Type O Negative

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Type O Negative
Left to right: Silver, Steele, Kelly, Hickey
Left to right: Silver, Steele, Kelly, Hickey
Background information
Origin Brooklyn, New York, USA
Genre(s) Heavy metal, Gothic-doom metal
Years active 1990–present
Label(s) Roadrunner Records, SPV
Associated
acts		 Carnivore
Website Official Site
Members
Peter Steele
Josh Silver
Kenny Hickey
Johnny Kelly
Former members
Sal Abruscato

Type O Negative is a gothic doom metal band from Brooklyn, New York. The band is well known for its dry, morbid and self-ironic sense of humor and their often slow and brooding music. The band rose from the ashes of Carnivore and gained significant popularity with most of their released albums and their often relentless touring schedule, despite a lack of mainstream radio play and little support from music television. Their popularity grew in 1993 with their now legendary opus, Bloody Kisses, however this mainstream popularity was fleeting. It remains to be seen whether or not they will regain the fame that they had in the mid 90s, with their first album of new material in 4 years (scheduled for release sometime in 2007).

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Fallout & Carnivore

Type O Negative’s origins lie in Fallout, formed in the early eighties by then teenager Peter Steele. He was joined by fellow teen and Brooklyn native, Josh Silver. The band released one EP in 1981, titled Batteries Not Included. It enjoyed modest success on college radio.

Shortly thereafter, Silver left Fallout to form Original Sin, which sounded like most eighties hair metal bands at the time, with a new wave twist. Meanwhile, Steele went on to found the thrash metal band, Carnivore. Carnivore spent much of the mid-eighties terrorizing concert goers at various venues in and around the East Coast, including the CBGBs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and the now defunct L’amours in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The band’s lyrics were harsh and very politically incorrect, dealing with race, religion, war and misogyny. The band's sound included elements of speed metal mixed in with hardcore break downs and a three-chord punk rock sensibility.

Following the release of their second album, Retaliation, Carnivore went on hiatus, as Steele decided to pursue the more stable and lucrative career of working for the New York City Department of Parks. In 1989, after two years of looking after hedges in Prospect Park, he was forced out of retirement by long time friend, Sal Abruscato, Type O Negative’s original drummer. Soon after, Silver was convinced to join the band, with fellow childhood friend, Kenny Hickey, following suit. They originally named themselves "Sub-Zero," but soon discovered this was already taken. After an extensive search through the Yellow Pages for potential band names, they all agreed upon Type O Negative to best describe their sound. The band released a demo which caught the ear of record executives at Roadrunner Records - the premiere American label for metal and hard rock in the late eighties and early nineties. Roadrunner signed the band to a five album record deal, and in 1991, the band quickly recorded and released their debut, Slow Deep and Hard.

[edit] Slow Deep and Hard

Slow Deep and Hard was just that; dragging dirge riffs, interspersed with maniacal punk-metal outbursts, and droning industrial and gothic atmospheres. The songs were long, multi-part theatrical epics, with lyrical topics ranging from heartbreak, to getting revenge on a cheating lover, contemplating suicide, and unleashing a massive diatribe on the left wing political agenda. Their first tour also landed the band into a lot of trouble, especially in Europe, where political leaders labeled them Nazis and Hitler sympathizers (regarded as ironic by the band, considering that Josh Silver is Jewish).

[edit] The Origin of the Feces

Back in the States, Roadrunner Records held Type O Negative to a contractual obligation of recording a live album. With the money they received from the label to facilitate the recording of said album at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, the band instead used it for buying cheap vodka, and re-recording their debut in Silver’s basement. They later dubbed in live noises, and improvised a fake “fight” between the band and the hostile “crowd”. Entitled The Origin of the Feces (a take on Charles Darwin’s case for evolution, The Origin of the Species), a warning label was put on the album cover: "Not Live At Brighton Beach." Roadrunner was not amused with the prank, but went ahead and released the album in 1992 anyway.

[edit] Bloody Kisses

Their sophomore effort, Bloody Kisses, was released in 1993 to critical and listener acclaim. The thrash metal and ranting from the first album was all but gone, and the band had made huge strides in the progression of their musical style. The Beatles proved to be an accurate reference point, as they incorporated the psychedelic mysticism and melodies of the legendary sixties rockers mid-period work, with particular emphasis on their Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper’s catalogue, along with a growing influence from The Sisters of Mercy.

