes in 1993.

“I got a phone call out of the blue asking me to audition for the show and I knew nothing about it, so I went down for a bit of fun to audition and then got a call asking me to be on the show.”

After his turn on the show, which he sadly didn’t win, the restaurant began to suffer and eventually closed following the financial struggles of the early 1990s, and Steve began performing as Meatloaf, which he said was a struggle as “no-one wanted Meatloaf songs.”

After performing in South Africa for a few years, he came back to the UK and settled in Nottingham, and he created his own production company under his new name of Steve Steinman, as a play on Meatloaf’s long-time collaborator Jim Steinman.

His most iconic show, Vampires Rock, came about in 2004 after the success of Anything for Love — The Meatloaf Story and he wanted to put on an original musical using the songs of other top artists.

“I was looking at artists like Mick Jagger and Ozzy Osbourne and I was thinking they’re still alive, so they must be vampires because they’re still going after all these years,” Steve said, “The concept grew and grew from there and that’s how Vampire’s Rock was born.”

The show sees Baron Von Rockula (played by Steve himself), owner of the Live and Let Die Club, searching for his true love to become his bride, and features music from some of rock’s biggest names including Queen, AC/DC, Guns n Roses, Bonnie Tyler, and of course Meatloaf.

“Vampires Rock is still my favourite because it’s very funny,” Steve said, “Ghost Train got really into the comedy side of it and we were able to make it cheekier, and the next one will have lots of comedy too.”

The next one he refers to is Eternal Love: The Musical, the latest chapter in the Vampires Rock franchise and is set to tour the UK next year, coming to Newark in April, and is thought to be the first rock musical featuring an original score for 50 years.

Steve Steinman’s Vampires Rock Eternal Love – The Musical will be performed at Palace Theatre Newark April 18-19. Visit https://www.palacenewark.com/ for tickets.

“I just hope people buy into the music,” Steve said, “At the end of the day I’m just a bloke putting his music out to the fans and I haven’t got the TV presence other musicians have, just 35 years of touring and a terrific fanbase.”

These fans, Steve said, are the ones he credits with his success over the years,

“I don’t consider myself as a celebrity,” he said, “I don’t have an agent or a manager, I’m a bloke doing a job but I’ve got good business acumen so I’ve been able to make a living doing it.”

Steve has been doing incredibly well as a solo artist on top of his musicals, as his debut album, Take A Leap Of Faith, went straight to number one on the iTunes and Amazon rock charts.

Not content with conquering the rock world on land, Steve also took his tour onto the high seas with the ‘Rocking the Boat’ cruise, a four-night voyage with Steve and the band performing, which sold out within weeks of the tickets going on sale.

There are plans to take this cruise out on the seas again in 2025 — watch this space.