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Type O Negative

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This article is about the band. For the blood type, see blood type.
Type O Negative

Type O Negative is a band from Brooklyn, New York City. They are notable as one of the earliest successes in the goth/doom metal style. In addition, however, the band has always balanced a variety of non-goth influences, such as The Beatles (sometimes referring to themselves in jest as "The Drab Four"). Despite a dramatic lyrical emphasis on themes of sex, romance, depression, and death, Type O is also known for an irreverent and self-deprecating sense of humor. Their popularity grew in 1993 with the album Bloody Kisses, which featured the provocative hits "Christian Woman" and "Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)". Their most recent album is 2007's Dead Again.

Origins

Type O Negative’s origins spawn from a band called 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 playing venues in and around the East Coast, including the now defunct 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, with a sound reminicent of speed metal mixed with hardcore break-downs and 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 and Recreation. 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 with fellow childhood friend, Kenny Hickey, following suit. They originally named themselves "Sub-Zero", but soon discovered this name 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 them to a five album record deal, and in 1991, the band quickly released their debut, Slow Deep and Hard. Type O has since gained an enormous underground following, having released seven studio albums, two best-of compilations, and concert DVDs.

Album History

Type O's first album, 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, and even contemplating suicide. Their first tour following the album's release was met with hostility, primarily by Dutch political activists who failed to recognize Peter Steele's tongue-in-cheek humor regarding certain social topics, which resulted in false accusations that the band's members were misogynists and Nazi sympathizers [1]. This was perceived as ironic by the band, as Josh Silver is Jewish (they later made light of the situation on a future album with a song titled "We Hate Everyone").

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, Type O 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 warning label was put on the album cover: "Not Live At Brighton Beach". The cover was also controversial, as it originally depicted a man's anus (believed to be Steele) being spread by his hands until later copies featured a different cover depicting skeletons. Roadrunner was not amused with the prank, but went ahead and released the album in 1992 anyway.

The cover of Bloody Kisses, the band's most acclaimed album.

Their true second album, Bloody Kisses, was released in 1993 to critical and listener acclaim, and eventually became the first record for Roadrunner to reach certified Platinum status in the US. 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 and Sgt. Pepper’s catalog, 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”. The organ-driven “Set me on Fire” is vintage sixties garage rock, while "Summer Breeze" covered the 1972 Seals and Crofts hit. “Christian Woman” and “Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)” became the most popular tracks, after having been edited down to radio-friendly lengths (the album versions were 8½ and 11 minutes long). In order to promote the album, Type O Negative embarked on a grueling two-year world tour. The unexpected success of Bloody Kisses proved the diligence and sacrifice the band had put in for three years was beginning to pay off. Features on MTV, VH1, and Rolling Stone followed. In the midst of this media blitz, drummer Sal Abruscato quit the band to join another Brooklyn 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 a limited-edition Digipak form, including eight of the musical tracks from the original (omitting the "filler" tracks) and the previously unreleased "Suspended In Dusk."

The unexpected success of Bloody Kisses brought on the pressure of recording a worthy successor. The record label, suddenly capitalizing on the revenue being generated by Type O Negative, began pressuring Steele and company to write even more commercial-friendly songs. The band instead tried to strike a balance between the commercial and the creative, and the result was 1996's October Rust. Picking up where Bloody Kisses left off, this album continued to explore themes of sex and sensuality, explored in a humorous sense on the single "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" and then taken much darker with "Love You To Death". This record also saw a cover of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl", and a fan following surrounded the semi-serene "Green Man" as years passed on. While not quite as successful as Bloody Kisses, the album was certified Gold in the US, and was the first Type O Negative album to enter the top half of the Billboard Top 200, debuting at No.42.

With the completion of another successful world tour, writing for a fourth album began. 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, 1999's World Coming Down. The vibe of the album was a significant change from October Rust; this time the band revisited the more dooming sounds of Slow Deep & Hard, where the band seemed to wallow in misery. This time around, instead of sex and romance, 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 true life reflections of the mindset Steele shared at the time. It was nowhere near as accessible as Bloody Kisses or October Rust, but despite its morbid subject matter, World Coming Down debuted at #39 on the Billboard Top 200 charts.

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

Type O Negative's latest release, Dead Again.

