Page 54 - Metal Hammer Issue 334 - UK (May 2020)

PETER STEELE

n April 14, 2010, Coming soon to Netflix,
the world finally Orange Is The New Black No.1
came down. Peter
Steele, frontman
of goth-metal
icons Type O
Negative, was declared dead from heart
failure. It was a bitter sting of irony
almost befitting the band’s pitch-black
humour, considering Peter had spent
the past 20 years singing about the
wars and woes of that very same organ.
Born Peter Thomas Ratajczyk in the
Red Hook neighbourhood of Brooklyn
in 1962, Steele’s musical career began
in 1979 with the formation of Fallout.
Though not his first band – having
already played in garage-band projects
such as Hot Ice and Northern Lights
– Fallout’s thundering proto-thrash
laid the DNA for his harder projects,
while also putting him alongside two
musicians who would shape his later
success: Josh Silver (future Type O
Negative keyboardist) and Louie
Beateaux (future Carnivore drummer,
later re-christened ‘Beato’).
At that point New York City was in
a state of flux; Ramones had kickstarted
the first wave of US punk just three
years earlier (a wave that would continue
to spread across the nation until it broke
on the West Coast and came back as the
equally colossal tidal wave of hardcore),
but the city itself was already growing
tired of the heavier music from the past
decade. “Disco had taken over,” recalls
Richard Termini, a friend of Peter’s and
producer of Fallout’s only surviving
singles (Batteries Not Included/Rock Hard).
“Heavier bands and those that were
progressive were seen as dinosaurs, but
Peter had this incredible imagination
for imagery, while [guitarist and fellow
songwriter] John Campos was a lot
more sensitive. Together it was a Dave
Gilmour/Roger Waters thing.”
This duality split the band in two;
Josh and John started the new wave-
influenced Original Sin, while Louie and
Peter made their first dents on the metal
world as Carnivore. Dialling up the
heaviness and incorporating elements
of the city’s nascent hardcore/thrash
scenes, Carnivore were a B-movie made
flesh, Peter exercising his imagination
with songs about thermo-nuclear war,
cannibalism and post-apocalyptic
warfare. The band supplemented such
visions with a roaring live show,
earning local legend status with
frequent shows at L’Amour, a metal/
punk club beloved by Brooklynites –
including Life of Agony’s Joey Zampella.
“[LOA bassist] Alan Robert and I got
absolutely massacred in the pit at FRANK WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY
a Carnivore L’Amour show,” Joey
cackles. “In fact, one of Life of Agony’s
first big shows was Negative Night Two

54 METALHAMMER.COM