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When it comes to women, would you rather date a fan or a girl who has no idea who you are?

Peter: "I would rather date someone who has no idea who I am because, at that point, we have something in common because I have no fuckin' idea who I am. If it's somebody I meet at a show, it's only because of the lighting that I look really good on stage. l'm 461 years old. My face is falling off. My colostomy bag is leaking. I fell outside. I broke my hip. I have an ingrown toe nail. My cable company shut the service off. And nobody can help me."

~Peter Steele~ Grimore of Exalted Deeds 2003

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"Well, one of my favorite things in life- besides sɛx, of course- is food. As a band member, because the food here sucks, I suggest packing a very large lunch and eating a very large breakfast. As a fan- and once again, the food does suck- bring about a week's worth of food with you."

**Someone hands over a fast-food bag**

"I love doing product endorsements. I get all this stuff for free now!"

Peter Steele at the Dynamo Open Air Festival 3/6/1995 MTV interview

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With that type of control and all of Type O Negative's accomplishments, you still disdain the "rockstar lifestyle" and you don't like to think of yourself as someone "important." Why?

Peter: "It's hysterical to me that people are trying to make me into something so important that they have to analyze everything I say. And that's really funny to me because I'm no one. I always have to laugh when magazines ask musicians serious questions, because they [musicians] are the stupidest people on Earth. I think that a being a musician is a worthless occupation and I definitely don't think that many of the rising bands should be where they are. You know why most guys are in bands? Because they can't do anything else - they're useless. They're into drugs, foolin' around, they want to travel, etc."

So to escape that "fan idolization" that's bound to happen, what do you do onstage when you realize that there are many, many fans out there treating you like you are someone important?

Peter: "Usually, I have to become someone else onstage. I am absolutely not thinking about the 5000 pairs of eyes on me and what they're thinking. If I did start to think about it, I would feel like someone had just been de-skinned and their skin was put on me - cold, clammy, and stinky."

~Peter Steele~ The Island Ear, 1994

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"I loved women so much that it was easy for them to hurt me. I don't mean to say that women are bad. ALL people are bad. I HATE people. I'm not racist, because I myself am of Icelandic-Scottish-Russian-Polish origin. No, I hate the 'human race' as such. Black, White, Asian or from Iceland, I hate you. And do you know why? Because you are a human and will use every opportunity to destroy me. I don't trust anyone. I was hurt very much by some women that I really loved. One after the other, of course- I never had a harem or anything. I trusted them, and they fucked my best friend, for example. When you are with a woman, not just sexually, but very passionately, you say all these beautiful things to each other and there are actually two hearts that belong together. It's unbelievable when something like that happens. How can you do that?"

~Peter Steele~ Rock Hard Interview 1998

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Pete: "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn. We do all the things that go along with being a neighborhood guy. I love going food shopping. I go to what I call Psycho Pathmark because I go at like 4 o'clock in the morning when all of my people are there. Like the Dawn of the Dead, people will just wander in and walk around. We just look at each other and think Yes, we are one. But they don't buy anything. I like to put my feet up on the shopping cart and go down the aisle as fast as I can and smash into things. But every time I'm buying toilet paper, that's when fans come over to me. I'm like, 'Yes, I shit too.' Sometimes I like to experiment with human nature because everybody has to look into everyone else's cart. I’m like, 'What the f*ck you looking at? You can't have that, that's mine.' But they have to look in your cart especially if you look like me, 6'8", long black hair, fangs, green eyes. I’m going to buy 100 fucking Swanson TV dinners and vaginal pads just to see peoples reactions. You can go ahead of me in line and I'll be waiting outside for you."

So was recording this album different because you are different?