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. Songs such as "Todd's Ship Gods," "(We Were) Electrocute", and "I Don't Wanna Be Me" convey the band's classic elements of epic song lengths 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.

After Roadrunner released the 2006 compilation The Best of Type O Negative (allegedly without notifying the band [2]), Type O split from the label upon a better offer from SPV Records and released Dead Again in March 2007. A video for "The Profits of Doom" arrived in April with freqeunt airplay on MTV's Headbangers Ball, and the "September Sun" music video reportedly finished shooting in August [3]. Dead Again saw a culmination of previous Type O styles, from the thrash inspired title track to the blues rock style "An Ode To Locksmiths". Female vocalist Tara Vanflower also appears on "Halloween In Heaven". The album debuted at #27 in the US; the band's highest chart debut to date. They also kicked off a summer-long tour that year which included a performance at the Rock am Ring festival in Nürburgring, Germany [4].

Members

  • Pete Steele – Lead vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards
  • Josh Silver – Keyboards/synth effects, programming, backing vocals
  • Kenny Hickey – Lead and rhythm guitars, backing vocals
  • Johnny Kelly – Drums, percussion, backing vocals

Former members

Discography

For a complete discography, see Type O Negative Discography.

Further Information

Names

  • The band's current name was chosen in part because all four original members had already tattooed a "Sub-zero" logo on their arm, which is an O with a negative symbol inside it. Additionally, the members have often referred 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". Recently, on their MySpace page, they've simply called themselves "The 4 Dicks".
  • Album titles frequently saw tentative names before their final releases. Notably, 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, which proved untrue. Prior to this, Bloody Kisses was briefly titled Things Worse Than Death (And Other Acts of God), and World Coming Down had been called Prophets Of Doom and Aggroculture. Interestingly, the phrase "Profits of Doom" would later be used for the first single from Dead Again (often spelled "Profit of Doom" in various instances).

Live shows and behavior

  • Although still a touring band, Peter Steele admits to not being fond of live shows so much anymore, preferring actual studio work on albums instead [5]. Steele, who is over 6'7", once had a signature action during concerts that included playing a stand-up bass while using a large chain instead of a normal guitar strap. This gimmick was mostly used on the Bloody Kisses tour (1993-95) and is visible in the "Black No.1" and "Cinnamon Girl" videos, but it has seldomly been used since then.
  • Contrary to rumors perpetuated on the internet, the band does not use baritone guitars. However, the guitars and basses are tuned 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 guitar, which is usually tuned in E (which would run EADGBE for guitars, EADG for bass). Accordingly, this requires the use of heavier gauge, or thicker, strings in order to compensate for the lower string tension.
  • Peter Steele is known for his unusual sense of humor, often discussing dark subject matter in a humorous manner, as if unperturbed. On The Howard Stern Show, he casually professed having fantasies of murder-suicide involving ex-girlfriends, and confirmed claims that Kurt Cobain was his "hero" for "having the balls to shoot himself" [6]. He also appeared in Playgirl, although regretted the decision after finding out via Kenny Hickey's publishing contacts that "[only] 23% of the magazine's subscribers are female". [7] Steele was reportedly "very disheartened" when he found out about the magazine's demographics, and made light of the situation on the track "I Like Goils" from Life is Killing Me to underline his purely straight stance on his sexuality. In addition to spending time on probation after the release of Life Is Killing Me, Steele is arguably the most controversial member of the band.

Soundtracks

Covers

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 Least Worst of Type O Negative despite actually being a quote by Andre Gide. 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". [1]
  • 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" [2]. The chemical makeup of verdigris is (Cu(C2H3O2)2 . 2Cu(OH)2) Copper II acetate di-copper II hydroxide.

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 New York dialect.

References

  1. ^ http://music.yahoo.com/ar-266577-bio--Type-O-Negative
  2. ^ http://youtube.com/watch?v=0p5qtdQ5ow4
  3. ^ http://typeonegative.net/index.php
  4. ^ http://www.rock-am-ring.com
  5. ^ http://headbangersblog.mtv.com/2007/07/05/5-days-of-type-o-negative-first-negative-tour/
  6. ^ http://www.allknowingforce.com/tonvideos
  7. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20030705153411/typeonegative.net/oldbio.html
  8. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjncGxnp-Yc
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