Bloody Kisses mostly addressed loneliness and heartbreak, with songs like “Too Late: Frozen”, “Blood & Fire”, and “Cant Lose You” all being tributes to long lost loves. The organ-driven “Set me on Fire” is vintage sixties garage rock, showcasing the band’s keen sense of melody. The title track is a Romeo & Juliet retelling of a love/suicide pact. The two singles, “Christian Woman” and “Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)” were more radio friendly and accessible, after having been edited down to more radio-friendly lengths (the album versions of these songs were 8½ and 11 minutes long, respectively), with heavy guitars and bass combining with ethereal keyboards and gloomy melodies.

In order to promote the album, the band embarked on a grueling two-year world tour. Much to their good fortune, there were no protests this time around, and Bloody Kisses eventually racked up worldwide sales in the millions and was certified Platinum in the USA. This was a first for an underground metal band on the Roadrunner label, and the diligence and sacrifice the band had put in for three years were now beginning to pay off. Brief features on MTV, VH1, Rolling Stone Magazine, amongst various other mainstream musical media outlets, followed. In the midst of this media blitz, drummer Sal Abruscato quit the band to join another Brooklyn hard rock quartet, Life of Agony. Johnny Kelly, the band’s drum technician, was therefore hired as a full fledged member.

Bloody Kisses was re-released a year after the original release, in Digipak form, and it included eight of the less goofy tracks from the original along with the previous unreleased vampiric ode "Suspended In Dusk."

[edit] October Rust

This unexpected success brought the burden and pressure of recording a worthy successor to Bloody Kisses. The record label, suddenly capitalizing on the revenue being generated by Type O Negative, began pressuring Steele and company to write even more commercial sounding songs, specifically for the purpose of making money and augmenting their bottom line. The band protested, and refused to sell out. According to many fans, by striking a balance between the commercial and the creative, the band combined the two, and the result was the album October Rust. Picking up where Bloody Kisses left off, the album continued to explore themes of sex and sensuality. The album incorporated ambient keyboards, cold guitar melodies, and noticeable bass guitar, all subordinated to Steele’s basso profundo vocals. Songs such as “Love You to Death”, “Be My Druidess”, “Green Man”, “Die With Me”, and “Haunted” all combined goth, rock, and new wave styles. While not quite the success that Bloody Kisses was, the album was certified Gold in the U.S. It was also the first album of theirs to enter the top half of the Billboard Top 200, debuting at No.42.

[edit] World Coming Down

With the completion of another successful world tour, the band began writing and recording their fourth album. In the period immediately following the release of October Rust, Steele experienced several deaths in his immediate family, and he began drinking heavily to mask the bereavement and pain. This epoch of self-loathing would eventually manifest itself in the next album, entitled World Coming Down, which was released in 1999. The overall vibe of the album was a significant change from the pop inflected and airy nature of October Rust: this time the band revisited the more doom and dirge oriented sounds from Slow Deep & Hard, and the result was an honest (if difficult) tone, where the band seemed to wallow in their misery. This time around, instead of sex, the lyrics focused on death, drug addiction, depression, and suicide. Songs such as “Everyone I Love is Dead,” “Everything Dies,” “World Coming Down,” and “All Hallows Eve” were not meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but rather, real life reflections of the mindset affecting Steele at the time. It was nowhere near as accessible as Bloody Kisses or October Rust. Despite the morbid subject matter, World Coming Down debuted at #39 on the Billboard 200 charts.

[edit] The Least Worst of Type O Negative

Type O Negative released a 'Best of' album in 2000, entitled The Least Worst of Type O Negative. Although most songs appear on previous albums, many are unreleased remixes or remixes that were B-sides on previously-released singles. Along with these songs are some unreleased numbers from the World Coming Down sessions. Also available is the band's cover of "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath, and a cleaner officially studio version of "Hey Pete", which was originally released on the mock live album "Origin of the Feces".

[edit] Life Is Killing Me

Type O Negative released their sixth studio album, Life Is Killing Me in 2003. For this album, the band picked up the pace of their sound from the dirgeful slowness of World Coming Down, while still keeping the slow, deep and hard Type O Negative sound. Songs such as "Todd's Ship Gods," "(We Were)Electrocute," and "I Don't Wanna Be Me" convey the band's by now classic elements of length and melody. A humorous cover of the song "Angry Inch" from the film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, detailing a sex change operation gone terribly wrong, marks the band's return to its trademark humor that had been absent on their previous album.

[edit] Forthcoming Seventh Studio Album

As of August 2006, Type O Negative is in the studio recording for their new album. According to Revolver Magazine, the album should be complete in early 2007. The album will be called "Dead Again".

