Well, I didn't think I could do it, but here's the TON articel from the
current issue of Alternative Press magazine. My fingers are killing me, but
it was worth it. Enjoy!

 This Blood's for You
Taken from Alternative Press March 95
By Jason Pettigrew

        If you cloned Type O Negative's Peter Steele several times and put
him on THE DATAING GAME, you'd have a ratings sweep. Bachelor Number One is
Petey Steele from the Brooklyn 'hood who used to clean parks for the city.
He loves doting on his mom and five sisters, and going out for a couple of
brews with the locals at night.

        Then there's Bachelor Number Two:  Peter, the sad, dark,
introspective romantic yearning to travel back in time and help Emily
Bronte proofread WUTHERING HEIGHTS. When THIS Pete gave AP his TOP SENSORY
PERCEPTIONS for 1992's Top Ten Lists, he included "how blood and dry red
wine complement each other" and "the howl of a winter wind through the
branches of dead trees." This Peter will readily admit that he should have
been born a thousand years ago when his six-foot-six, 220 pound frame would
have been better suited for protecting his village from a Mongol horde than
playing bass in a rock band.

        Then there's Bachelor Number Three:  that fuggin' dick Pete, the
former lead shithead in Carnivore, the mid-80's hardcore thrash trio. This
Pete pissed lyrical venom like "We fell from different cunts and your
skin's an ugly color."

        So which is the real Pete Steele? And which bachelor will be my
escort as I join Type O Negative in Texas during their tour with Danzig and
Godflesh?

        "I think I'm a blue-collar worker from Brooklyn," Steele says
quietly in his Noo Yawk accent. His piercing blue eyes and sharp cheekbones
that seemingly stop at his cerebrum contribute to his intense persona as he
winds down on the tour bus. "This thing just fell into my lap and it is an
opportunity to escape urban blight.  I'm a social retard, and I have a hard
time dealing with people. I don't like crowds, I don't like noise, I don't
like people, I don't like being questioned. I just want to be left alone."

        You made a fine career choice, Mr. Steele.

        "It's an investment." he volleys back, adjusting his tied-back hair
into a more comfortable position. "Anybody who has gotten anything out of
life has had to work for it."

        How uncomfortable are you?

        "I'm ready to walk off this bus right now."

        Type O Negative's weird synergy of metal, gothic and industrial
rock elements is stomping down modern rock's well-established parameters.
The band's recent Roadrunner album, BLOODY KISSES, bridges so-called
exclusive musics in a swirl of sonic schizophrenia. Keyboardist Josh
Silver, guitarist Kenny Hickey, drummer John Kelly, and bassist frontman
Steele are merely a bunch of Brooklyn louts who create compelling music for
fans of various musical subgenres who once jeered at each other. Now these
factions link arms and bang their heads. In the past two years Type O have
opened for the likes of Motley Crue, Nine Inch Nails, and most recently
Danzig. Okay, so they don't have the universal appeal across the musical
map like the Beatles. But the quartet successfully fulfills the
expectations of the fans of the bands with whom they've toured.

        Steele's first serious group, Carnivore, broke up just as its
momentum was escalating. He then went to work as a heavy-equipment operator
for the parks department of the state of New York. He took the entrance
exam to become a police officer and scored high but did not pursue it.
("When you're a cop, you're a cop 24 hours a day. Plus, I realized that I'd
be locking up most of my friends and family.") He stayed with the parks
department, wrote songs and formulated Type O Negative with longtime friend
Silver, guitarist Hickey and drummer Sal Abruscato.

        When Roadrunner released Type O's industrimetal debut album, SLOW,
DEEP AND HARD, Steele was at a low ebb in his personal life. He was
depressed, reactionary and had attempted suicide. Art does imitate life,
and songs like "Unsuccessfully Coping With The Natural Beauty of
Infidelity" (a.k.a. "I Know You're Fucking Someone else") branded Steele as
a misogynist, while "Der Untermensch"--the term the Third Reich used to
describe certain "inferior" racial groups--was the metaphor Steele used for
people who sell drugs to children. The band got their fair share of bomb
threats when touring through Europe, and traveling through America with the
likes of cartoon punks the Exploited made Steele wonder if the parks
department was the way to go after all.

        "Some of the things I said on the first album were taken out of
context and often misconstrued," explains Steele, playing with an ashtray.
"We were labeled fascists because of 'Untermensch.' 'Unsuccessfully
Coping...' was about one woman, not all women. I have five sisters and I
live to please women. That really upset me."

        While Steele was deliberating about Type O's future, Abruscato left
to join Life of Agony after agreeing to record BLOODY KISSES. When Steele
realized that there was a positive response to his work, he kept the band
together and enlisted Johnny Kelly in the drum chair. The scenario of being
"that close" to success was happening again, and Steele had the wherewithal
to get his act together.

