Wolfshead : Interviews : Pete Steele of Type O Negative

Hey you're wearing a Foetus shirt, you like his stuff, I've worked with him, there was this person called Kat from Babes in Toyland who was associated with Tim Carr and they were doing a soundtrack for the comic book Witchblade and they asked me to write a couple of songs and to sing on there and play bass and Jim Foetus was also invited to do that so I had an opportunity to work with him which was nice and I also found out he lives in downtown Brooklyn like 10 mins away from me. This was last Xmas and it's on Warner it came out pretty well considering there was no rehearsal, I have never done that with Type O we're rehearsed, every note, we know exactly what we're playing, every note

How's touring with Coal Chamber been going?
Very good, they're great guys and one great lady of course in the band and I think we complement each other very well.

A lot of people think you're strange bedfellows
I've always found that interesting, my ultimate, I would love to see a concert of Dead Can Dance, Devo and Laibach I mean I would work for free at that show because it would be so, these are my three favourite bands and they're all different it'd be eclectic but it's good to expose people to new types of music like, I never found it interesting to have three thrash bands all together, its kind of boring but I'm not saying you put like a reggae band on with a punk band, I mean not going too far but similar types of music, although Devo compared to Laibach, that might be as broad as reggae and punk.

I bet you like Laibach
We actually were supposed to play with them in Austria a couple of years ago and that was the only show we had to cancel and it was the only show I was looking forward to, because someone didn't do their homework and we realised if we played that show we'd not be able to make it to the next show because of the distance, too far and I was like- fuck man that's the one show I wanted to play

You've got a new stage set no more nice trees
With the new album we wanted it to appear to be like a shipyard built underneath the Brooklyn bridge, to be somewhat harder, not as lush, not as nice and also trying to play down the sex symbol thing, that got played out really quickly, no more muscle shirts and shit like that , now we just try and come out and look like four average guys

Do you regret doing the Playgirl thing that people have taken that image and..
No I don't, actually when I agreed to it, I told them I was gonna be hard and everyone was like-yeah right and I was and that kind of impressed a lot of people. I mean I don't subscribe to PlayGirl but when I look through it, every other guy was flaccid, I'm like - what is this, what sense does this make, you wanna see the peacock in full bloom, you don't wanna see it half mast or less but we've got a new following due to that and that's gay males. I never expected to appeal to males and I've done signings at stores where guys would come up to me with that issue and the pages would be all stuck together and some of them would even be damp and I'd go this is nice! To be found attractive by men or by women is still the same compliment, I have no problem with anybody's sexuality it's just my next tattoo is going to be over my asshole saying exit only just to make sure

You were saying if this album isn't successful you were going to go off and become a civil engineer, firstly what does a civil engineer do?
Designs bridges, parks, tunnels, dams, giant structures

Like an architect?
Kinda, like mega architecture but more functional than ascetic, I might, I haven't given this album a chance yet to decide whether or not I'd like to skip town, but at the same time I have to give Roadrunner one more album to fulfil my contract. I mean if I left Type O or we broke up whatever, I wouldn't want it hanging over my head, I'd want it to be the end of a chapter but I also have to point out I mentioned that in a couple of interviews and so now I'm being interviewed about other interviews so this has become a very popular question and I think really I was just having a really bad day and I was fed up

And you've concerned millions of people
Yeah, oh Peter don't quit man and then there's people going- god I hope he quits, I hope he dies but sometimes when I get off the phone with the record company and I've had a hard time with them and then I have to do a interview, what am I supposed to do, I'm pissed off and it's like people think that I'm a chronic complainer but the thing is what defines a complaint is like unwarranted comment, let's put it this way, I only voice my opinion when I'm asked so its not like I go around saying fuck the record company or fuck this. I don't do that, it's only because I'm asked and its a very common question so if people think I'm complaining well then they should stop asking me questions

Well that's an angle the press are gonna take-oh he was so miserable..
Well the press isn't here to do me any favours it's here to sell magazines and one thing that really upsets me is biased journalism. I think it should be very factual, I don't like the journalists opinions in between, I think I should just be quoted verbatim because what happens is, I don't get a chance to respond to the journalists opinion, so they write the last word which irritates me because then if they say something negative, I don't have a chance to defend myself so it's kinda frustrating

