Meat Loaf Impersonator talks about Meat Loaf lawsuit
Meat Loaf, real name Michael Aday, has filed a lawsuit against Dean Torkington, a Meat Loaf impersonator who claims to have made his living for the past 17 years as an impersonator to the man that he says he, “so used to admire”. Now Dean Torkington, the Meat Loaf Impersonator talks about the Meat Loaf lawsuit to Celebrity Feast by explaining his history with Meat Loaf.
TMZ reported that according to the documents filed at the Los Angeles Country Superior Court, Meat Loaf wants a court injunction to shut down the site and hand over ownership of the domain under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) plus $100,000 in damages.
Torkington says he has owned the the domain in question, meatloaf.org, for 12 years. According to WHOIS records, that site (www.meatloaf.org) was originally registered on March 14, 2000 to Torkington and the registration is valid through March 14, 2013.
I asked Torkington if he has ever met the person that, “he so used to admire”
Torkington says,
I had met him on 2 occasions in the mid 1990s and we hit it off ! He even suggested that in the future he would get me on stage to sing with him. Things started to go downhill in 2001 when he noticed my tour bus parked in the VIP area at one of his shows.
In his lengthy and many emails, Torkington claims that he paid a lot of money for 2 tickets, year unknown, to a Meat Loaf show to receive the “VIP Treatment” which included free food, drinks and being able to attend the after party. He said,
Three songs into his show a man in black tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a letter , i was on the front row watching the man perform . The letter said Meat Loaf wants to see you after the show!!!!
After he says he went backstage, he tells Celebrity Feast that he was confronted by an angry Meat Loaf and his Manager who demanded that he change the pictures he had on his tour bus and claims they wanted the meatloaf.org name. Torkington says he agreed to, “change the bus” but would not give up the website.
A few years later, Torkington claims that he received a call from Virgin Radio (in what he believes was 2006), asking if he wanted to sing to Meat Loaf live on the air. He claims he jumped at the chance and was crushed when, ” I sang one line and then Meat Loaf interrupted me saying wheres your vibrato , in a drawer with your socks!” (emails to Virgin Radio asking for transcripts of this call have thus far gone unanswered) Audios of Torkington can be found on the To Hell and Back A tribute to Meat Loaf website.
The persistent Torkington says that he wrote an original album called The Bat Strikes Back. He says,
it was written in the style of Jim Steinman and sung in my Meat Loaf style voice, It was my take on the songwriting style of jim steinman, it never passed off as a Meat Loaf album! I was delighted it got 8 stars in *Classic Rock magazine and a great review. It said better than any of Meat Loafs recent albums! This obviously upset the Loaf and he had youtube pull the video down . I won an appeal and it was reinstated!
Torkington says he is surprised at the timing of the Meat Loaf lawsuit since he has lost 155 lbs and doesn’t really resemble Meat Loaf anymore. He says,
Its ironic he is coming for me now when i look like Steve Tyler !!
He also said that he is not totally adverse to selling and while he is not asking for “tens of thousands of dollars” , the few thousand dollars offered to him by Meat Loaf’s camp is not enough.
Torkington says that he suffers from depression, much like his (former) idol, and in addition to losing weight, he has also lost his home, went through a divorce and has actually been living on his tour bus. It appears that Torkington is going through a very rough patch.
Torkington also mentioned to Celebrity Feastthat he believes the Meat Loaf lawsuit against him will fall under the term of “Acquiesce”. In layman legal
terms, than means passive conduct that implies agreement or consent.
Here’s an example. Say someone started a website and was concerned that their brand or product might infringe upon another company. They then contact that company and tell them of their plans. They would either receive a response that it’s OK or not or they may not receive any response so they go ahead and use whatever they said they were going to use. Years later, they get sued. It could and would likely be argued that by their acquiescence, the competitor tacitly approved the use. The competitor, however, might still be entitled to an Injunction barring the said company from further use of its trademark if it is so similar to the competitor’s label as to amount to an infringement.
In my communications with Torkington, he believes that he can prove that Meat Loaf has known about him and what he does for a living for many, many years.
Will the “little guy” be able to prove his case in court? or will a settlement agreed upon?
We appreciate Dean Torkington, talking about the Meat Loaf lawsuit with Celebrity Feast and look forward to hearing from him with any updates.
Stay tuned!
*(note – Although we have found numerous references to the ClassicRockMagazine.com review on various websites, we were unable to locate said review on a recent search of the Classic Rock Magazine website. We did find an article in the Classic Rock Magazine archives from May, 2009)
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