Yes, kids, I've been typing away again. This time I found a magazine called
Seconds (the ONLYall-interview rock culture magazine -or so they claim),
which has a fairly lengthy interview with our man, Pete. Anyway,here's the
interview.

Type O Negative

by Michael Moynihan

        After years of being maligned by liberal critics, feminist
agitators, and other shit disturbers, PETER STEELE finally has the last
laugh. His controversial band TYPE O. NEGATIVE has slyly slipped into the
mainstream, riding on the spiraling success of their magnum opus, BLOODY
KISSES (Roadrunner). Sure, the record's a few years old, but it's still
blowing away ninety-nine percent of the competition, who can't hold a thin,
black candle to its power, majesty or production values.

        Despite Type O's courting of the Goth crowd with the MTV friendly
BLACK NO. 1 and CHRISTIAN WOMAN videos, don't expect any androgynous, wan
faces in their camp. Instead you'll be met by the towering Mr. Steele and
his wisecracking Brooklyn buddies Josh, Kenny and Johnny. On stage Peter's
massive six-foot-seven frame exudes a magnetic energy, not unlike Glenn
Danzig, with whom Type O and Godflesh recently spent a few months on the
road in one of the best tours of 1994. Just one indication of the band's
versatility can be seen in the fact that, just a few months earlier, they
were equally well-received by the suburban kids attending Motley Crue
shows. Hunted by female stalkers, attacked by ornery goons at Nine Inch
Nails gigs, Steele and Co. just keep plowing ahead, crushing the hapless
debris in their path.

        But even with newfound audiences and a steady sales record, Peter
still hasn't shaken his notorious reputation as an intolerant advocate of
grim genetic prerogatives and social Darwinism. Much of this rap stems from
his previous stint at the helm of Carnivore, the apocalypto-pagan
barbarians whom he's brought back together recently for occasional reunion
shows in his home town. Try as he might to adjust to the shallow muck of
the Pop Music cesspool, Steele can't help but keep pushing his luck. Is he
the closet Hitler some have accused him of being? Or does he have a more
ominous Gulag planned for your future? Frankly, we here at SECONDS don't
care what he wants to do with you, as long as he's gracious enough to
provide the right soundtrack.

        SECONDS:  Why haven't you begun recording a new album?

        STEELE:  The record company likes to use Type O Negative like a
strap-on dildo, and they're going to keep on masturbating us until there's
no more semen left. As long as this album continues to sell, and they can
trick the public to keep buying it, they will do that. As it stands now
there are no plans to record a new album; however, I do have the whole next
album written.

        SECONDS:  How has the success of BLOODY KISSES affected you?

        STEELE:  I would like to say that I think someone down there likes
me, because I don't feel that I deserve it. So many good things have
happened to me in such a short period of time that I've actually developed
this guilt complex about it. I feel that it's just not right. There are so
many great bands out there that don't experience one tenth the success that
I do, and yet they're a hundred times better.

        SECONDS:  Are they really?

        STEELE:  Yes, I think so. There are a lot of bands I listen to,
that I love, and I think, "Why aren't they more popular? Why doesn't their
record company get on them and just shove them down people's throats?"
Right now I'm listening to Red House Painters, and how come nobody knows
about this band, yet they're so wonderful? And then bands like Lycia, Blood
Axis, the Hellfire Club--all this other stuff. I don't know what the fuck
is up.

        SECONDS:  How were the responses to the different bills you've been
on over the last year?

        STEELE:  Nine Inch Nails liked us a lot. Trent Reznor is a great
guy, but their audience sucks. Ninety percent of them hated us and the
other ten percent that showed some kind of support were automatically booed
into submission or somehow subdued. So for two weeks, every night,
forty-five minutes on stage, I just became Andrew Dice Clay. I would pick
somebody out of the audience that was throwing something or yelling and
being an asshole, and I would have direct verbal contact with these people.
The rest of the band was standing around, twiddling their thumbs and
shuffling their shoes, and I'm jumping into the audience and fighting with
people. There were one or two times where I actually saw somebody wing
something -- this one guy, I don't know how he did it without cutting
himself, but he had the serrated top of a can, like a catfood can, and so
you have this thing like a little saw blade winged at you. I ran to the
side of the stage and jumped off, I'm making my way through the crowd as
this guy's heading back, and there were people taking shots at me as I was
going after this guy! But I wanted him, and then security caught up to me
first -- they didn't do anything to me, but they let him get away. It's
just a scene I'd rather forget.