[edit] Members

  • Peter Steele – Lead vocals, bass guitar, guitar, and keyboards
  • Josh Silver – Keyboards, synth, effects, programming, backing vocals
  • Kenny Hickey – Lead & rhythm guitars, backing vocals
  • Johnny Kelly – Drums, percussion, backing vocals (1994–)

[edit] Former members

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

[edit] Live

[edit] Compilations

[edit] DVDs/Videos

  • 1994 For When It Rains (Roadrunner Records) (VHS) (20,000 "limited edition" video released as an add-on to the Bloody Kisses Digi-pack)
  • 1998/2000 After Dark (Roadrunner Records) (VHS)and(DVD)(documentary/video collection)(RIAA Certified: Gold)
  • 2006 Symphony for the Devil (Steamhammer/SPV)

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Names

  • Working titles for the album World Coming Down included "Prophets Of Doom" and "Aggroculture".
  • The band's original name was Subzero, but this was changed to Type O Negative after discovering that a friend's band had started calling themselves Subzero first. They were also known as Repulsion for a brief period.
  • The band's current name was chosen because all four original members had already tattooed the Subzero logo on their arm, which is an O with a negative symbol inside it.
  • The album Life Is Killing Me was originally titled The Dream Is Dead after the name of the closing song. This led some fans to believe that the band was retiring or breaking up. This proved to be untrue.
  • An early working title for Bloody Kisses was "Things Worse Than Death (And Other Acts of God)".
  • Before the title "Dead Again" was chosen for the forthcoming album, the working title was "Profit$ Of Doom".

[edit] Behaviour

  • Peter Steele's signature actions during a concert include playing a stand-up bass with a large chain instead of a normal bass guitar; Steele, who is over 6'6", was able to pull this off by regularly working out. This gimmick was mostly used on the Bloody Kisses tour (1993-95), but it has occasionally been seen since then.
  • The band regularly tunes their guitars to B (tunings run thus: BEADF#B for guitars, BEAD for bass — close to the same tuning as used for 7-string guitars and 5-string basses respectively), rather than the traditional E (which would run EADGBE for guitars, EADG for bass). This enables the band to achieve a heavier sound.
  • The band like to refer to themselves as 'The Drab Four', in homage to The Beatles' 'Fab Four' moniker. On the reverse side of one T-shirt they referred to themselves as 'the Rehab Four.' They also cover three Beatles songs in a medley on World Coming Down. The Origin of the Feces concludes with the same chord and looped sound as the ending of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
  • Frontman Peter Steele has appeared naked in Playgirl. The band's bio states that the rest of the band "laugh[ed] themselves into seizures after Hickey [found] out through his publishing world contacts that [only] 23% of the magazine's subscribers are female". [1] Steele was reportedly "very disheartened" when he found out about the magazine's demographics.
  • The My Girlfriend's Girlfriend and Love You To Death music videos were banned by MTV according to the After Dark documentary although they might be considered tame by today's standards.
  • Johnny Kelly may sometimes be referred to as the "brown" member of Type O Negative. This is due to Johnny being the only member of the band who can be associated with regularly smiling on stage, a characteristic not commonly found in the black world of Type O Negative.


[edit] Soundtracks

  • The "Out of the Ashes" remix of "Blood and Fire" present on the Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack (1995) can also be found on the bonus CD of Life Is Killing Me.
  • The computer game Descent 2 features a shortened, instrumental version of the track "Haunted".
  • The soundtrack compilation for Duke Nukem: Music To Score By features "Cinnamon Girl (extended depression mix)".
  • The Blood computer game by Monolith Productions features the track "Love You to Death".
  • The song "Haunted" appears on The Blair Witch Project 'soundtrack' CD. The CD didn't feature music that was in the movie, but was supposed to contain music from a "tape that was found in the woods with the lost people's gear." The flaw with that plot point is that the film takes place in 1994, while "Haunted" wasn't released until 1996.
  • Their music can be found throughout Nosferatu: The First Vampire, in an edition of the classic 1922 vampire movie. This version can be found on the Trio of Terror DVD.
  • The movie I Know What You Did Last Summer contained their rendition of "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts as the intro theme.
  • The song "Love you to Death", appeared in the soundtrack to the horror film Bride of Chucky.
  • The 2003 film Freddy Vs. Jason contained the song (We Were) Electrocute from the album Life Is Killing Me.
  • The "Out of the Fire" track that was a remix of "Out of the Ashes" & "Blood and Fire" that appeared on the Life is Killing Me Bonus CD was a theme created for WWE Superstar Kane but was not used. Instead Finger Eleven's un-released track "Slow Chemical" was used for his return theme in 2002. Many wrestling fans would recognize the organ intro that's used in the previous Kane themes.
  • In 1998 Dreamworks released an album titled Songs of the Witchblade where Peter Steele appears on 2 tracks. He plays Bass and co-sings vocals on track 2 "go to sleep" with Babes in Toyland singer Kat Bjelland, and Co-singer on track 12 "Apocalypticraft/Tunnel" with Hope Nicholls and Kat Bjelland

