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There was no one quite like Type O Negative. They were four Brooklyn dudes who sprung up out of the city's extreme hardcore scene and evolved into legit (if tongue-and-cheek) goth-metal icons. From their 1991 debut, Slow, Deep and Hard to 1993 breakout Bloody Kisses to their 2007 swan song Dead Again, frontman Peter Steele and the band cast a long shadow with their haunting music and inimitable, imposing presence.
Sadly, their influential career was cut short by the untimely death of Steele in 2010 — but the Drab Four's legacy carries on. Type O left the world with so many great songs that continue to inspire generations of gloom-loving, heavy-music fans. Among those is Trivium frontman Matt Heafy, who also has some prized personal memories of Steele and his band. Below, Heafy recounts the awesomely painful first time he ever saw Type O Negative perform live, the best Type O song for new listeners and more.
"The first time I ever saw Type O Negative was at the Hard Rock Live in Orlando. It was an incredible show," Heafy recalls. "I remember the guitars being absurdly, obscenely loud. Everything like in this very painful, awesome way, just being crushingly loud and intense. I've never seen a band that loud before live.
"What's amazing to me with Type O Negative is I was able to work with [drummer] Johnny Kelly on a couple of songs. We toured with Danzig, Johnny Kelly was on that, and then I was also able to have Johnny Kelly play a couple songs on the Roadrunner United record. Johnny's an amazing drummer, very signature sound, very Type O Negative sound, while working on so many different things."
"To pick a favorite Type O Negative song is quite a feat," Heafy continues. "It's quite difficult. With Type O Negative, and what I've always loved so much about them, is they have always done such a wide breadth of everything that is Type O Negative. Like while a song like 'I Don't Want to Be Me' is very Type O; so is 'Black No. 1,' and so is 'Everything in Between,' and so are all the incredible things that they've always done.
"So, I know that there will be a lot of people that of course know and recognize and love Type O Negative, but I feel like some of the younger generation that I've met may not know them. So, I would absolutely encourage them to check out 'Black No. 1' off the Bloody Kisses record only on Roadrunner Records. Check it out."