        "I've never taken any of my bands seriously." he candidly admits."
I've been sitting on the fence for ten years now. I don't blame Sal for
leaving one bit.

        "For a long time, I did not know who I was, I did not know what I
wanted. I was crushed by peer pressure, and I listened to a lot of people
because I was told by a lot of people around me that I was a moron. And now
I've realized that it's not me that's fucked up. It is the rest of the
world. I'm certainly not a genius but I believe I've found myself."

        BLOODY KISSES explores themes of dark sensuality and fatalistic
romance, all cloaked in carefully orchestrated keyboard atmospheres, Black
Sabbath dirge speeds and Steele's alternating somber/psychotic vocal. He
will talk enthusiastically about all types of music, having a strong
appreciation for much of the ethereal goth on the Projekt label, Dead Can
Dance, Cocteau Twins, Curve and the like. (On a recent trip to the AP
office, he discovered the languid pop of Low.) Steele also thinks that the
band should be made up entirely of electronic keyboards because the scope
of mere bass/drums/guitar is too limiting. He smiles casually at the
juvenile comments of reactionary hard-line metal fiends who deem TON
positively wimpy compared to Carnivore.

        "I refuse to take the same path [as before]," he calmly states
without any sign of rancor. "It's boring. I don't watch MTV, listen to the
radio and I don't care what the Joneses are doing. Unless of course, it's
Jim Jones [insert rim shot here]. One of the things this band has going for
it is its brutal honesty. I will tell people immediately that we all suck
in this band. When someone compliments me, I can't respond, I can't agree
with them."

        So if I were to tell you that your record is a complete turd...

        "I'd shake your hand and say that I have the utmost fucking respect
for you being an honest person. Then I'd punch you in the mouth!" he says
smiling enough to reveal a set of fangs. "Seriously though, people have
done that to me. 'Pete, you suck, and your band sucks.' And I'm like, who
the fuck cares what YOU think? I WOULD be an idiot if I cared what YOU
thought."

        He begins to play with a note from a fan that was left on the
table. "I'm just enjoying the ride. Anybody can do what I do. If you were
born in my household, I'd be on the other side of the table talking to
you."

        You're just a lovable old fuck from Brooklyn, aren't you?

        "Something like that. That may be a compliment, so I won't respond
to it."

        At the Bomb Factory in Dallas, the band does its thing. Steele is
front and center with his bass strapped on with several feet of heavy gauge
link chain. His long black hair, and opened white shirt make him a shoo-in
for a cover appearance on a Danielle Steel pulp romance novel. The fans are
headbanging and crowd surfing and several "rock babes" are on the catwalk
screaming "Talk dirty!" and "Fuck me, PETERRRR!" (When informed of this
after the set, Steele deadpans, "Are you sure they didn't scream 'Fuck YOU,
Peter?'") A mad dash for the t-shirt stand follows the set's end, and by
the war whoops and smiles all around, the crowd are going to merely "stick
around" for the headliners, much like an exhausted lover lies back smoking
a cigarette or searches for a cuddle.

        "I'm into the orchestrated metal sound of [Type O]," says Bill, 28,
a Dallas native who punctuates his comments by spitting tobacco juice into
a plastic beer cup. "It's really musical and not like that kind of shit
that's real popular where they just pound out riffs. It's real songs and
real lyrics. As far as talent goes, I think they're going to be around for
a while."

        "I couldn't describe Type O to anybody," says 24-year-old Caroline,
sporting a form-fitting Damned t-shirt. "I'd just play them the tape. I
like a lot of old metal and punk, this is something much cooler."

        Scott, 25, looks like a Skinny Puppy concession stand with a pulse.
He adjusts the badges on his leather jacket and says, "I think that most
metal bands are boring. The singer's voice is really cool, and I think that
they're way beyond grunge or most of that headbanger shit."

        "I like the darkness of it all," says Joseph, 25 (who, it should be
noted, corrects me when I call him 'Joe'). "I don't think they are
particularly industrial sounding, but definitely dark like gothic and
metal."

        April, a 22-year-old housewife dressed in layered black lace
offers, "I like that the singer's voice sounds like that guy in SILENCE OF
THE LAMBS that kept the girl down the well. It's really evil. I'm a
housewife and mother, go figure!"

        Later when I tell Steele that last comment, he rolls his eyes and
smiles. "I'm glad she paid her money to come see us!"

        Walk into a room with Steele, and people notice you. Heading toward
the catering area at the Houston venue, Steele is flanked by three fans:
two males, and one female all in search of autographs, a handshake, a hug,
a nanosecond of attention, ANYTHING. So Steele, the complete antithesis of
the character in the third paragraph of this story, hugs the girl,
autographs one guy's t-shirt and happily gives up his last bass pick when
the other guy sheepishly asks him for one.

