Type O Negative: Roadrunner Alumni
By: Justin Donnelly
 Few could claim an ongoing career that spans beyond the twelve-year mark (Not including acts that split up and reform several years later), let alone that many years with Roadrunner Records. But one such act is cult favourites Type O Negative.
The four-piece Brooklyn (New York) based act (Who consist of vocalist/bassist Peter Steele, guitarist Kenny Hickey, drummer Johnny Kelly and keyboardist Josh Silver) first emerged on the scene with their debut album (Following the demise of Pete Steele’s other band Carnivore in 1989) Slow, Deep And Hard in 1991. Since then, Type O Negative have shared their peculiar lyrical mix of black humour, sarcasm, self parody with a heavy mix of metal and gothic ideology on several successful albums over the years (Including 1992’s The Origin Of The Feces, 1993’s Bloody Kisses, 1996’s October Rust and 1999’s World Coming Down). 2000’s compilation The Least Worst Of Type O Negative had die hard fans concerned as to the bands future, but the recently released (And typically titled) Life Is Killing Me put all fears of the bands demise to rest. As the current Type O Negative tour, in support of the new album, rolls through America, I caught up with the very tired Josh Silver in Colorado. True to Silver’s morbid out look on life, he was less that thrilled at the prospect of another interview after the long drive across the country (And after just arriving at their destination). Today for all intents and purposes, was supposed to be a day off. The next show not scheduled until the following night, but Silver was as happy as he was ever going to be to talk about Type O Negative’s favourite songs, playing and recording live and toilet water on the other side of the world! After the release of the dour and somewhat depressing World Coming Down a few years ago (Well, more depressing than usual), both fans and critics boasted a somewhat mighty return to form following Type O Negative’s release of Life Is Killing Me. Silver agrees, to a certain degree. “In regards to the reaction to Life Is Killing Me, I would say that I’m never happy about anything. So I guess you could say that I’m not happy. I think the term ‘more depressing’ labelled on World Coming Down is a bit of an understatement. It was substantially more depressing. I didn’t see that as a bad thing. So right off, I’m going to have to say that a lot of people have been comparing Life Is Killing Me to World Coming Down, and I think a lot of those people equate art and sales figures, and I don’t do that. I personally thought World Coming Down was one of my favourite Type O Negative records, and sales figures don’t mean anything to me. I’m really unconcerned with people’s opinions! (Laughs)” Although it was inevitable that comparisons between World Coming Down and Life Is Killing Me would be drawn within the music press, Silver finds the two separate from one another and the only true parallels between the two being that both albums were performed by the same band. “I don’t find it unfair. I actually find it typically ridiculous. To compare the albums is like trying to compare apples and oranges. It doesn’t make sense. One album has absolutely nothing to do with the other. October Rust was also an album that had very little sense of humour, but nobody said, ‘Hey, where did the sense of humour go?’ I think the fact is that World Coming Down was just a really hard album for people to deal with. It was an album about death, drug addiction and very unpleasant subjects. So that’s a hard thing to sell. The record company and the media tend to not want to deal with something that is harder to sell, but that didn’t bother me at all. Especially when it came to selling that kind of ideology during a millennium celebration. It was harder even still.” Life Is Killing Me seems to split down between the middle between the slow and long drawn out songs, and the short punchier numbers upon first listen. Further investigation reveals that something the album is far more eclectic, and follows the format the led the earlier releases. “I think there’s a middle ground there too. I think, tempo wise, the songs are probably a lot more of an eclectic collection than say World Coming Down or October Rust. But Bloody Kisses was also a very eclectic record, and so was Slow, Deep And Hard for that matter, as far as tempo and things like that. So I think it’s a return to an old combination. I think its World Coming Down and October Rust that were the real departures for us.” Silver mentioned that World Coming Down was one of his personal favourite albums from the Type O Negative catalogue. He was however still happy with the end product that is Life Is Killing Me, to a certain extent. “Type O Negative is always a mixed bag for me. There are always things I love, and there are always things I don’t like. It’s the same on every record, in regards to the love and the don’t aspect. I definitely have favourites in terms of albums. My tastes lean toward the more negative, angry and eclectic. October Rust for me is a little too romantic and a little too feminine for my tastes. Slow, Deep And Hard was a great album, even though it was probably our least selling record. To me it was an honest, angry record that spewed naivety. You don’t get that naive approach for many years. There’s always a limit on it because you can’t stay naïve forever. So you’re only that angry and that honest for probably one or two records in your whole career. The rest will still be honest, but probably won’t be as angry. You can see how our albums have developed. I lean towards traditionally what people would consider the more negative side of life.”
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