Led by imposing frontman Peter Steele, Type O Negative brought goth metal to the masses during the 90’s. The band mixed themes of romance, drugs, depression, and death.
“He was able to be very honest about how hurt he was during a lot of these periods.” – Josh Silver
Type O Negative’s keyboardist Josh Silver revealed in the book, The Oral History of Metal, how frontman Peter Steele’s frustrations as a teenager and young adult influenced his songwriting., “Peter was big and considered himself kind of goofy. He didn’t have girlfriends growing up.
A lot of Type O’s music was written from the perspective of someone who couldn’t get laid. We had songs like ‘I Know You’re F—ing Someone Else’. He was able to be very honest about how hurt he was during a lot of these periods. I think it was part of what made us appealing. We told the truth.”
Several years prior to the formation of Type O Negative in 1989, Peter Steele fronted and played bass in another band named Carnivore. The band’s music explored some pretty dark themes.
“Peter enjoyed messing with people.” – Sal Abruscato
Steele was known for having a dark sense of humor. Type O Negative drummer Sal Abruscato told Metal Hammer Magazine, “Peter enjoyed messing with people. People thought he was serious when he was joking and joking when he was serious.”
Carnivore would only last for two albums before the band split and Steele went on to form a new band with longtime friend Josh Silver. They originally called themselves Sub Zero before finally landing on the name Type O Negative.
Type O Negative’s first record in 1991, Slow Deep and Hard featured songs heavily influenced by doom and thrash metal.
The following year, the band released The Origin Of Feces, a faux live record that featured a hostile live audience. It wasn’t until Bloody Kisses in 1993 that the band’s goth metal sound took center stage.
“He went from screaming his head off and writing these furious, angry lyrics to focused primarily on romance, love, sex, and death.” – Kenny Hickey
The goth element wasn’t the only new thing brought to Type O Negative’s sound on Bloody Kisses. According to the band’s guitarist Kenny Hickey, “Peter decided that melody was really where it’s at, which is a hard thing to do. He went from screaming his head off and writing these furious, angry lyrics to focused primarily on romance, love, sex, and death.”
In addition to themes of love, sex and death, the album was also used as an opportunity to attack Type O’Negative’s critics.
Many in the media slammed the band for being racists. Songs such as “We Hate Everyone” and “Kill All The White People” were used to dispel those claims. Also overlooked by critics was that Type O Negative’s keyboardist Josh Silver was Jewish.
Bloody Kisses featured the band’s best known song “Black No. 1”. The song’s sarcastic lyrics were loosely inspired by a relationship Steele had with a goth.
Steele told Revolver Magazine how he wrote the song, while working as a truck driver, “I was waiting in line for three hours to dump 40 cubic yards of human waste at the Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station and I wrote the song in my head. I’m not kidding you.”
The second single released from the record was “Christian Woman” which had a successful run on US rock radio and along with the album’s first single, pushed the record to go Platinum in the United States.
As the band’s stock rose, the tour to support the record became bigger and more outrageous.
“There were people dressed up and walking around on leashes…” – Sal Abruscato
Abruscato recalled how the band was booked to play a club in New York that turned out to be a sex dungeon, “It was this underground BDSM place with all this torture equipment. There were people dressed up and walking around on leashes and we were going, ‘What the hell are we doing here?’ We were just four guys from Brooklyn. We weren’t living that lifestyle.”
Sal Abruscato left the band following the release of Bloody Kisses and was replaced by Johnny Kelley. Following the success of Bloody Kisses, the band turned their attention to their follow-up record, October Rust in 1996.
“October Rust was intentionally sensual just to get the high heels in the door.” – Kenny Hickey
Steele wanted to focus the band’s sound on appealing more to women. Kenny Hickey revealed to author Jon Wiederhorn, “Peter saw how many women he was getting after 1993’s Bloody Kisses and the song ‘Black No. 1’ so he decided to design the band towards getting more chicks. October Rust was intentionally sensual just to get the high heels in the door. It was a pimp record.“
The album was notable for featuring more ballads and being a departure from their doom and goth metal sound while also featuring a cover of the Neil Young song “Cinnamon Girl”.
Beginning of the End of Peter Steele
The album cycle for October Rust would prove to be the beginning of the end for frontman and bassist Peter Steele. He admitted how 1997 represented the first time he started using cocaine.
Johnny Kelley revealed in the book, Louder Than Hell, how the band would come offstage and Kelley and Steele would head backstage to get their fix. It was those demons along with Steele’s depression that he would battle for the next decade and a half of his life.
Sal Abruscato revealed in the same book how Steel’s personality, while sweet at times, was also his downfall, “Peter was a very sweet, very funny guy, but he was also very fragile and that vulnerability allowed some demons to come in.”
October Rust was successful and went Gold, but it failed to match the success of Bloody Kisses.
Mental Illness, Family Deaths and Drug Abuse
In 1999, the band released what was arguably their darkest record to date called World Coming Down. The album was largely inspired by Steele’s battle with mental illness, family deaths and drug abuse.
Songs like “Everyone I Love Is Dead” and “Everything Dies” dealt with the difficulties of seeing those close to him die, while “White Slavery” dealt with his drug addiction. Another track, “Who Will Save the Sane” dealt with mental illness.
Life Is Killing Me was the band’s sixth studio album. It was released several years later and it proved to be the group’s final record, released on Roadrunner.
The album once again dealt with mental illness, the death of Steele’s parents and he’d be more forthcoming about his problems with the law and relationships he’s had.
“I had typical paranoia. I thought there were cameras in light switches and shower heads.” – Peter Steele
Peter Steele revealed in the Oral History of Metal, “I was in Brooklyn Kings County Hospital suffering from drug induced psychosis and it was actually my own family that got me put away. Which kinda made me wish I was part of the Manson family. I had typical paranoia. I thought there were cameras in light switches and shower heads.”
Steele also admitted to spending time in jail for a month at Rikers Island with 23 charges against him, one of which included attempted murder after he attempted to kill an ex’s husband while he was under the influence of drugs.
The Metal Community Receives Shocking News
On May 13, 2005, the rock and metal community was shocked at the news that Type O Negative frontman and bassist Peter Steele had died. While no official announcement was made by the band, the group’s website posted a tombstone that read “Peter Steele, Free at Last, 1962-2005”. For a man who had his fair share of demons, it seemed like a fitting tribute.
It would turn out that the whole thing was a hoax. The tombstone episode was meant to show how the band was now free from their contract with Roadrunner Records.
Type O Negative signed to SPV Records and they released their first and only album under the label in 2007 titled Dead Again. It debuted at No. 27 on the Billboard charts, which was the band’s highest charting record to date.
Peter Steele Dies of Aortic Aneurysm
When the news came 3 years later in April of 2010 that Peter Steele was dead, some people had a hard time believing it. This was a guy who tried to take his own life, he overdosed and supposedly died 5 years earlier. He was like the Keith Richards of the metal community, nothing seemed to kill him, but the news on April 14th was in fact real.
The frontman passed away at the age of 48 due to an aortic aneurysm after spending a few days in bed with the flu.
While Steele was said to be clean in the run up to his death, he did live with an irregular heartbeat for a lot of his life.
“Who knows if he died from all the drugs over the years or something else.” – Kenny Hickey
Kenny Hickey reflected to Loudwire, “Who knows if he died from all the drugs over the years or something else. He was diagnosed with this condition years and years ago, but if you take care of yourself and do the right stuff, it’s something you can live with for quite a while. There are plenty of 90-year-olds running around with it.”
Hickey added to his perspective, telling Loudwire how Steele’s family history likely had something to do with his eventual fate, “He always said that he felt the flutter in his heart, even when he was a kid, so he might have been born with it for all we know. He had four or five males in his family that have died from heart disease before 50, so it could have been congenital. Who knows? There is a price you pay for being so big, too.”
Hickey went on to reveal how Peter’s obsessive behavior prevented the frontman from just enjoying things in moderation, “If Peter did something that he enjoyed, that was pleasurable for him, he went all the way with it. It was just another extension of his obsessive behavior. Women, food, alcohol, he had to have massive quantities. He dreaded running out of anything.”
Following his death, Type O Negative split up, opting not to replace the singer.
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