INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE by Alex Zander with original artwork by Syd Edwards and transcribed by Jason Harmon
Editor’s Note:
This interview originally appeared in M.K. ULTRA #1. It was also reprinted in R.O.C. #18, which is available by writing to PO. Box 147, Jewett, OH 43986. The reason this is being reprinted in M.K. ULTRA #7, is that many readers of ours now never saw this wonderful story. This is how we got to know Peter Steele and Type O Negative. The into has remained the same, but the transcription now includes many questions and answers that weren’t included in the original draft. This was conducted backstage at Star Lake Amphitheater when Type O Negative opened for Kings X and Motley Crue. Tommy Lee from Crue was there for a short time as we met the band that became my personal favorite.
Readers: This article was conducted July 30, 1994. After it was deemed too explicit, its contents were censored, edited and slaughtered. Because of this, what you are about to read is the word for word conversation with Peter Steele. And because of its contents, this is one reason why Mr. Steele is M.K. ULTRA Magazines Male Artist of 1994. Enjoy.
They have been called Sisters Of Mercy meets Danzig meets Destroyer-era KISS. They’ve been labeled racist. Fascist. Pro rape. Sexist and suicidal. At some point they’ve been called anything from beautiful to repulsive. And depending on your views, they are.
I consider them to be are dark and brilliant. My friend Justin turned me onto TON. He liked their debut, Slow Deep & Hard, a collection of Hardcore songs that many consider to be misogynist. The songs were written in four hours by singer / bassist Steele while he was drunk and dealing with a relationship that had turned sour. Songs that boasted verses like, “I know you’re fucking someone else.” were recorded as a demo but released as a debut by Roadrunner Records. Steele’s interpretation of this release went like this, “Anybody who has had their heart broken can relate to what I’m saying. I just happen to be born male and some of the language I used on the record is considered sexist. I don’t think every woman is a bitch or a slut. Its only that I love women so much that I let them cause me so much pain.”
Justin knew that I’d like TON because their latest effort Bloody Kisses reflects vocals that he knew would remind me of Sisters Of Mercy.
I then first witnessed Type O at Graffiti last Spring. They were rude, drunk (Steele reportedly drank 22 Coronas during the set) and offensive. In turn, they played one of the best shows that had passed through the Steel City in recent memory.
The second coming of the troupe was at Star Lake as opener for the new and unimproved Motley Crue. Of the four bands on the bill, Type O was the only one with any positive press and they played a mere four song set. Yet the four songs lasted forty-five minutes. The average life-span of a TON song is seven to ten minutes.
Bloody Kisses boasts over seventy minutes of true, intense and emotional Goth as it hasn’t been played in years. The CD is now available in a newly packaged CD with a previously unreleased track “Suspended in Dark.” which is a vampire’s confession. Other songs, such as the single, “Christian Woman,” is a tale of a fifteen-year-old girl who, being Christian, was told sex is “bad.” She goes to sleep every night looking at the near naked body of the son of God on a crucifix, until she eventually begins to have sexual fantasies about him. Another single, “Black #1 (Little Miss Scare-All),” is an ode to a Goth girl Pete once dated. “She was so into herself,” he recalls, “she once had me hold a mirror over my face so she could see herself climax.” The title track, “Bloody Kisses,” is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. You can almost hear the singer’s heart beat as he whispers, “A crimson pool so warm and deep/lulls me to an endless sleep/take your hand in mine/I will be brave/take me from this earth/an endless night/this, the end of life.” Add in a reworking of Seals and Crofts classic, “Summer Breeze.” and you have a collection of suicide anthems, loneliness and beautiful blasphemy. It is the most honest expression this side of Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor actually picked them himself to open the first leg of the NIN tour. So did Crue, as did Danzig and now they’re heading out with Pantera.
On December 4, 1994, I again talked to Type O on a cold and rainy night in Columbus, Ohio, and I found that they would not be home for the holidays since CD sales had increased – therefore so did concert dates. Drummer Johnny Kelly begs, “Please quit buying it so we can go home!” Nevertheless, they keep working.
Roadrunner recently released a video / CD package of music available at about $15.00. They also include a rendition of “Black Sabbath” on the Black Sabbath tribute collection, Nativity In Black. I was also informed that they just recorded soundtrack music for a vampire movie called “The Addiction,” due out later this year.