Kenny seemed much more active singing and jumping around on-stage
That's because he's clean and sober now, he's much happier lately, he's got a new daughter and myself, Johnny and Josh we have to stay in one place, he's the only one that can move because I'm singing 90% of the time and when I'm not it's only a matter of seconds before I have to go back to the microphone so I can't run around on stage plus I like to stand still so I make it easier for people to hit me with foreign objects!! Kenny doesn't like to be hit. I was hit in the head last night with a can of beer but I've been hit with worse things like a used tampon, which I was on stage wearing a tank top and I felt something hot hit me in the chest and I thought it was spit, like someone spat on me and I looked down and there was a streak of blood and I saw the tail of the tampon so I stopped the song, reached down and pulled it up (sniffed it) and said-no its not type o negative and threw it back into the audience and this kid catches it and his friend does a high five - yeah you got it. I'm like-let that dry out it'll make a nice cup of tea brother

You don't think that's the whole vampire thing?
No I don't think it was the teeth, some woman just didn't like me and wanted to show it

You don't think that was some bizarre sexual advance?
it could have been, I don't think so, it's kind of a waste product I don't go flinging my faeces on people when I'm attracted to them

What did you actually do when you worked for the Parks dept?
Anything that had to be done in a park, raking leaves, painting, breaking up concrete, picking up garbage, shovelling snow, ploughing, I loved it because I was outside but it was kinda like a dead-end job for me because I'd taken a civil service exam to become a parks supervisor and back in NY we have racial quotas, where they have to hire so many minorities and so I was passed over three times, the children shouldn't have to pay for the sins of the fathers and I thought it was bullshit and I was like I'm outta here, fuck this

D' you ever get to the countryside when you're touring?
What I like to do if I ever get free time is to go and do the tourist thing, there's so much history here in Europe, we don't have history in the States an old house in the States is like 1850, an old house here is 1400, that's an old fucking house. I think I'd rather live in Europe because there's more history and more culture, it's cool to have different languages, the States is just kinda bland

Pete looks wistfully out of the window at Hyde Park
See the guy in the park over there, that's exactly what I would do, raking leaves, that guy looks happy...

Have you put more muscle weight on?
I haven't worked out in a week because of the schedule here, so I mean I'm kinda flattered that you say that because I feel like I'm losing muscle tone when I'm home I eat more and I drink more alcohol than I do on the road, I think I'm just fucking bored, fridge is always there, bar's always open so I tend to put on weight but when I tour I drop like ten pounds, usually just because you can't find food when you want it, after 10pm London shuts down, after shows I'm ravenous and I found out the hard way that there's no food in London. I've got low blood sugar so if I don't eat I start to shake and I get cranky and tired usually on tour I have a box of protein bars I carry one and just pop them if I feel shaky and it calms me down makes me into a human being again

Why d'you like weight training for the rush of it?
No I do it for sheer vanity. I think one of the worst things is when a band is on stage and they look disgusting, out of shape. I think music should not just be a sonic thing, it should be a visual thing. I would rather look at somebody that's in shape than someone who's been eating donuts for the last 45 years. I don't have anything against fat people, but in music, especially bass players when they play bass and they're heavy they hold them really high and have a tit that hangs over the top of the bass and I'm like-hey you should buy a bra! It has health benefits too, if I get into a fight which is almost never no one ever confronts me face to face usually, but I don't cause problems unless somebody's drunk and wants to be an asshole

Did you ever play American football, like at school?
I played football and hockey in the street, but I preferred volley ball. See when I was in high school I was almost a hundred pounds lighter, I weigh 255 now, when I was in high school I was 170lbs, so I had no meat on me, so volleyball was perfect because I was tall and I could jump and I liked it. I also like swimming, jogging, when I'm at home I jog just to keep the weight off, hockey, I like contact sports. I like football. American -baseball is like a pussy sport, there's no bodily contact, I'm sorry I'm a violent person, I got balls for a reason

D'you like rugby?
Yeah but first I'd have to understand the game, I watch it on TV and I'm like- what the fuck is going on here? It looks like someone dropped a quarter and they're all looking for it

We think this about American football
Yeah I guess it's an acquired taste, I'm sure if I was over here I'd be a big fan of rugby and soccer. I don't like cricket, golf, bowling, I don't play cards, I don't gamble, it just doesn't appeal to me, if I want to gamble I'll have sex without a condom, those are stakes, your life now that's a roll of the dice