TYPE O NEGATIVE Frontman PETER STEELE - "Your Parents Aren’t Going To Like This Music; If They Do You Better Find Different Parents"
October 23, 2007, 17 years ago
KNAC.com's Charlie Steffens recently caught up with TYPE O NEGATIVE frontman Peter Steele to discuss the band's current album, Dead Again, and everything in between. The following is an excerpt from the extensive interview, which reportedly lasted almost four hours (!):
On rock n' roll:
“I believe that the true definition of a rock band is to upset people and that’s the reason rock became rock in the late 50’s, because the country was pretty right-wing. So when rock came out—being left-wing—that upset people. I will admit to being slightly right-wing. I consider myself to be a conscientious conservative. I am pro-police, pro-government, and pro-parent. Because the country has shifted so far to the left that even if you are mid-wing, still you are upsetting people. So, all these trendoid rock bands are just preaching to the choir. I have, in the past, gone out of my way to upset people and fortunately it worked. That’s why I can say CARNIVORE and Type O Negative are true rock bands, because your parents aren’t going to like this music. And if they do like it you better find different parents.”On inspiration:
“I’ve always liked orchestral music, especially marching music like John Phillip Sousa. I also play sousaphone and tuba. And I play string bass. I guess you could call bass a guitar, so to speak. But I was always fascinated by the definition of functions, like what makes a bass player a bass player. I got the answer. The answer is you are the bridge between rhythm and harmony. You gotta go with the drums but you gotta fill the bottom end at the same time. That’s a bassist. Which disqualifies me; because I play bass/rhythm guitar and I play mostly chords. A failure again."“My life is not so exciting that I could document it verbatim and make it into an interesting song. So I have to exaggerate. I take a few different things that really did happen and I string them together and make it into one song. On Bloody Kisses there’s a song, 'Death In The Family', and everyone thinks it’s about a woman. It was about a cat that I had since I was 17 that died. My life is pretty boring. It mostly revolves around Saturday morning cartoons and TV dinners. Like, I really wanted to marry Mrs. Swanson. If she fucked the way that she cooked then I’d be very happy, because I would know what I was going to get every time. Either way it’s going in the oven, right?”
On outside interests:
"I don’t like to go out, because I don’t like to be recognized. I don’t like to be looked at. I really don’t like to be onstage, but however, I’m a masochist, so it’s the perfect punishment.”
Go to this location for the complete interview.
