Type O Negative Talks’ Johnny Kelly, according to Peter Steele.
“It is him,” Johnny Kelly says. However, it seems as though he was never gone in many respects. He is still participating in the discussion. It is always his name that comes up. Although I am happy that we still have that kind of relationship, I never would have imagined that Type O Negative would be remembered ten years ago.
Kelly is commemorating his friend and bandmate from Brooklyn-bred goth metal quartet Type O Negative, Peter Steele, who passed away on April 14, 2010, at the age of 48, from an aortic aneurysm, back home near Dallas, where he relocated several years before.
Kelly goes on, “It is strange to try to express because he passed away.” “It is similar to the enduring impression, continuing to play in a band, and frequently encountering [Type O] admirers.”
Raised in Bensonhurst and born Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk on January 4, 1962 in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, Steele played in bands with Josh Silver, a Type O keyboardist-producer who was also a boyhood buddy, since their teens. Steele completed the politically incorrect Carnivore by the early 1980s, and the band played thrash metal until 1987. Following the demise of Carnivore, Steele got back in touch with Silver and his old friends Sal Abruscato on drums and Kenny Hickey on guitars, and the three of them formed Type O Negative in 1989. (In 1993, Kelly took Abruscato’s place.)
Steele’s dark baritone, enormous size (nearly 6’8″), and vampire-like appearance—which earned him a centerfold in Playgirl magazine in 1995—led Type O through the New York circuit, from frequent local performances at the now-closed L’Amour nightclub in Brooklyn and the Ritz in the East Village to international tours. Slow, Deep, and Hard was the group’s 1991 debut album, and The Origin of the Feces was their 1992 release. 1993’s Bloody Kisses was a game-changer, reaching platinum status and a deep cult following with the doom-laden enthralls of the 11-plus-minute “Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)” and “Christian Woman,” while only hitting at No. 166 on the Billboard 200.
A pinnacle for the band, Bloody Kisses introduced a more melodious and cinematic Type O, bursting through the new wave of ’90s goth culture and swerving into lanes of thrash (“Kill All the White People”), hardcore and industrial. Crafted like the perfect soundtrack to a more sexualized Nosferatu-inspired flick, from orgasmic opener “Machine Screw” through to the hallucinatory instrumentation of “Can’t Lose You,” Bloody Kisses left its indelible mark on metal.