Pete: All my songwriting comes from exaggerated life experiences because my life is actually really boring. I was talking about TV dinners, I really want to marry Mrs. Swanson because if she f*cks like she cooks, I know what I’m going to get every night. It would be fucking great. Do you want to hear about what I had for f*cking cooking dinner or dusting f*cking bookshelves and all this other stuff? Nah, so I have to exaggerate to make a fucking point. I have been with some women who I have unfortunately chosen to love. But I don't hate women; I don't hate men; I hate the entire human f*cking race. I hate myself most because I'm part of it. I'm the worst part of it. I know I'm a f*cking piece of shit I know I'm just a pile of protoplasm. My function in life is to turn food into shit."

~Peter Steele~ SuicideGirls Interview 2007

[Note: yes, we all know he didn't have green eyes in real life. I sometimes think that Pete tried to protect his privacy by only talking about his 'persona', not the 'real' Peter. But, that's just a guess.]

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“World Coming Down is one of the most depressing, low albums I have ever heard,” Josh Silver said when I interviewed him in 2011 for the liner notes of the None More Negative box set. “And that’s why I love it. Peter was really getting into some deep, treacherous feelings. He’s talking about the agony of drug addiction and the pain of losing family members. It just rips your guts out to hear it because it was true. He was really coming from the heart.”

You can hear the pain on album opener “White Slavery,” a grueling and majestic doom-dirge that opens with the sound of someone snorting a line.

“I remember there were some discussions about maybe changing some lyrics to make it a little bit more ambiguous,” Kelly says. “But when those discussions came up, it started becoming a fight where Peter would be personally insulted. The next day, after the dust settled, he would say, ‘I thought about what you said, and I came up with an idea.’ And the idea was usually, ‘Kenny, you’re going to sing that part.’”

“That happened all the time,” Hickey concurs. Hence, the guitarist’s co-lead vocal appearance on “All Hallows Eve.” It was a trend that would continue for the next several years. “Why do you think I sing [on] ‘Life Is Killing Me’? It’s because I complained about the chorus. I thought it was not strong enough. It was not his best melody. I thought he should rewrite it. So he made me sing it.”

“That’s when Kenny told me to shut up about the lyrics,” Kelly says with a laugh. “‘You’ve got to stop saying shit to him, because every time you say something, I have to sing it.’”

Revolver Magazine 2011

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As a student, were you the typical troublemaker or rather shy and quiet?

"Until puberty, I was shy, quiet, and introverted. However, as my balls grew, so did my teachers' concerns. While I wasn't violent, I became uncontrollable and a real pain in the ass."

Can you think of an example?

"I went to a relatively strict Catholic school. Of course, like all the other students, we would smear the bathroom walls, and if the teachers caught us doing it, we would be locked in the classroom after class as punishment. I remember one day when I had to stay in detention with another student. We were alone in the classroom, and my friend desperately needed to go to the bathroom but wasn't allowed to leave. So I held him down while he stuck his butt out the window to do his business. At that moment, the teacher came into the room. I let go of my friend in shock—and the poor guy fell out the window, pooping..."

~ Peter Steele ~ Rock Hard Interview 1997

[All photos belong to the Ratajczyk family. I do not own them. All Copyrights to the Ratajczyk Estate.]

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"I've been thinking a lot lately about having a child," admits Pete. "If I loved someone so much, I'd like there to be a physical representation of our union. I haven't found that person yet, but I hope to. Also, a tour bus is no place for a family unit. When a four year old walks in on an orgy, what do you say to them? 'Oh, they're just giving each other horsey rides?!"

Although confession to occasional "multiple partners", Pete has a serious point to make.

"I'm not happy with my reputation as a male slüt. I do partake from time to time, but I genuinely like the women I sleep with very much. I find intellect, a sense of humor and compassion attractive. If a woman doesn't have those things, besides being physically attractive, I don't want to be with her. When I was 18, all I wanted was quantity. Now, it's the quality."

~Peter Steele~ Kerrang Magazine 1997

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Still, it doesn't do your image any good that you're still touring with Carnivore.

