Fangs For The Music
Type O Negative was the band of Peter Steele, born as Peter Thomas Ratajczyk. Today we will look at their 1993 album Bloody Kisses.
One of the cultural subcurrents that increasingly becomes apparent from the 1980s and 1990s is the Goth craze. It permeated multiple different music genres, movies and tv shows.
It generally has two uniting themes: supernatural themes and people, often white, who liked to dress in black or dark colours.
Metal was already a dark and extreme genre as it was, and so proved to be fertile ground for the Goth.
Peter Steele was one such man who could join all the nodes together.
Some of the quick facts pulled from his wiki:
He was a physical giant at 6foot 8inches.
He was a half-Polish, half-Scotch/Irish American. Some would say this is the perfect blend to be a goth. My ex-bandmate was of Scottish heritage so that tracks.
His father was a WW2 vet and ex-shipyard worker who bought him a guitar when he was 12.
His initial influences were the Beatles and Black Sabbath.
He once appeared in Playgirl, to quote the wiki:
Following the success of Bloody Kisses, Steele began to receive attention outside of music. He appeared as a nude centerfold of Playgirl in 1995. Steele later found out via bandmate Kenny Hickey's contacts that only 23% of the magazine subscribers were female, and after being asked by men to sign copies of the magazine, Steele somewhat regretted the decision: "After I did it, I thought, 'Oh my God, what did I do?' It was more than upsetting that so many guys had it. Girls, OK, but there just seemed to be at least as many guys. Not that I'm homophobic, but it was certainly irritating." In a 2007 interview, Steele reflected on the posing as merely a naive publicity stunt.
He also appeared on 90s talk-shows Rikki Lake (Video), Howard Stern and on Jerry Springer. (video)
He was a left-hander who played a right-handed bass, and suffered stage-fright, which he overcame by drinking alcohol before shows and red-wine onstage.
Peter sadly died in 2010 only 48, but a few years before then made it onto the documentary Metal: A Headbangers Journey with a nice chunk of interview time.
Unwanted brushes with the law (He served a 30-day prison sentence after he bashed some guy who he caught having an affair with his gf, who people later allege was a legitimate husband whom she was secretly married to all along) and some cocaine also play a role in a life that was, though short, nevertheless quite colourful for a man who pretty much only ever ore black,
All the stuff Type-O-Negative did is pretty consistent but the album people will generally point you to as the place to start is their 1993 release Bloody Kisses
Here’s the lead video for the single Black No. 01
It IS a bit heretical, I’m aware of that. But it’s what we were all doing and you can’t unmake it now.
Also it should be noted that towards the end of his life, after many years of professed Athiesm, he had returned to Catholicism.
There’s some pretty good write-ups, obits and retrospectives of Peter Steele and Type O Negative online. Try loudersound’s from 2022 for instance.
More Peter Steele interview gold from around the time of their last album’s release. This is Peter speaking post-jail and rehab and is a crisp 3mins46secs ion length. There’s a lot of other interviews too. Here’s one on MTV while touring Bloody Kisses speaking with the legendary MTV host Vanessa Warwick. Here’s another on Finnish program Jyrki, together with his appropriately-named bandmate Kenny Hickey, while touring the follow-up album October Rust
PS:
From their later years:
Cinnamon Girl (featuring some very good footage of that archaic relic of the past: The Mosh Pit)
More Gothic Classics:
The 69 Eyes - Wasting The Dawn
And a CD I flogged the shit out of:
The Sisters Of Mercy - First And Last And Always
Keeping the scary dream alive into more recent years, from 2016:
George Tsalikis - The Sacrifice (….It’s pretty good actually. Maybe I shouldn’t always be so hard on the Greeks. You can read more about George Tsalikis here).
And some early 90s metal from Australia: