{"id":14288,"date":"2025-07-17T18:26:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=14288"},"modified":"2025-07-17T18:26:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:26:38","slug":"johnny-kelly-is-really-surprised-by-type-o-negatives-enduring-popularity-its-pretty-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=14288","title":{"rendered":"JOHNNY KELLY Is ‘Really Surprised’ By TYPE O NEGATIVE’s Enduring Popularity: ‘It’s Pretty Crazy’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a new interview with\u00a0The Metal Summit<\/a>, former\u00a0TYPE O NEGATIVE<\/strong>\u00a0drummer\u00a0Johnny Kelly<\/strong>\u00a0was asked if he is surprised by the fact that\u00a0TYPE O<\/strong>\u00a0is still as popular as it is, a decade and a half after the death of the band’s frontman\u00a0Peter Steele<\/strong>\u00a0from heart failure at the age of 48. He responded (as transcribed by\u00a0BLABBERMOUTH.NET<\/strong>): “It’s pretty mind-blowing, I have to admit. I’m really surprised by it because I never \u2014 none of us \u2014 ever thought about the band ever having any kind of legacy or where we were leaving something behind. While we were doing the band, while the band was active, everything that we did, we always thought that this would be the last thing we ever did, and that would be the end of it. The band will fall apart, the band will break up or whatever, and we’ll just disappear and go get jobs and get on with the rest of our lives. We never thought that the band would last as long as it did. And now, after\u00a0Peter<\/strong>\u00a0being gone for 15 years, and people are still talking about the band. It’s pretty crazy. We never thought that, we never thought that there would be any kind of legacy or anything. We figured that all the records would wind up in the used bin and it would just be that moment in time where it was, like, ‘Oh, yeah, that band from back then. I remember them.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drummer Sal Abruscato<\/strong> was a co-founder of TYPE O NEGATIVE<\/strong>, along with Steele<\/strong>. After Abruscato<\/strong> left TYPE O NEGATIVE<\/strong> in 1993, following the release of the band’s third album, “Bloody Kisses”<\/strong>, he was replaced by Kelly<\/strong>, who remained with the band until Steele<\/strong> died. After Steele<\/strong>‘s death, TYPE O NEGATIVE<\/strong> formally broke up, with members stating that the band could not continue without Peter<\/strong>, who had served as the TYPE O NEGATIVE<\/strong> leader and main songwriter since the group’s formation over two decades earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steele<\/strong> was born Petrus T. Ratajczyk<\/strong> on January 4, 1962 in Brooklyn, New York. He stood 6′ 7″ (201 cm) tall, and had a low, bass-heavy voice, which was one of the most recognizable features in TYPE O NEGATIVE<\/strong>‘s music.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Before forming TYPE O NEGATIVE<\/strong>, Steele<\/strong> played for the metal group FALLOUT<\/strong> and the thrash band CARNIVORE<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2020 interview with Meltdown<\/strong> of Detroit’s WRIF<\/strong> radio station, Kelly<\/strong> remembered Steele<\/strong>, saying: “Peter<\/strong>, for the most part, he was a clown. He was always joking around \u2014 sarcastic, very self-deprecating humor. Just the opposite of what the music portrayed. When we were working on music and stuff, the end result, he was very serious about what he wanted, how he wanted something to sound. Other times, he was a clown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I always said that he wanted to be a normal person, but because he was Peter<\/strong>, that was just not in the cards for him; it was completely impossible,” he continued. “I bet he would love to just be able to hang out, go to the bar, have a few drinks. And we would try to do that, and the minute he would come out to the bar, everybody gravitated towards him. He couldn’t go to the store by his house without something happening to him.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if that was because of Peter<\/strong>‘s size, Johnny<\/strong> said: “I think so. He just had this very striking look. He didn’t look normal. And he had fangs. [Laughs<\/em>] He was six and a half feet tall, [had] long black hair and fangs. You’re not gonna get the normal response when you’re going grocery shopping.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a new interview with\u00a0The Metal Summit, former\u00a0TYPE O NEGATIVE\u00a0drummer\u00a0Johnny Kelly\u00a0was asked if he is surprised by the fact that\u00a0TYPE O\u00a0is still as popular as it is, a decade and a half after the death of the band’s frontman\u00a0Peter Steele\u00a0from heart failure at the age of 48. He responded (as transcribed by\u00a0BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It’s pretty mind-blowing,… Read More »JOHNNY KELLY Is ‘Really Surprised’ By TYPE O NEGATIVE’s Enduring Popularity: ‘It’s Pretty Crazy’<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14291,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288\/revisions\/14291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}