The following is a transcript of my conversation with Peter Steele, the near seven foot tall Lerch of a vocalist last summer, in the company of band members and Tommy Lee. We talked about sex, suicide, bad press, and Pete’s desire to disappear into the woods of Iceland and live with the wolves.
Peter: What magazine is this for?
Alex: Rock Out Censorship and a Goth ‘zine called 3rd Nail. (3rd Nail refused to print the interview after they decided Type O was making a mockery of Goth). Peter sees the tattoo on my right shoulder.
Peter: Is that a Sisters of Mercy tattoo?
Alex: That’s my favorite band. Actually, its my undying love for the Sisters that turned me onto your music. (Lots of noise in the background. The band is getting restless to buy beer on Sunday in Pennsylvania)
Peter: QUIET!!!
(Mike, the tour manager asks me where they can buy beer. Obviously the band wasn’t accommodated by the venue for their needs)
Alex: West Virginia is five miles away. You can buy alcohol there
Peter: West Vagina?
Alex: The first thing people ask me about Type O is, are they serious? Are you?
Peter: We are completely unserious. I mean, as you see, I say a lot of like, cornball stuff onstage, and off. We definitely don’t take ourselves as serious as people seem to think we do. You know, this is what it’s like. It’s not so much that we’re trying to sell albums. We like slow music. We like emotional music. So, we will never become trendoids. I can only speak for myself.
(The boys are laughing it up in the background. Kenny Hickey (guitarist) speaks up)
Kenny: He speaks for me as well.
Alex: A few years ago a review of Slow, Deep & Hard (Type O’s first LP) in Alternative Press (written by David M. Earle) said something to the effect that, “if Type O Negative is serious, they should rot in the maggot filled earth that their lives are. They should be castrated and be cooked alive with their genitals shoved in their mouths.” How does negative press like that affect the band?
Peter: Sells albums. Negative press is better than none. (At this point Steele’s voice goes from calm to furious as his eyes widen and bulge out as his face turns red in rage.) And, I’d like to point out that I wish the person that said that would say it to my face because I would ram my fucking genitals down his throat. (It quiets down. Kenny yells something out.) This is serious Ken! Anybody that ever slams this band never has the balls to say it to my face. NEVER! It’s always some dick 5,000 miles away with a big mouth, and I will catch each and every one of them and kill them with a fuckin’ Bic pen.
Tommy Lee: There are some questions you just don’t ask!
Peter: (continues) The pen is mightier than the sword. Suck my fuckin’ dick you fuckin’ cunt. I don’t care about fightin’. If I lose a fight, no fuckin’ big deal. I’ve got a lot of blood to shed. Politically Correct Fucking Cunts. Sorry Alex.
Alex: That’s okay. This is the kinda stuff I want on tape.
Kenny: I wanna beat that guy up in front of his family.
Alex: For those who don’t know, why did Type O Negative stir up so much controversy in Europe?
Peter: I did an interview one time with a German magazine over there and they were asking me how popular I thought Type O Negative were becoming in Europe. I said, at this point I think Type O Negative is more popular in Germany than Adolf Hitler. And it was pretty much the same thing John Lennon said about Jesus Christ. I thought I was being a funny guy, ‘cause I am actually funny. But, they don’t get it there. (Mocking a German accent), “Ah. Oh. So you are a fascist Mr. Steele!”
Alex: Is it true you were threatened?
Peter: All true. There were protests, bomb threats and riots, and it was great because it just sold albums for us.
Alex: What about your label?
Peter: True. They got bomb threats as well.
Alex: Why the change of attitude between Slow Deep & Hard and Bloody Kisses?
Peter: I think that three years would do the trick. We kinda grew up. We didn’t listen to hardcore anymore, and shit like that. And, when the band first got together, I guess it’s safe to say was in the ashes of my former band, Carnivore. So, we had to do a demo really quick and I pretty much wrote these songs in one night. So, it was like hardcore and sludge and shit like that.
Alex: You sound almost as though you regret that album.
Peter: I do because it was only supposed to be a demo. I was drunk and pissed and wrote that whole thing in four hours. Little did I know that demo would be pressed into an album. So, we were pretty much trapped into something I wrote in the span of of a few hours. That’s why there’s such a gap between Slow Deep & Hard and Bloody Kisses. If I had to do it over, Bloody Kisses would be the first album. I gave the world a really warped idea of what Type O Negative is.
