Excuse me for any type-os I haven't caught yet........            ;o)


LIVEWIRE MAGAZINE - Feb/Mar 1997 issue
"Rust Never Sleeps"
- Jeffrey Keller


As vocalist/bassist/songwriter for Type O Negative, Peter Steele combines the
vocal styling of Lurch, the strength and size of a football player, yet the
tenderness of a romance novelist.  It is these diverse qualities that make
him such a powerful ingredient in Type O's sound and persona.  But let's not
forget the other members.  Although these guys are not as charismatic as
Peter, it should be noted that they are also important factors in Type O.
 Keyboardist Josh Silver lends an ear and long hours co-producing Type O
albums with Peter.  Guitarist Kenny Hickey, by far the loudest and brashest
(and, as we found out, the latest sleeper) of the band, offers Type O
versatile guitar playing that adds depth and darkness to their sound.  And
drummer Johnny Kelly fills the drummer's shoes with expertise and precision.

To learn more about this bunch of creative characters and their latest
release October Rust, Livewire caught up with the band in the midst of their
current headlining tour.  The gig was at the El Dorado club in Sacramento,
California.  When I arrived, I was instantly greeted by Mike Amato, the
band's tour manager.  He told me to grab a seat and wait for soundcheck to
begin.  After a short wait, the band arrive on-stage to test a few songs,
most notably "Blood And Fire", which had some problems and would later be
omitted from the evenings set.  Surprisingly, Kenny Hickey had to be dragged
out of bed to be there.  I was told that he is the band's vampire....I guess
that they were right (after all, it was 5:30 pm!)

After the brief soundcheck, I was introduced to the intimidatingly oversized
Peter Steele, and the seemingly quiet and withdrawn Josh Silver.  Peter came
across as a true gentleman, greeting me with a "Nice to meet you" and a
friendly handshake.  On the other hand, Josh seemed a little tired and
uninterested in doing an interview.  Fortunately, he seemed to change his
mood later as we stepped onto the bus to talk.  As we entered, I was
instantly surprised at how clean it was.  I've been on these buses before and
had never seen one this spotless.  Maybe they knew I was coming and
straightened up a bit?  First I was given a tour of the front portion of the
bus, and a raid of their refrigerator.  Later, Peter would show me where
these guys were supposed to sleep.  I wondered how these seemingly tall band
members (especially Peter) fit in these things!  Peter told me that he slept
in the back lounge of the bus.  His room featured a fold-out bed, and a
massive set of weights for his pre-show work outs.  Peter then reached under
his bed, and pulled out a huge pill box full of various vitamins.  This guy
is seriously concerned with being in shape!  The other members appear to have
no interest in health, other than bad health, that is.

After the tour of the tour bus, I sat down with Josh and Peter...

Livewire:  How long have you guys been on the road so far?

Peter Steele:  3 1/3 weeks.  But time really stands still and/or flies when
you're on the road.  It really doesn't matter what day, time, or month it is.

LW:  Obviously this tour is in clubs with you guys headlining.  Will you be
venturing into the arenas as an opening act again?

Steele:  Anything is possible.  I think that the opening spot with someone
huge would really help give us a push right now.  That's how you sell albums
and merchandise.  We spent almost two years with Pantera, Queensryche, Ozzy,
and we gained new fans in almost every city that we played.  It was shown on
Soundscan that in every city we played, there was a significant increase in
our albums sales.

LW:  Have you guys noticed a rapid increase in your popularity since Bloody
Kisses?

Steele:  Not rapid.  It's been slow, but there is an old saying  Easy come,
easy go.  I'd rather build a fan base slowly, that way it's more solid.  We
don't want to be a one hit wonder that everybody forgets about.  I'd rather
play to a small dedicated audience than to a larger one, where 90% of the
people are milling about, or hanging out in the bathroom smoking dope.

LW:  When you open for a big band you always take the chance that people
might not want to hear you at all.

Josh Silver:  But even in that situation, we will win over a lot of people.
 Sometimes we accidentally do something right.

LW:  Do you like clubs better because of the closeness to the fans?