        "Sometimes when somebody asks me for my autograph, I ask the person
for theirs," says Steele, munching on some spaghetti. "They immediately
think I'm fucking with 'em, but I'm really sincere. That person has a job,
they make money, and they want to give it to me for some reason.

        "I think Carnivore was trying to prove to the world everything that
the world thought I was not. How many people get paid to make fools out of
themselves? There are times when I really like to be sarcastic onstage. At
times people expect me to be a really nice guy, and then I'm a cocksucker.
And vice versa.

        "When I was eight, I used to paint my face green, get on my
bicycle, light a smoke bomb under the seat and fly down the street,
screaming as loud as I could just to make heads turn. I thought it was
really funny how something out of the norm could make people stop and look.
So long as nothing is affecting me, I don't care. I don't care what people
look like, it doesn't matter. My parents were quite conservative and
everything had to be a certain way. When they'd go to my aunt's for dinner,
I'd change the furniture around. Just to see them react. I was harmless,
but it really pissed them off."

        But isn't being in a band an extension of that? People are
transfixed for those 44 minutes to see something, whether or not that
qualifies as "entertainment".

        "Being in a band is a useless occupation," he continues, back on
the bus. "If there were a group of people on a desert island--a carpenter,
a doctor and a bass player--and there's only provisions for two, who's
going to get the food? Not the bass player. I have a very strong work
ethic. This," he gestures at the interior of the tour bus, "is not work to
me. This could be a very long party, but I don't like parties."

        Later after Type O's lugubrious yet intriguing set, chants of the
band's name echo through the cavernous room, which looks like a gutted
Kmart. The t-shirt stand is quite busy. All of this is lost on Steele,
who's backstage listening to Godflesh's Justin Broadrick enthuse about
"some really sick ambient music" that he promises to tape for him.

        Heading back to the bus, the two of us are intercepted by two
beautiful nubiles. The spokesperson of the two is about four-foot-seven
with long permed blonde hair and is using a black lace bra as a blouse in
the chilling night air, while her red-haired, black-laced confidante is
nervously silent.

        "We came to see you," says the blonde to Steele.

        "Why thank you."

        "We want to party. Can we come on the bus?"

        "Well, actually I have to talk that over with that guy over there,"
Steele says, motioning at the three bands' respective drivers talking by
the stage door. "Hey how much do you weigh?"

        "Why don't you pick me up and find out?"

        "Okay," he says picking her up by the armpits. "Wow! 80 pounds?"

        "78," she responds proudly. "Can we hang out with you? We can't get
back in."

        "I can get you back in, but I have to talk to this guy here," he
says nodding at me. "He's from SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and they want me to pose
with a fig leaf for a different kind of swimsuit issue. They've been
getting a lot of complaints about being sexist. So me and him are going to
go over fig leaf designs."

        "Oh, okay," she replies, knowing that her shtick is not going to
work tonight. "Maybe later?"

        "Maybe. Hey, thanks for coming."

        Back on the bus, I ask why she didn't qualify as a participant for
dark sensuality.

        "I want to be with somebody who appreciates what I am internally, "
he says digging into a pie provided to him by the catering crew. "Not just
someone who thinks I'm a cool pair of testicles.

        "Girls ask to suck my blood," he continues nonchalantly. "They
aren't too shy about asking me. I can easily show you scars all over me
where I've taken razor blades and opened myself up and let them stick their
tongues into me. Which is no big deal, because essentially my only role in
bed is not to say 'No.'"

        How does one perceive the true Pete Steele? Not as the locker-room
goon; not as the prince of dark rock whom crowds go nuts over; not even as
the guy who's saving all his money from this rock and roll circus so he can
move to Iceland and build a dream home with his bare hands. Will the "real"
Pete Steele ever make an appearance?

        "Not unless you come to my house and see me in the corner sucking
my thumb in complete darkness."

        Josh Silver has known Steele since they played in cover bands at
the ripe old age of 13. Although Silver has a definite stage presence with
his hair flying around his bank of keyboards, he is loath to play into the
image of Rock Star. He's a triple threat player/engineer/arranger and he
doesn't need the role-playing attitude that goes with the territory.

        "There's a lot of bullshit everywhere you go," he says, dragging
off a smoke. "No matter where I go, I'll always be going through bullshit.
It's undeniable. This is just chosen bullshit. If you're alive, you're
suffering. I may as well choose my own suffering."

        Isn't that sounding like a war story cliche?