Alex: One time you were quoted as saying, “I don’t think people who commit suicide are cowards. I think they are heroes, because they are taking a journey that nobody has come back from and nobody knows what’s there.” Do you condor Kurt Cobain a hero?
Peter: Yes. I do, actually. Yeah, I just wish he’d remembered to write me into his will, but you know, forgive and forget right Johnny?
Johnny Kelly: (drummer) I hear ya!
Alex: Do you consider suicide a solution?
Peter: Definitely. I don’t think life is sacred. I think that life is pretty much a waste of time, and part of being successful of anything is knowing when to bow out. I will never die of colon cancer or heart disease or a fucking brain tumor. When I become useless by my own standards, when I cannot function as a man, I’m going to take a swan dive off the World Trade Center…hopefully onto someone I hate.
Josh Silver: (keyboards) Next time he does it, I’m going to do it for him.
Alex: What kept you from succeeding in your suicide attempt?
Peter: I didn’t cut deep enough.
Alex: When you reflect on it, how do you feel now?
Peter: Well… (long pause – deep breath) it was a symbolic death. The person I was is certainly gone. I don’t consider myself yay person anymore. See. Here are the scars.
(Peter shows me his scars on his wrists. They are across the vein, instead of along it.)
Alex: You have to cut vertically on the vein (I demonstrate).
Peter: That’s what everyone tells me.
Alex: Some people, because of your band’s name, have interpreted you as pro rape. How do you feel about rape, date rape and marital rape?
Peter: Oh God, that’s a complex question. One that I’ve never given any thought to. Personally…when I am with a woman, what gives me pleasure is knowing she wants me. I would never force anybody to do anything. I don’t have to prove that I am a man and that I have to jump on her and fuck her brains out. If she jumps on me and fucks my brains out, that’s the ultimate compliment. So, I wait until that happens. I would never force anybody to do anything…I mean, look at the fuckin’ callouses on my hands.Do you think that’s from working out? No, it’s from jerking off. (He points to Josh) Look at the callouses on his feet. (Josh puts up his feet up and makes a high pitch whirling sound)
Josh: That’s from jerking him off!
Peter: Athletes’ dick!!!
(Very loud laughter all around)
Tommy Lee, who doesn’t jerk off, exits.
Alex: The woman you wrote about in the song, “Blood & Fire”, you mentioned once experimented on you with those two elements, Can you explain how?
Peter: Well, she was very much into cutting herself and cutting me. She was a female pyromaniac and every time she saw a fire, her pussy got wet. So, it was great around dinner time, sa she was cooking supper.
Alex: What about “Black #1?”
Peter: It’s an ode to a Goth girl who was so into herself that she once held a mirror over my face so she could see herself climax.
Alex: And who is the “Christian Woman?”
Peter: “Christian Woman” is the tale of a fifteen-year-old girl who, being Catholic, was told sex is bad. So, she goes to sleep every night looking at a half naked son of God on a crucifix until she eventually begins ti have sexual fantasies about him.
Alex: Did you intend to make an album that sounds so good?
Peter: Well, I take it you’re implying that the album is good.
Alex: That’s my opinion as a critic.
Peter: Every time I hear this album, I hear error. I hear things that are out of tune. I hear things that I wished I had done differently. I hear songs that are too long and boring. Uh, the next LP, which I think will be to Bloody Kisses to what Bloody Kisses is to Slow Deep & Hard. Um, and I would think it is probably gonna be 40% psychedelic, 40% Goth and 10% industrial. Maybe a little sprinkling of big band music in there.
Alex: Have the comparisons to Andrew Eldrich flattered you or offended you or both?
Peter: Well, it certainly flatters me. However, I never meant to sound like him. Maybe he’s trying to sound like me…I don’t know. Whenever you start to become successful, in publicist terms, they try to describe you by comparing you to things people know very well. So, you’re always going to be compared to something.
Alex: Other than The Beatles, where else does Type O Negative draw musical influences from?
Peter: I guess it’s obvious I should say Black Sabbath. Although, it’s very trendy to say that now. i write songs and pretty much let the guys add in what they wants long as it doesn’t take away from the main idea of the song. But the band is influenced by Sabbath, Beatles, 60’s psychedelic music, Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Judas Priest,
AC/DC, all the way up to Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. Everything I listen to influences me.