Steele:  Personally, I do.  I think that as far as sound goes, it sounds a
lot better.  Most of these large places that we play, the sound just bounces
everywhere.  Large arenas are not designed for sound.  When we play small
places like this, it's easier to meet the fans and talk with them, and see
what they think.  That's important.  We like to show people that we remember
that we're human, and thank them for coming out to see us.  They are
responsible for our success.

LW:  I noticed that you guys have a stage set this time out.

Steele:  We have a snow machine, a fog machine, trees and bushes to make an
Autumn type of situation.  We have a pretty decent but gloomy light show.  I
think that it's all tastefully done.

LW:  Talking about life on the road, what would you say a typical day is
like?

Steele:  I'm not sure where one day ends and the next begins.  We usually
leave the show after we're done.  We'll take a break, meet some fans, then
take another break on the bus and eat and talk.  Then we go to sleep and when
we wake up we're at the next hotel.  Then we get to shower, and make a
hundred phone calls.  Then we're off to soundcheck.  After soundcheck, these
guys like to hang out, I usually work out.  Then it's time to make fools of
ourselves on stage.

LW:  I interviewed Kenny before and he said that he didn't get up till 5 PM.
 Today he really didn't.  Is he the only one like that?

Steele:  He's the most nocturnal.

LW:  I know that you do a lot of weight lifting.  Do you do that on the bus?

Steele:  It's a back room on the bus, I'll show you when we're done.

LW:  Does anyone else lift weights in the band?

Steele:  Johnny's got his beer can, he does a lot of curls with that.

Silver:  I lift four packs.

Steele:  Kenny just drags himself around, which is all the exercise that he
can handle.

LW:  When I interviewed him once before, I asked him what he did after shows
and he said he would go find drugs...

Silver:  That's Kenny.  That's as an honest answer.  Dealing with the stress,
and living in these conditions, naturally it's nice to be completely
$h!t-faced and escape.

Steele:  If you can't escape physically, you have to escape mentally.

LW:  I've read in other interviews that you'd like to be home.

Steele:  That's true, that's my vacation.

LW:  Do you find yourself getting homesick?

Steele:  I am definitely homesick.  But I realize that this is what we have
to do.  On a positive note, this makes me appreciate what I have at home a
lot more.  When I'm home, I love being able to go out and shovel snow all
day, then crawling into a hot tub when I come in.  It's like, "Aahhh".  It's
fu@king great.  Hopefully, there is somebody waiting in bed for me when I get
home.

LW:  Would you say that you have a hard time getting time for yourself while
you're on the road.

Silver:  You take 2 valiums, 2 glasses of Bailey's, a couple lines of coke,
it doesn't matter where you sit, you are alone.  You're alone sitting next to
15 people.

Steele:  Everyone has to escape.  Whether it's drugs, or mental retardation,
or both.

LW:  If you could change anything about the road, what would it be?

Silver:  That's a good question.

Steele:  At this point for us, it would be more days off.  We never get to
see anything.  I want to get to see more of the places I'm visiting besides
just the highways.  I really wish that I could take a pet on the bus, but
then someone would have to take care of it.

LW:  It would probably get out and get run over, anyway.

Silver:  It'll just end up on drugs, anyway.

LW:  Beside the music itself, how does the band fulfill you personally?

Steele:  It's like sonic therapy for me.  I need a release and going out
there every night and screaming my head off for about 75 minutes about the
things that bother me is good primal therapy.

LW:  Is there one person that plays mediator in the band if you all don't
agree on something.

Silver:  I don't know, we need a mediator to make that decision.

Steele:  That depends on the situation.  As far as songwriting goes, it's a
known thing that I write the songs.  I bring them to the band.  If the guys
want to change something, that's cool as long as it goes with that I had in
mind.  As far as the business, that's why we have lawyers, and a manager, and
a tour manager.  We're not 16 or 17 years old anymore, usually we can come to
a compromise.

LW:  How would you characterize October Rust?  Describe what it means to you.