"We stopped two years ago. Maybe it was last year. It's just too exhausting. But it's much worse to shout all that 'Jesus Hitler', 'Race War' and 'Suck My D*ck' stuff and not stand behind it anymore. Just take 'Suck My D*ck'. What's that about? I can't even get it up anymore! I'm 36 years old! Carnivore is over. I doubt we'll play together again because I've become a different person. The reason for these shows is that the other two members are still good friends of mine. It's like a soccer team that gets back together after ten years. Lots of memories come back, good and bad. And that's fun. It's not as regulated as Type O Negative. There are contracts and billings for everything, the manager wants 15 percent, the booker ten, the girlfriend 50 and so on. With Carnivore, They're small shows, 500 or 1,000 people come and we get $5,000 cash. Tax free! After this interview I'll go to jail in the US, but so what? I don't want you to think I'd do anything for money. The other two in particular need the money and the shows are fun. I knew there would be trouble, but I just wanted to have a good time with my friends."

You still used the Carnivore logo, which, without much imagination, is a slightly modified swastika.

"We wanted to change it. The last idea was to use a knife, fork and spoon, in reference to the band name. But the original symbol is not a modified Heikenkreuz either..."

...N*zi swastika...

"Sorry, swastika. It looked a bit like that, but the basic idea came from the radioactive fallout sign. Those three triangles, you know. If you rework that a bit, you have the carnivore sign. That's all. When people came and said we were using a South African Nazi logo, we didn't even know what they were talking about."

~Peter Steele~ Rock Hard Interview 1998

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In interviews you often complain about the facilities on tour.

Peter: "Yes, I am a person who is very comfortable being home. I’m a person who likes a routine. I don’t like the fact that when you’re on tour you can’t date when you want, you can’t even take a shit when you want, you can’t eat when you want, you can’t even do laundry when you want. So it’s like you have to seize every opportunity you can to do the thing you have to do at the time because you never know when it’s gonna come, and this is something that I really dislike about touring – which is the other reason that this album may be my last. I’ve been all over this world and I have seen nothing. There was so much touring and so many shows back-to-back.. you pull up, you play, and you leave. That’s it. I’ve seen every highway and I visited every single McDonalds. That’s it."

How did you learn to cope with a bathroom that was less than supreme?

Peter: "By lining the toilet on the tour bus with a plastic bag that we can crap into. And then if a car cut us off we would make sure that we got ahead of it at some point and just open the window and let loose the bag."

~Peter Steele~ Grimoire Magazine Interview Issue #10

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Type O keyboardist Josh Silver has a "real liberal shrink" mother and a therapist of his own. Sitting on a lakeside pier behind Type O's motel, in beautiful sunshine, Josh stresses the importance of "double sessions" whenever he gets home.

"Gotta make up for the time on the road, bro," he shrugs. "There's a lot of pressure, living on a bus. I might sound like a wimpy assh*le complaining, but do this for four years and maybe you'll have a different opinion."

Whereas Pete takes the mood-leveling drug Prozac, Josh favors the "mild narcotic" Xanax.

"It knocks the edge off your anxiety, which I'm full of," he explains. "I also smoke dope as often as possible. Lung cancer runs in my family, and I smoke four packs of Parliaments a day, so I'm sure I'm on the way to that. But something's gotta k*ll you, man- I'm just choosing it. Everyone else is in denial, waiting for something to land on them. I'm making a choice."

Josh is full of matter-of-fact observations, like, "Think about every ex-girlfriend you ever had, think about your Mother, and you're going to find a whole shitload of things in common. That's nature, man. It's tough shit." By his own admission, he is obsessed with death, and once got Type O banned by saying: "As a species, humans suck. I'd have much more respect for a snail."

He pointed out a family of ducks under the pier. "Ducks are totally cool," he whispers. "Totally intelligent. I had one- it was like a little dog. Animals are god."

When it transpires that we've somehow managed to miss the latest Space Shuttle's launch, Josh isn't too bothered.

"It's such a contradiction to sit in a beautiful bog and watch man destroy everything, including space," he considers. "Man should stay the f*ck in his own little world."

~Josh Silver~ Kerrang Interview 1997

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Interviewer: When you dıe are you going to have a burial plot and a headstone?

Peter Steele: "Well the way that I would like to dıe is that I would really like to dıe with a woman. Kind of make this pact. A romantic thing. I've got this thing for fire, where I just find it the most erotic thing, so I want to burn. I want to get into a bed soaked in gasoline and I want to have sɛx with her and as we're both cumming, put the bed on fire. And that's how I want to dıe."

Interviewer: I can't think of a more painful way to dıe.

Peter Steele: "It is extremely painful, but I don't want there to be anything left of us. I just want us to melt together. To become one unit, like welded together in both life and death."

~Peter Steele- Ill literature Issue #12~ October Rust Era

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“Peter is a normal guy just trying to break out of his shell – I’ve always said that about him. He just wants to be a regular guy. Everywhere he goes, no matter what he does, he’s the freak on display. He’s got a unique look to him, people look at him like, “What planet did this guy come from?'”

~Johnny Kelly~ Temple News Interview 2000

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'Die with me' is based on a girlfriend I had one time who didn't exactly leave me but went away to school for a little while and it was like a minor death to me, and one of the things we had always talked about before her leaving was dying together. The song 'Love you to death' is about giving a woman orgasms to the point of unconsciousness. It's not exactly death. Let's just say I would hope it would be a pleasurable pseudodeath for her. Sleep is like a temporary death and there is nothing better for me after sex than jumping up and eating about four thousand calories and then going into a nice deep sleep."

~Peter Steele~ Metal Maniacs Interview, October Rust Era

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Josh and Pete have been friends for over 20 years. They met through necessity when Josh moved into Pete's block at the age of 10. "There was no one else around," Josh chuckles. The two of them were "destructive little bastards", burning things in Josh's back garden. "My mother didn't mind, as long as we didn't hurt anybody."

When Josh was 12 and Pete was 13, they started a band, Fall-Out, and released a single ("of which I have a closet-full"). Josh claims it sounded "very Type O, with less musicianship. Actually, that's not true. We probably have less now..."

Josh built a home studio, and produced local bands at "very reasonable rates" according to Type O guitarist Kenny Hickey, who recorded his first "screaming metal" demo at Josh's house. That's how Kenny met Josh, and then Pete. The three were later brought together as Type O Negative by drummer Sal Abruscato (who left after '93's 'Bloody Kisses' to join Life of Agony).

Source : `Kerrang Magazine 1997`

[Credit to the original owners of these photos. I do not own any of them.]

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Interviewer: World Coming Down is quite a change of direction, especially compared to your past singles.

Peter: "We're trying to get away from the whole sex thing. People were starting to think I was arrogant. I just read some review of the album, and this asshole said I was apparently full of myself. I don't think that at all. We just wanted to get away from the sex thing because it was embarrassing me. It's just that...well, there are other things in life beside autumn, women, religion, and fire...the things I normally write about. Now we chose death, drugs, depression, and Halloween."

Interviewer: How did the change from sex orientated songs to the almost opposite physicality of death come about?

Peter: "We've been home for about two years, and my father passed away about four years ago. It actually didn't hit me until I got home, and I had all this time to think. I'm not going to say that I am obsessed with his death, but I still live in the same house that we all lived in. I live downstairs, my parents live upstairs, and my sister lives above. So there's a lot of ghosts in the house, figuratively of course. I just lost interest in everything... sex, working out, food. I could not stop seeing his face everywhere. After that, I lost an aunt and uncle. This is what happens when you come from a large family. I happened to be one of its youngest members, so I've seen a lot of people go. I guess my father's death was the straw that broke the camel's back. That's why there's so much death on the album. I have a hard time coping with abandonment, whether it's a parent dying or someone I love dying or a woman leaving me, or even lost pet or something... it's just not something I deal with well."

~Peter Steele~ Outburn Interview 2000