Alex: What about your original version of “Summer Breeze” (Which was titled “Summer Girl”)? Is your version of the song ever going to surface?
Peter: That’s a very hard question to answer. I mean, I would like to see the original version of “Summer Breeze” be reissued, simply because we could just rip off the public again. Give them something that’s already ready, with just different lyrics. But, I don’t think it’s going to happen because there hasn’t been any talk of it lately.
Alex: Are you anxious to get back to Europe?
Peter: Yes, because as you know, we have problems over there. I’m the type of person that when a problem exists I have to rectify it. It just eats at me. I really want to get over there and get it over with. I want to show people that I’m really not who they think I am, that we’re just here to play lousy music.
Alex: You’ve said in the past you would like to get away from everyone and build a home in the woods of Iceland and life with the wolves. Is this something you still want to do, or are you going to become the next big thing?
Peter: I’ve learned to never say never. As much as I have to stick with what I say, I may have to change my mind. I would still like to leave with a woman I feel I could spend the rest of my life with and spend our days pleasuring each other.
Alex: How was the tour with Nine Inch Nails?
Peter: The band will certainly disagree with me…As much as Nine Inch Nails treated us very well, their audience did not. As the band’s spokesman, I did not have a good time on stage. I felt more like Andrew Dice Clay than Peter Steele. I was just up there insulting people. They were this trendy, grungy, industrial crowd that just wanted to hear 120 beats per minute, not 20 beats per minute – which we play.
Alex: Anybody that listens to the lyrics would understand that Type O Negative and Nine Inch Nails are the ideal combo for a tour!
Peter: Well, yeah. I think Trent – when he requested us to go on tour – had sensed the emotion of the band. I mean, Nine Inch Nails is a very emotional band, which I can respect because I feel the same way. But, unfortunately, I think the audience is more narrow-minded than Reznor thought they would be, and just did not pick up on that.
Alex: On this tour with Motley Crue, Type O Negative is the only band really getting positive press about the set. How’d you end up opening for these guys?
Peter: Apparently, they requested us. They had picked up the Bloody Kisses CD and saw us with Nine Inch Nails and liked what they saw. I was a complete scumbag onstage. I was telling people what I thought and maybe they respected that.bYou know, we’re not trying to be anything but ourselves. But, that’s really hard because we don’t even know who we are.
Alex: Iggy Pop told me that the strangest thing that he’d been hit with onstage was the fist of a seven-foot mountain man. what’s the most fucked up thing you’ve been hit with?
Peter: A used tampon
Alex: That’s not so bad.
Peter: It hit me in the eye. I’ve been hit with bottles of course, and lit cigarettes. It hasn’t been that bad. No cinder blocks. So, I’ve lived through it all.
Alex: So, what’s going to happen after this tour?
Peter: I had a meeting with the label last week and asked them when they wanted a new product. They said by next September, in ’95. The problem with that is when are we going to record this thing? Spring or Summer? But that’s touring season, so I’d rather record around Christmas season, hopefully get the thing rolling for summer review. So, I’d like to come out with a new product. I’d like to play the U.S. some more, then Europe, be home for the holidays. I really care about my parents very much and I’d like to spend the holidays with them and my girlfriend.
Alex: Are you snd Josh going to produce the next LP or hire from the outside?
Peter: Well, Josh and I work very close together. Josh has a lot of recording experience. He’s a technician. I’m the guy with the ideas, and he helps me realize what I have in my head. So, I don’t think we’ll hire out because we’re too cheap.
Alex: I think the production on Bloody Kisses is phenomenal.
Peter: You should be familiar with Lycia. It’s dark, ambient Goth music. The last album is called A Day in the Stark Corner. I would like our next album to sound something like this. It is the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard in my life. If I put it on in the morning when I get up…I’m useless for the rest of the day. It makes me feel like killing myself. It’s like, why even bother getting dressed hen I can just slit my wrists. Such simple hypnotic beats. Everything in drowned in reverb, yet the emotion comes through so loud and clear. It’s just devastatingly beautiful, as beautiful as it is devastating. That’s how I want it to come through.
LYCIA Press release from projekt records 1995 quoting MK ULTRA issue #1
LYCIA order form from projekt records 1995 quoting MK ULTRA issue #1