Was Peter Steele a Born Again Christian
Type O Negative'south Peter Steele: The Ultimate Interview
He was born Petrus T Ratajczyk, but you and the metal world that mourned his passing knew him as the man-mountain Peter Steele. The Type O Negative and Carnivore vocaliser and bassist lived a full and entertaining 48 years on this planet before succumbing to heart failure on Apr xiv, 2010. In this, his final, never-before-seen interview with Metal Hammer from March 28, 2008, Peter uses his dark and self-deprecating humour to catalogue the life of someone who could never quite fit in.
Following a suicide attempt in 1989, he seemed to take found peace in eye-historic period. It's pretty ironic that, despite having been indelibly tarnished with accusations of misogyny and racism during the 1990s, the influence of both Peter and Type O, who had been 'on hold' since 2007's Dead Once again album, were at an all-time high. Hammer prints this transcript of our conversation as a window to the positive country of heed that Peter appeared to exist in at time of his decease.
Where and when were you born?
"Reddish Hook, Brooklyn, New York on January 4th, 1962, at 3.45am. I was built-in 23 and a half inches long, my mother said it was like giving birth to a pumpkin."
Equally an adult, you stand six-foot-half-dozen. Were yous taller than your schoolmates, or was there a growth spurt?
"I just got measured and I'm now vi foot 7 and a half. Merely yes, I was e'er taller than my classmates."
And then did you become picked on?
"Of course. I was like a big fucking punch-bag. When you get to a Cosmic school, men and women develop very differently. I was a late bloomer. My dick didn't get very big until I was in seventh grade. My assurance didn't pump up until I was 17. Information technology didn't seem fair that girls had tits and guys had moustaches in fifth class.
"But then something happened. I came back to school 1 summer and everything had inverse. I exacted my revenge – revenge of the nerds – upon those who had been making my life so hard."
How was it growing up around five sisters?
"When I did something wrong, information technology felt like I had five extra mothers. The age gap between myself and my next eldest sis is viii years. Between all of them, it was three years. They used to call me 'Ooops'.
"I was the dictionary definition of an evil brother to them. I loved scaring them to fucking death. At the age of eight, I told them all I'd seen on the news that rats dearest to nest in high-heeled shoes. I built it up for weeks. Every Lord's day we used to have pot-roast with mashed potatoes. I took my mashed potatoes and mixed it with ruby-red food dye and inserted some pins. Then I got upwards at 3am and left them in their high-heels. I fifty-fifty heated them up, so they felt like a real animal. The screams of 'Peter!!!' were incredible, but luckily I was good at hiding under beds."
Did this background bring out your feminine side? Do you even have such a affair?
"Simply when I take hold of my dick, pull information technology back behind my legs and through my ass. No, I'm kidding. I'm actually a very emotional person. Even asking me that question is sexist, and I admit I am a sexist – I hate all men. I want to be the only man on this planet. I have learned that people take advantage of you if yous brandish an emotional side. I can be brutal, but also sensitive."
Information technology must injure when you're called a misogynist.
"Well, I was fucked over by a woman whose proper name I won't mention. If I did to her what she did to me, she'd be screaming: 'Cocksucker, dick'. So when I used the words 'Slut', 'whore' and 'cunt'… I'm not proud of that language, only isn't it better than I wrote a vocal chosen I Know Yous're Fucking Someone Else than go round to her house with a pick-axe and put it through her caput? It's called sublimation. Listen, I love women. I live for them."
How many women take yous slept with?
"Oh, ii or three. That question is sexist, as well. Who cares? I'm nearly 50 and it's out my system. All I care about these days is health care products, Viagra and false teeth. What I enjoy is meeting interesting people. Don't tell them I told you so, but my friends Henry Rollins, Phil Anselmo and Marilyn Manson are intelligent people. We can accept crazy conversations over a drinking glass of vino."
You once tried to commit suicide.
"Aye. On October 15th, 1989. I slashed my wrists. All I can say is that I fell in love with the wrong person."
One of your earliest jobs was a park keeper…
"I worked for New York City's Department Of Parks And Recreation. My task involved cleaning up human shit and driving snowfall ploughs and dump trucks, earlier I became a park supervisor. I got promoted four times in 7 years, just I had to leave in 1994 when Mötley Crüe asked Type O Negative to tour with them and King'southward X for a whole summer. That's what we like to call the 'maggot season' – you can't take time off in the summertime."
Very funny. Just something must accept turned your life effectually?
"I suppose and so. I had been with this one adult female for 10 years and when I constitute out what had been going on, I pretty much went berserk. When I constitute out about her and her young man, I knocked on their door at five in the morning and smacked the guy in the face. That's what I got locked upward for.