Steele:  I feel as if this is a fifth grade English class!  What it means to
me, first and foremost, is songs that I enjoyed writing, songs that the band
seems to enjoy, and our fans seem to like as well.  It's probably one of the
only albums that I would listen to even if I wasn't in the band, which was
part of my goal.  Some of the things that I've done in the past, I can't even
listen to anymore.  That old Carnivore stuff, I just can't believe.  I was
such a different person then.  I've changed a lot.  Anything that anyone
might deem sacred, Carnivore attacked.  Politics, religion, sexuality, we
just went for it.  There was a boomerang effect which we had to pay for with
Type O and I feel bad about that because these guys had to share the blame
with me and they had nothing to do with it.  Fortunately, we have overcome
those problems.  The best revenge is good living.

LW:  Listening to first two albums compared to Bloody Kisses, it's
unbelievable how different it is.  The first two remind me of something like
Venom..

Steele:  A couple of things happened after Slow, Deep and Hard. I think that
I finally just grew up.  And after the band was together for three or four
years, we learned how to play with each other, and we found our style.  I
consider Bloody Kisses to be the first Type O album.  Slow, Deep and Hard is
what I consider to be a glorified demo.  With October Rust, we had a lot of
time to talk about the continuity of the album.  We wanted every song to
represent Type O Negative, and we also wanted the songs to flow together
nicely.  We didn't want one song to stick out from the rest.  We wanted a
package that people would feel comfortable listening to and not want to skip
songs.

LW:  It was obvious that you made an effort to keep the songs flowing.

Steele:  After we got off the tour with Queensryche last August, we took a
few weeks off, then started to rehearse.  Then we went into the studio and
demoed everything.  There were a couple of songs that we had to cut because
we felt that they weren't up to par.  After choosing the songs we had to trim
the fat off of them to make them more listenable.  As a songwriter, it's
sometimes hard to look at the songs objectively.  There were some things that
seemed droning and long, but they seemed to fit so we kept them in.

LW:  You mentioned that you didn't want songs to stand out, but are there any
songs that you are particularly proud of?

Steele:  There are songs that are better than others, "Love You To Death" is
probably one of the better songs.

LW:  I love the piano intro on that song...it's perfect.

Silver:  Thank Macintosh.

LW:  Oh, c'mon, you played that...

Silver:  I know, I'm just kidding.

Steele:  "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" stands out.  Maybe that's a song that
simply stands out because I wrote it in 15 minutes over at Josh's house!  I
came up with a few small parts, and strung them all together, it sounded like
a stupid poppy song, so I had to think of a stupid poppy vocal line to match.

LW:  I think you found it.

Silver:  Don't blame me.

LW:  What are your expectations for this album?

Steele:  I hope that we didn't disappoint our fans, I didn't expect anything,
because if my expectations didn't come through, I would be really
disappointed.  I hope it does well.  As I said earlier, I think that going
out and supporting a big band would be a big move for us.  We've been drawing
about 1000 to 4000 a night, sometimes less or more.

LW:  You obviously put a lot of thought into the artwork on the album.

Steele:   That's exactly right, and that was my thought.  I had gone to a
mall somewhere, and had bought this book called Forest.  It had all of these
beautiful pictures, so we contacted the guy who had taken the photos and
bought some from him for the album.

LW:  Would you agree that October Rust is your best album?

Steele:  Well, things could always be better.  I hope that our next album is
better.  I think that this album, to date, is the one that we can live with
most comfortably.

LW:  Do you think that you will make another gradual progression with the
next album?

Steele:  I'm sure it's going to be somewhat different.  I don't think that it
will be as drastic as the difference between Slow, Deep and Hard and Bloody
Kisses.  Unless either something either wonderful or horrible happens to me.
 Or wonderfully horrible.

LW:  Have you guys had either interesting or funny road mishaps?

Steele:  I don't know if I want to admit anything.  We are here to do our job
first, but if anything - or someone - fun comes along, then, from time to
time, we indulge in the pleasures of touring.

Silver:  When he says we, he means he.  Kenny was up here dancing on the
table in his underwear the other morning...

LW:  I thought that he wasn't up in the morning...

Steele:  No, this was before he went to sleep!


(THE END......)

For those of you who wanted to read it...there it is.  I actually had to fix
some of the godAWFUL typos in the magazine's print.  I guess the editor was
as tired as I am right now before the magazine went to print.

For those of you who didn't want to read it....sorry.....deal with it.....hit
that little delete key.     ;o)

^v^  amy  ^v^