        SECONDS:  Wasn't a result of your banter on stage that you were
asked to do the Motley Crue tour?

        STEELE:  That's actually correct. We played a show in Los Angeles
and one of the Motley Crue guys happened to be there, and he really liked
my sarcasm -- just the way I was being myself onstage and doing pretty much
whatever came naturally, dealing with situations as they came up. I guess
they thought that I was funny and I'd be entertaining for them.

        SECONDS:  Any other stories from the Nine Inch Nails shows?

        STEELE:  When we were on tour with them Fem 2 Fem was also on the
bill -- they're like a lesbian dance act. Guys loved them -- five really
hot girls who did nothing but get off on each other onstage. It's great!
Some capitalist just made this thing up, and I think only one of the five
women was actually even gay, and the other four were just hired hair. They
were on first and we came on second, and every night I'd say, "Wow, this
microphone smells like tunafish!" Every night it was a different type of
fish. Then the very last night of the tour somebody had actually snuck up
and ground a can of tunafish into the microphone, because I'd been saying
this every night. So it was like, great, they got me.

        SECONDS:  How did the Motley Crue affair go?

        STEELE:  At first we were kind of skeptical, we didn't know what to
expect. But it worked out well for us. There were always a handful of
people who were there for us, but we were accepted really well. There was
almost no heckling, and I think that was due to the fact that most of the
shows were outdoor venues -- even if somebody was heckling there were so
many people there it didn't really matter. The band and the crew treated us
really well, though, and turned out to be great guys.

        SECONDS:  It must've been somewhat surreal touring with these aging
teenybop Rock Stars.

        STEELE:  It was kind of strange, but looking back at it I think
there may have been one other factor why we were asked to go on tour with
them. I think they realized that maybe they weren't as popular as they once
were, and they knew controversy stirs up free publicity. During their set,
in the course of the light show, they had a lot of swastikas that would
rotate, and of course I've got this reputation of being a Fascist. So I'm
thinking that maybe they felt as if they associated themselves with us, and
I've got such a bad reputation, and now here come these swastikas, that the
press would jump all over it and ask what the hell is up. But that could
just be my paranoia...Anyway, then we did a short tour with Jackyl, which
was also kind of strange, but they were really nice guys too, very down to
earth. After that came the Danzig thing.

        SECONDS:  How did that go?

        STEELE:  I think as far as the fans go, that was really a
qualitative bill to have Godflesh, Type O Negative and Danzig. This was a
show that I would have probably gone to see, and I don't go to shows. It
simply meshed really well -- each band was different from one another, but
at the same time we had a lot of similarities. Overall, there were no
problems, the tour ended and we all bid one another good luck, and that was
that.

        SECONDS:  How do you amuse yourself on the road?

        STEELE:  When I'm on tour I feel like I'm there to do a job, not
really to party and have a good time. I have my weights set up in the back
of the tour bus, and while everybody else is in the front lounge smoking
pot and playing video games, I'm in the back working out. They're my prime
motivation for working out -- the rest of the guys in the band -- because I
look at them and I say, man I don't want to become like this, like a sack
of mashed potatoes, with huge atrophied eyes from playing video games
twenty hours a day. That fucking TV is always on, and there's always some
moron glued to it -- why don't you go out and toss a football around, or
get some hockey equipment -- I figured a sound body/sound mind type of
thing, get out for an hour or two a day. We make fools of ourselves onstage
everyday, why not on the street as well?

        SECONDS:  Has your previous dread of touring lessened a bit?

        STEELE:  When you first start touring and you have twelve or
fifteen guys packed on a bus, you start to get stir crazy and you hate
everybody. But now we have two buses, and with everyone spread out we don't
even see each other anymore. It's great, we're all isolated and everyone is
on a totally different schedule. And of course there are some fringe
benefits that go along with touring -- I'm never at a loss to justify my
testicles, which is a pleasant thing. So if a genetically superior specimen
comes my way, then I follow my program.

