Meat Loaf [ tickets ]'s "Bat Out of Hell III" tour, slated to start March 1 in Florida, will be his last, he said during a recent teleconference.

"The next tour we're doing in 2007 pretty much is going to sum it up, yeah," the theatrical rocker said. "You can wrap me up and put a bow on me.

"I don't like the packing the suitcases. I love going on stage, when everything is clicking and everything and we're all healthy and everything is working. I love that. I enjoy that a lot. It's not so much standing there and letting the audience applaud for you. It's more about self-fulfillment. In my case, it's sort of the search for the Holy Grail. I'm always looking for the Holy Grail. I'm always looking for the best show ever."

Like many veteran acts, this isn't the first time Meat Loaf has said he's giving up touring; he said in 2003 that he was putting an end to extensive road trips so that he could concentrate more on his acting career. Dates for his 2007 tour haven't been confirmed.

Meat Loaf's forthcoming album, "Bat Out of Hell III," due out Oct. 31, features seven songs written by longtime collaborator Jim Steinman. Steinman's involvement follows the amicable resolution of a lawsuit regarding ownership of the lucrative "Bat Out of Hell" trademark

"We started working together in May, and then we had the problem," Meat Loaf said. "Then there was another problem, and then we kind of resolved that issue and then begin to get lyric changes from him in May and proceeded. And then we had the copyright issue, which was a real drag and which I--I really hate it. I tried to stay out of it as much as possible.

"In fact, only in total desperation do I ever talk to a lawyer, or do I ever become involved with these things. I let lawyers and management handle them. And unless it's absolutely under oath deposition do I really get involved. I've never been to court, thank God, knock on wood, and I really don't want to go," he added.

Meat Loaf evidently has no hard feelings about the legal wrangle.

"First of all, ... you can never find somebody to write like Steinman," he said. "Jim is an exceptional writer. You can find writers that are very good, but I would never say to anybody, 'Oh, write a song like Jim Steinman,' because it's impossible and it becomes a cliché of itself."

Produced by Desmond Child (Aerosmith, Cher), "Bat Out of Hell III" features additional vocal arrangements by Todd Rundgren, producer of the first "Bat Out of Hell" album, and songs by Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue), John 5 (Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie) and Marti Frederiksen, a contributing Aerosmith songwriter. Working with Child, Meat Loaf said, was hell, no pun intended.

"To quote Alice Cooper who did a record with him a few years ago, 'Desmond is a slave-driving slut,'" he said with a laugh.

"I'm friends with Alice, and I told Alice I was going to work with Desmond; he just patted me on the back and said to me 'Good luck.' Jim is relentless, but so is Desmond. I'll tell you what: they're both triple Scorpios. And so, in a lot of ways, sitting next to Desmond, if I close my eyes and didn't listen to the voice and just listened to words and what was being said and how it was being done, it was uncanny how Steinman-like it was.

"But he is really a perfectionist. I mean, much more than I really ever have been involved with ... but then he got me in the swing of things and going that way. [For example, on the 'Bat III' track] 'Blind as a Bat,' the mix was done and I decided I didn't like the opening verse. I said, 'It's not good enough' ... so I went and re-did it after we'd even done the mix. So he drove me crazy in that regard, [and] I was pretty much that way as well."

Meat Loaf decided to record a third installment of the popular series at the suggestion of Steinman, and the singer said he thinks the new album is more accessible than the first two installments.

"And also it's a little edgier, and that has to do, I think, with me, because I'm a guitar-crazy person," he said. "I love guitars, and I know the live shows are always a little edgier and little rockier than the record, so I just kind of wanted to venture that way. But that's about as much input as I really put in. What I've been on all 'Bat Out Of Hell' records is a spoke in the wheel. And that's how I look at what I've done. It's like, there's so many people involved in it.

"Bat Out of Hell III" features Meat Loaf's rendition of Steinman's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," which was a hit for Celine Dion a few years back. Meat Loaf, who duets with newcomer Marion Raven on his rendition of the piece, said he "basically ignored" Dion's version of the song because he believed it was his.

"And it had nothing to do with her, it just had to do with the fact that I felt that song was mine so I basically have ignored it," he said. "And the only reason I would even talk about it is because other people bring it up. To me, it doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is this duet. I know that sounds like a crazy person speaking and that's probably true."