[edit] Covers

Studio-recorded covers include:

  • A reworked rendition of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid"; the tongue-in-cheek "Angry Inch" (from Hedwig and the Angry Inch); Status Quo's "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" with Ozzy Osbourne; two versions of "Black Sabbath" (one with the original lyrics and one rewritten by Peter Steele to be from Satan's perspective); Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" (remade as "Hey Pete" and woven into a multiple-song story arc); Deep Purple's "Highway Star"; a Beatles´ medley with:' "Day Tripper","If I Needed Someone" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"; Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl"; Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze" (an unauthorized version of which, featuring modified lyrics by Peter Steele, is called "Summer Girl," and includes the TON-original outro "Set Me On Fire").
  • A medley of Santana's "Evil Ways", "Oye Como Va", and "Black Magic Woman" available on the CD accompanying their DVD "Symphony for the Devil".
  • Other covers performed live include: The Doors' "Light My Fire" (which Steele described as "probably the greatest song ever written" before apologizing for having "destroyed it" - true to TON's self-deprecating sense of humor);Black Sabbath's "N.I.B." and The Beatles´"Back in the USSR".
  • Incorrectly attributed covers include: Sarah McLachlan's "Possession"; Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"; and Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time". The mistaken version of "Possession" was actually a purposely TON-style recording made in 1996 by Dino Covelli's Mad Machinery as a school project which later began circulating the internet through Napster. One Nirvana 'cover' is the cover done by band The Wounded, who share strong similarities to TON, while another version is actually Nirvana jokingly playing in a gothic rock style from a Broadcast on the BBC TV show "Top of the Pops". Other cover songs appear to be faked by speeding up or slowing down the original artists' recordings.
  • The song "Angel" is sometimes incorrectly credited to TON. This song was actually recorded in 1995 by Astral Sleep
  • A cover of the Rolling Stones song "Paint it Black" thought to be by Type O Negative was released by a band named Rage on their "XIII" album. Other Rolling Stones covers are circulating saying that they are recorded by Type O Negative, however they did not record them.

[edit] Album cover artwork

  • The cover art for the initial version of Origin of the Feces was an extreme close up of frontman Peter Steele's anus with his hands spreading his buttocks. Later pressings featured different artwork. (original artwork; not safe for work) (revised artwork)
  • The album cover for Slow Deep and Hard is a distorted and fuzzed out image of sexual penetration. (Slow Deep and Hard album cover)
  • On the back of each album it says it's a "product of Vinnland". Peter Steele has his own story about how America was discovered and then abandoned by Norse people.

[edit] Phlogiston Verdigris

An individual named Phlogiston Verdigris has been mentioned by the band in at least two different contexts. He is mentioned as the conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra in the liner notes for Bloody Kisses, and the quote, "Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not" is attributed to him on the back of the The Least Worst of Type O Negative.

The name "Phlogiston Verdigris" could be interpreted as a stand-in for the two common colors in Type O Negative album covers and merchandise:

  • orange - Once the basis for a popular chemical theory, "phlogiston" is defined by Wiktionary as "the hypothetical fiery principle formerly assumed to be a necessary constituent of combustible bodies and to be given up by them in burning". [2]
  • green - On the other hand, "verdigris" is defined by Wiktionary as "a blue-green powder, copper acetate, that forms as a patina on copper, brass or bronze that has weathered; also used as a paint pigment" [3]. The chemical makeup of verdigris is (Cu(C2H3O2)2 . 2Cu(OH)2) Copper II acetate di-copper II hydroxide.

[edit] Bensonhoist Lesbian Choir

Also appearing on all albums, on backup vocals, is The Bensonhoist Lesbian Choir. In reality this is another liner note gimmick, as the "Choir" is actually just all of the other members of Type O Negative performing harmonized or synchronized backup vocals. "Bensonhoist" is the neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, rendered in the local dialect.

[edit] External links

Type O Negative
Peter Steele | Josh Silver | Kenny Hickey | Johnny Kelly
Sal Abruscato
Discography
Albums: Slow Deep and Hard | The Origin of the Feces | Bloody Kisses | October Rust | World Coming Down | Life Is Killing Me
Compilations: Least Worst Of | The Best of Type O Negative
Live Albums: Symphony for the Devil
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