“I was the kid that tried guitar lessons but lacked discipline. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, emulating the guitar styles of John Lennon and Brian May. Like Steele, Kenny was influenced by other music besides heavy metal. Building on Carnivore ’s solid reputation as a hard-hitting speed-metal act, vocalist and bassist Steele enlisted guitarist Kenny Hickey, drummer Johnny Kelly, and keyboardist Josh Silver to continue the tradition. ”īased in New York City, Type O Negative formed in 1990 (some sources say 1989) when Steele left his former band, a cult favorite called Carnivore, to create his own metal group. With Type O Negative, we like to sugarcoat our bricks. I guess you could say that I like music that ’s soft on the outside but with a strong, solid foundation. “Yet at the same time, who didn ’t like the Beatles and Stones? Then I got older, I was into the droning, dreamy sounds of bands like the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine and Dead Can Dance …. “I ’ve always liked really heavy rock music, like Black Sabbath and Iron Butterfly, ” said Steele. The change, as Steele told Roos, stemmed largely from Steele ’s personal influences growing up. And when the album Bloody Kisses arrived in 1993, critics and fans alike seemed surprised to hear Type O Negative abandoning humor and vulgarity and attempting to convey feeling. ”Īlthough Type O Negative first earned a reputation for their brash, speed-metal sound punctuated with vulgar, offensive lyrics, the band would later transform their image. The rumbling bass lines, thrashing guitar riffs and massive vocalization (paired by the equally massive stature of Steele ) make this band nearly frightening in its magnitude. Moreover, as stated by the website, “Steele ’s songcraft supplies Type O Negative with a larger-than-life sound. ” In fact, as Steele proposed, Type O Negative combined elements of metal, industrial, psychedelia, and alternative music, in addition to goth-rock, into their overall sound. ’ I think we make music that dead hippies might like. If you ’re gonna call us something, I prefer ‘junk rock ’ or ‘gothadelic. Seriously, I don ’t like being called goth because there are more elements to our music than that label suggests.
I mean, we may suck, but it ’s not blood. “A goth image has been cast upon us by the media because they have to label us something, I guess, ” Steele suggested to John Roos in an interview for the Los Angeles Times.
However, lead singer and bassist Peter Steele resisted such pigeonholing. With each band member boasting long hair, plenty of tattoos, and prime influences such as the hard-rocking 1970s outfit Black Sabbath, it comes as no surprise that Type O Negative earned labels like “gothic-metal gurus ” from the media.
0 kommentar(er)