        "It's like a minor war, totally. When I watch a war movie now, I
think, 'Hey that's the situation we're in.' I feel for vets, I'll tell ya.
When you go out on the road, you are wrecking your life. A lot of people
don't recognize that and I hate to burst their perceived rock star bubble,
but it is rough. You leave family members, friends, former girlfriends who
would understandably never stand by you to do this. A band is always a path
of destruction. What has saved us is that we, as a band have dropped all
our mental barriers that are supposed to be there. They have been stripped
away. I think other people's optimism is merely being in denial."

        Does all this work out if the music?

        "I just think we made our won thing. I tell people we're gothadelic
or to look in the 'T' bin. Personally, I want to do something that leaves
its mark on music any way whatsoever. Damage it. Help it. I don't care.
We're going to fuck something up. That's my goal."

        Point blank, Josh: are you happy?

        He looks up and takes another puff. "Let's say I'm less miserable."

        Another day on the planet has expired. A tired Steele accepts an
offer from Roadrunner's radio director Mark "Psycho" Abramson for a trip
back to the hotel. We swerve around broken bottles and other crowd debris
to get out of the parking lot. People see Steele in the car but are unsure
what to do. So they keep on drinking, smoking, making  out, and playing
well-worn BLOODY KISSES cassettes on cheap car stereos.

        On the trip back, Psycho puts on a tape of "Haunted," and
eleven-minute Type Opus penned by Steele for the soon-to-be-released movie
THE ADDICTION. Psycho has to make a stop at his hotel for a brief moment to
pick up messages. While we wait in the car, I ask Steele what he's going to
do for Valentine's Day.

        "I hope I'll be spending it with someone I care about very deeply.
I hope I will not be spending it with myself alone."

        How have you celebrated in the past?

        "As romantically as possible, getting the person I was involved
with an appropriate piece of jewelry, a dozen roses, some real nice wine, a
nice dinner perhaps. Which is how I like to treat women every day of the
year."

        As he finishes the last sentence, he looks out the windshield
towards the traffic and the street lamps, as if he's thinking about
Valentine's Days gone by, or desperately anticipating ones to occur.
Until...

        "And I make sure I have a big bowl of those heart-shaped red hots,"
he offers, adjusting his policeman's cap. "You know, those cinnamon
candies? Without those, it's just not Valentine's Day."


End of Interview....But wait, there's more!

Perfume Like burning Leaves
Pete Steele Ruminates on Type O Negative

Slow, Deep and Hard (Roadrunner, 1991)
"The whole thing was written in one drunken, feeling sorry-for-myself
Friday night when the record company found that I had put a new band
together after Carnivore and they were really eager to hear some product as
soon as possible. So I came up with these pathetic songs just to give them
something and they liked the recording so much they bought the demo off of
us for $31,000. Unfortunately, it was branded as 'this is what Type O
Negative is' and there really wasn't too much forethought given to those
songs. I can't listen to it--I think it's terrible. People liked what they
heard and they were willing to come and see us."

Origin Of The Feces (Roadrunner, 1992)
"We had caused so much controversy over in Europe that the record company
wanted to ride the wave of all this free press. They said, 'Here's X number
of dollars, go do a live album and we'll release it as soon as we can.' I
think we're a pretty lousy band live. I'm a very conniving person and I
realized that we could never pull this off live. Josh has a recording
studio in his house and we went down there and played the songs live. Then
we had our friends come in and we tried to reproduce all the lousy things
that happened to us in Europe; bomb threats, police raids, people jumping
onstage and attacking us. Rather than most bands that do a live album to
show that they're God's Gift To Music, why not blatantly sound really bad?
Not just that, but we got to keep all the money. The original cover had a
big picture of my asshole on it, which of course, is my best side. That
kept it out of Kmart and toy stores."

Bloody Kisses (Roadrunner, 1993)
"There was a three-year gap between SLOW and BLOODY KISSES, so I had a lot
of time to think about what I really wanted this band to sound like.
Everybody's trying to play really fast, or to be trendy, hip and cool, and
all I wanted to do was to do music that I wanted to listen to. I think this
album is an accurate representation of what Type O is about, which is dark
sensuality. I consider this to be the first Type O Negative album. The
other things I consider a mishap of fate."

Bloody Kisses (Roadrunner, 1994)
The album was reissued with slightly amended cover art, while two tracks,
"Kill All The White People" and "We Hate Everybody," were removed and a new
track "Suspended In Dusk," added. "CD manufacturers guarantee a length of
74 minutes and we had 85 worth of material. Unfortunately, I succumbed to
peer pressure and we left on what were actually two joke tracks that were
only there to annoy people. When the record company wanted to release the
digipak edition, they asked me to supervise the art changes and I said,
'Well, I'd like to do some sonic changes as well.' I took those songs off
and put 'Suspended' on. It flows better. It flows better. I'm trying to get
the label to discontinue the first version because I'm that dissatisfied
with it."



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"We're the flowers in the dustbin."--Johnny Rotten