With my birthday & Easter out of the way, the Type-O Negative tributes can properly begin. It’s dark that I begin things on the decade anniversary of the green man’s death, but I found it morbidly appropriate that I should start today. I may turn this into a series later on in the year, but for now I just want to get this first one out. With that said, let me tell you the tale of how I found out about these gothic legends, and how they impacted me. Let’s begin.
So our story begins in July of 2006 if I recall correctly. I was home alone, and I happened to be channel surfing. For some reason I landed on MTV, and this was at the time when they were still sort of playing music videos. When I landed on the station, I must have been into the first few seconds of My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend. Now, I had only been over a year onto my metallic journey, and discovering bands of all kinds was shocking to me, and Type-O Negative is no exception. What made this experience so unique was how it affected me: whereas the first couple bands I was getting into had loud & bombastic, this new band I found wasn’t. The lead singer was deep & powerful, yet he didn’t feel the need to scream. Not only that, but the eroticism I was feeling was complex without being oppressive, smart yet lighthearted at the same time. That day, the seed was planted.....and a year later it blossomed.
Sometime in 2007 (Around July also if I’m correct), my interest in the band reignited for some reason. The only problem was that I was a college student that year, and thus I didn’t have much money. So the only way I sated my hunger was to download each and every single album (Except their 2nd compilation), and said hunger was indeed fulfilled. The band became one of the first to become a permanent staple within my music library. Yet the good times weren’t to last.....weren’t to last for a few years.
April the 14th, 2010. At the age of 48, Pete Steele (Real name Peter Thomas Ratajczyk) passed away in the morning due to an aortic aneurysm (The cocaine and booze did not help in this matter). The man had been clean & sober for some time beforehand, and was excited to begin working on a new album. This obviously did not happen, and later on in 2010 Type-O Negative would ultimately dissolve. I was absolutely crushed by this. I had only been a fan for nearly 3 years by this point, and to hear about this broke my heart. Pete’s death dissuaded me from buying their discography for sometime until 2013, when having a Christmas hangout with a friend of mine. We stopped by the F.Y.E. at the mall we frequent (When said mall still had one), and lo & behold World Coming Down was on sale for $9.99 if I recall correctly. From there, it was just a few short years until I had everything from their collection. Even the horrendous The Best Of Type-O Negative I grabbed, if only because of the one lone good song on it. The rest.....is metal history.
And that was how I found Type-O Negative. Not exactly the best band discovery story, but it’s how I discovered one of my top 10 bands of all time. I’m glad that many people were able to discover the group during their lifetime, and afterwards as well. So on the decade anniversary of Pete Steele’s passing, I figured that it was time to tell this little story. I’ll see you all next week, when I’ll rank the band’s discography. That should be an interesting one!
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