"I tried to mask the hurting by drowning myself in cocaine and booze until I thought I was the Pope. I used to walk the streets in Soviet and Nazi uniforms. I put a sign outside my house encouraging burglars and left my front door open. I would prevarication under the bed wearing nighttime vision goggles waiting for people to come in – and they never did. The intruders never came, the fucking cocksuckers. I was a consummate mess."
Y'all served time for the assault.
"I went to [the world's largest penal colony] Rikers Island. Coming out of at that place was what made me determined not to go back. You take no thought what it's like to take a shit in forepart of other guys. Sometimes you even had to inquire for toilet paper. I don't desire to be controlled like that, nobody does."
Was at that place a moment of clarity when you knew you'd become a musician?
"I'grand even so waiting for that moment. Filling in credit menu applications, I listing my occupation equally 'sonic mutilator'. And still those idiots send me the fucking card – c'mon, y'all can't let me loose on the world with $45,000 of credit!"
Does the idea of re-marrying entreatment to you?
"Not now. It'due south a life sentence. Next time I go downwardly the aisle it will exist in a box."
What kind of women exercise you prefer?
"Really tall ones, but they must be very feminine. I love redheads. I checked into rehab once and they asked what my drugs of option were. I told them: 'Cocaine, alcohol and redheads'. I used to love watching my sisters put on their brand-up. I noticed that when their flow time came, their make-up went on thicker, harder and more than extreme. One time in a while their ovulation periods synchronised; that's when I would hide nether the bed."
Do you take paternal urges?
"I probably already do have kids. I'm simply waiting for them to knock on the door. Yeah, I would love to have kids. But information technology would have to exist with a alpine woman. I don't want to have to put her on a milk crate to fuck her from behind. You won't print that, volition you?"
Of course we will…
"Ha ha ha! The best part well-nigh that is when you lot put them on milk crates and they wear stilettos, the heels get stuck in the holes. Permit me tell you, if I did take a kid and it got to the age where information technology could become onto the internet… human, I'one thousand gonna accept some explaining to exercise… Ha ha ha ha ha!"
You lot appeared in the August 1995 issue of Playgirl magazine. With the benfit of hindsight, was that a fault?
"Yeah. It made me await arrogant. But I thought the whole affair was a joke. They sent me some past issues and I told them I would practice it under one condition: my dick had to be difficult. All the others were flaccid. The woman from Playgirl said, 'Do you really think yous tin exercise it erect?' I said, 'You bring the check and go on your end up, I'll go on mine.'"
And so how much did they pay you?
"$2,000. At the time it wasn't a lot. The whole thing was fucking stupid. Back and so, I was engaged to the woman I've been talking near – how on earth was I going to fucking tell her? When the issue came out, my sisters discovered it in a candy store on the subway. They brought information technology home and showed my mother, whose comment was: 'That'south why I named him Peter' [which is derived from the Greek word petros, meaning 'stone']. At to the lowest degree she had a sense of humour."
Subsequently, did your pulling potential go off the calibration?
"Actually, in that location were so many opportunities back then, information technology didn't brand a whole lot of divergence. Merely in doing that photo-shoot, I do feel like it made a fool of myself. The only reason I did it was for the publicity."
And hither we are, more than than a decade afterwards, nonetheless talking virtually information technology.
"Yes. You'd have to say information technology worked. And I'k proud that I kept my dick difficult. People yet enquire me how I did that and I tell them, 'A hose clamp costs 69 cents'. That'south information technology, brother."
Is your habit to alcohol and drugs now nether control?
"Once an addict e'er an addict, you know. I have five cats that I love very much, and part of what keeps me under control is that I don't want to die and leave them starving. I'thousand non kidding."
Obviously you've re-discovered your religion in recent years…
"Yep. I used to exist an atheist simply I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. It doesn't matter a damn to me whether someone is Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, whatever the fuck. All you have to do is treat people the manner you like to be treated. [Religious credo-wise], nosotros can all believe in different things."
Given your well-documented low-self-esteem, how practise you feel well-nigh the fact that you have fans?
"It's called mass psychosis. Every fucking nut in this globe, every fucking oddball, has a fan. Look at mass murderers. What's wrong with people? I'd like to play shows where we permit people in for free. They would have to pay to exit – and I'm a real good welder."
Have yous been treated for low?
"Prozac has done really well for me. But I have to tell you lot something – I really miss myself. I miss the person that I was."
Yous mean the person you were before taking Prozac?
"No. In one case I got into drugs and alcohol… [voice trails off]. One of my messages to our fans is that information technology's improve to learn from the mistakes of others than your own. I started doing cocaine when I was 35 years old. What kind of an asshole does that? I was working out and in proficient shape. Shouldn't I have known better?