        SECONDS:  I wouldn't think that it would be easy to work out with
weights in a tiny room on a bus.

        STEELE:  It's hard to stay fit. Not to sound vain, but I'm trying
to sell myself here. Music isn't just a sonic thing, it's a visual thing as
well. There's nothing worse onstage than an aging, fat, bald Rock & Roller.
But it's really hard to work out, especially when you're 6'7" and weigh 220
pounds, trying to do heavy squats in the back of the bus. I found out the
hard way that the floor was mad out of half inch plywood, when I went
through it doing bench presses. Then I had to pay to get the bus repaired.
There's always the problem of unlevel parking spaces, and I'm shimming up
the weight bench with my carpenter's level, trying to get it right. But
when I lose motivation I just peek into the front lounge and then I'm ready
to work out.

        SECONDS:  Who were those "stalker" chicks on your bus when I saw
you in Denver?

        STEELE:  They're two women who want to know us better and for some
reason have become fixated on this band. They're from Texas and they
followed us all the way back to Brooklyn. When we came home during a break
between two tours they were here looking for us. I had my friends calling
me, saying there were these girls here from Texas who pulled up in a
limousine looking for us. Luckily they didn't knock on my door, as my
girlfriend wouldn't have been too happy about that. But when I went back to
Texas with Danzig, these girls were of course there and they handed me a
photo album that said on the front, "Peter Steele, This Is Your Life." When
I opened it up they had pictures of my car parked in front of my house.
Every person and place that I had thanked on the SLOW, DEEP AND HARD album,
they went and talked to these people about us. My friends at the gym. My
friends at the bagel store. My friends at this auto body shop. And they had
pictures of them! Really crazy stuff. "This is where you rehearse", "This
is where you went to school", and I'm thinking, this is really scary. Thank
God we didn't have sex with these people! Then it would have been like the
pied piper, leading the snakes, or rats, whatever he had running after him.
I think Josh actually threatened their lives. He's a very private person,
even more than me, and he doesn't want anyone to know where he lives. But
they found my house and my car, and the proof was in the book, sad to say.
Scary.

        SECONDS:  Do these kind of things happen often?

        STEELE:  I have a lot of odd things happening outside my house. My
car gets vandalized at least once a month, or somebody's putting a scumbag
on my doorknob -- typical elementary nonsense.

        SECONDS:  You've returned to Europe again, after all the previous
trouble you had there.

        STEELE:  Yes we did. There was only one minor incident in Holland
where some group said they were going to protest and then they didn't even
show up. All the shows in Germany were sold out, though we didn't play in
any of the left-leaning cities like Berlin or Hamburg. The only shows that
weren't sold out were the ones in Scandinavia, but that was often due to
the fact we played during the week. Scandinavia is unbelievable -- the
women there! Finland is incredible, that language --

        SECONDS:  I've heard stories about Finnish women.

        STEELE:  Yeah, I know first hand! It's great. The only place that I
got laid in Europe was in Finland! Fucking unreal -- the scenery, the
people. I think maybe they feel that since they are such an isolated people
and they really don't fit in with the Scandinavians, because they're not
Scandinavian, and the Russians hate them, that I guess maybe they feel they
have to reproduce, to make more of themselves. They've got a strange and
yet fascinating language -- the only one similar to it is Hungarian -- and
it's really cool to see all those double vowels and consonants pushed
together. I was trying to learn some Finnish when I was hanging out with
this one girl, and she got a big kick out of my attempts to pronounce what
I guess she felt were really simple words. It was completely alien. Great
place. I was hoping we'd get to Iceland, but that wasn't on the schedule.

        SECONDS:  Are the Europeans up in arms over your opinions?

        STEELE:  Some of that stuff still comes up. I try to keep away from
making comments unless I'm asked directly. If somebody asks me a question,
I will give you an answer, but don't question my answers. Don't argue with
me -- interview me. I wind up about ten percent of the time arguing with
people during interviews because they're these PC assholes and I'm not as
empathetic to the human race as they'd like me to be. I didn't volunteer
this information -- I'm not wearing a shirt that says this is what I think,
this is what I believe. You asked me -- don't argue with me. If you want to
argue, I get aggravated enough for fucking free on this tour bus -- I don't
have to waste my time with you, so leave.