"I feel like it would be an honour to serve God. I wouldn't mind being a stepping stone, and then long every bit I could help other people. I am not a materialistic person. I become to church building every Saturday and I argue with the priest considering the Bible is but a fucking metaphor. You ask me whether I'd like to have children… Well, I'd have to meet the correct person.
"I want to fuck the shit out of the woman I love. I desire to cum in her as hard equally I fucking can, bite her fucking face off, tell her how much I love her, and for her to have our kids nine months later. I do believe in marriage, merely you have to be a team. One of the things I'd love to practice most would exist to bike through Europe with my wife. Of form, she would be pedalling and I would steer. Information technology would be smashing for u.s.a. both to learn things from i another. That'due south what marriage is well-nigh."
People won't expect to hear you talking like this.
"What tin I say? I dear architecture and civil engineering. Some twenty-four hour period I'd like to build my own house. I don't believe that women should accept to clean the bathroom. I will exercise the horrible stuff like cleaning the toilet and elimination the cat litter, just I won't dust nothing, bowwow. Why do women insist upon filling every shelf with dustables and knick-knacks? That'southward something I'll never sympathize."
What has been your virtually extravagant purchase to date?
"For a moment there I almost told you the truth, and and then I remembered that my reply would exist printed. So… let me see… I bought a paradigm Harley Davidson, a military bike, merely 50 were made. It cost $8,000."
Was reuniting your one-time ring Carnivore to do with closure?
"At that place are many issues going on within Type O Negative that I cannot go into hither. Only I don't like downtime. There had been such a titanic resurgence of hardcore bands that have come dorsum, I saw that as an opportunity to go out and brand a couple of bucks. But it was also nigh having a practiced time."
Carnivore were extremely controversial in their 24-hour interval. Had that changed 2d fourth dimension around?
"It'due south notwithstanding illegal to play a Hitler speech in Federal republic of germany, or to Sieg Heil or fly a swastika. We were the first band in 60 years to go there and boom a Hitler voice communication before the vocal Jesus Hitler [from 1987'due south second album, Retaliation]. People take completely misunderstood Carnivore. Nobody has got the fact that Jesus Hitler is about comparing Christianity or organised religion with totalitarianism – ii souls being put into one person's trunk. It's like, exercise I want to save the Jews, or do I want to cook them? It was and then funny to walk out onstage and play that vocal over again afterwards 20 years. Believe it or not, Carnivore is actually a pro-Christian or pro-God band… if yous can read, read the fucking lyrics."
Given what you lot've simply said, how did the shows go down?
"The Germans looked at one another and didn't know what to do. Some of them tried to enhance their hands to Sieg Heil. Information technology was a social experiment, simply to see people'south reactions. But we got abroad with information technology, the shows went really well. What we did in Deutschland was completely illegal, but the whole bespeak of Carnivore is that sometimes you have to upset people. What's the point of preaching to the choir? My father got half his leg shot off during World State of war Two. I'1000 of Polish, Russian, Icelandic, Scottish and Irish descent. My ancestors were slaves, but what am I supposed to exercise 1,000 years afterwards, sue fucking Austria? Get the fuck over information technology, man. That war'due south over, brother."
Practice you lot have any views on the current Middle-East situation?
"Requite the Palestinians and Israelis one nuclear weapon each and let them deal with information technology between themselves. It's a war that's gone on for five,000 years. At that place are 18-year-former kids going into war who don't even know what they're fighting for. If the U.s. has the audacity to declare itself the world's police section, that's the reason the World Trade Center came downward. We have enough bug of our own here, blood brother."
What do you hope to reach with the second one-half of your life?
"I'm probably closer to seven-eighths of the way through my life, that'southward what I promise anyway. What makes me happy is making other people happy. I'd similar to brand some kind of a difference in this world, merely to exercise information technology anonymously. Beak Gates gets a pat on the dorsum for donating $50million to charity, but he has a fortune of $50billion – that'due south 1 per cent. Believe it or not, I'yard actually thinking of condign a priest."
Y'all're kidding, right?
"I'm serious. I think I have something to say. It'due south non as well belatedly. Like I said earlier, the Bible speaks in metaphor. You actually wanna know about Adam and Eve? Adam created Eve, and that's why women fucking hate men. What do you recall the snake was? Await between your legs, asshole. You know how I know this? I used to work for the Parks Department and I am the gardener of Eden.
This article originally appeared in Metallic Hammer #206.
Source: https://www.loudersound.com/features/type-o-negative-the-last-will-and-testament-of-peter-steele
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