        SECONDS:  Do you think the political climate has changed? For
example, Danzig has made some pretty illiberal statements recently, without
people trying to crucify him.

        STEELE:  Well, I think he's in a position where he can say these
things because nobody can really touch him, nobody can hurt him. I'm just
coming up now out of the mud, and all it takes now is someone to kick me
down back into the mud, then I have to get back up again. But he's out of
the muck and can stand on his own two feet, basically for financial
reasons. So I have to watch what I say, but I will speak the truth if I'm
asked. It takes a lot of balls, but much better men than me have died for
much lesser causes than I speak of.

        SECONDS:  Do a lot of people approach you who agree with some of
your more compromising opinions?

        STEELE:  There are a lot. I saw this great shirt with a Confederate
flag and on the top it said, "It's a White thing, you couldn't understand."
This redneck comes up and says, "Yeah, I like what you're about, boy." I
don't turn people off to that, I'm not going to deny it, I think in this
country, especially out West, the nation is really right wing and they
realize they can't open their mouths too freely, but they seem to know who
they can be open with. I don't mind having conversations with people, as
long as they're not too drunk and they don't repeat themselves too often.
That's fine with me.

        SECONDS:  What prompted the Carnivore reunions?

        STEELE:  Primarily because it's fun, and I miss my friends. It's
also easy money.

        SECONDS:  Describe the last Carnivore show.

        STEELE:  We made it into a Communist propaganda show -- we had
these huge Russian flags on stage and we were handing out brochures from
the American Communist Party. Kids were like, "What the fuck is this?" --
ripping them up and throwing them at us. It was at the Limelight. I had
about forty-five minutes of ethnic Russian music that we played before
coming on stage. Hammer and sickles were everywhere, we came out in red
shirts with "CCCP" on them, and there was no English spoken on stage --
just a barrage of feedback between songs. To someone who did not know the
band it must have looked really fucked up and crazy. We had an eight foot
by twelve foot Soviet flag draped over the band, plus smaller flags
everywhere. I came up with this symbol which I call a Swasicle, which is
three hammer and sickles joined together in a triskelion type of thing.
This shirt I made up has this symbol on it, and it's all in Russian. The
shirts didn't sell until we went onstage because nobody knew what the fuck
it was, and when they saw the whole thing we sold about eighty shirts is
fifteen minutes, but other than that no one knew what was going on. It was
a lot of fun, and it's legendary now. People are going to be talking about
this for months, simply because they don't understand it. I can't wait for
these pictures to appear in Germany -- there were lots of people taking
pictures at that show and I know they're going to wind up over there. So
now they see Pete Steele, the big Nazi, wearing a CCCP t-shirt with a huge
Soviet flag behind him. What the fuck can they say? May their heads spin.

        SECONDS:  How many Carnivore shows have you done?

        STEELE:  About six or seven, not too many. There are always lots of
skinheads who come to see us, and motorcycle guys, cops -- it's a really
weird cross-section. The shows are always really violent amongst the
audience themselves. There are always fistfights breaking out, but there's
no trouble.

        SECONDS:  Carnivore had a large police following?

        STEELE:  Yeah, there are always tons of these crazy off-duty cops
in the dressing room, talking about roughing people up and this and that.
And I think. Man, I should've been a cop! A South African riot cop. Might
makes right.

        SECONDS:  Aren't you worried about people dredging up the more
unpleasant aspects of Carnivore?

        STEELE:  That happens all the time. When the shit does come up,
people always bring up Carnivore. All I can say is, that's the person that
I was -- I still am that person, I just changed form slightly. I stand
behind what I've said. If people want to continually question things from
fifteen years ago that I said, or they're confused about symbols, I'll
answer those questions once. After that people are just badgering me, and
they'll get a kick in the face. But you know, it stirs up controversy,
which they need. So I'm just performing a service, doing God's work.



____________________________________________________________________________
email sharon@panix.com

"Jesus died for somebody's sins... but not mine."--Patti Smith