type o negative - josh

From Type O Negative website:
It’s hard to believe that brooding dark-rock outfit Type O Negative—bassist/singer/control freak Peter Steele, glass-is-half-empty keyboardist Josh Silver, reality-check cashing guitarist Kenny Hickey and guarded-optimist drummer Johnny Kelly—are celebrating 18 years of time-in on planet Earth. Early records—like their 1990 debut, Slow, Deep And Hard, the platinum Bloody Kisses and the gold-selling October Rust—displayed a sonic Venn Diagram where metal, goth and electro/industrial scenes forged a commonality that was fresh and engaging. Many of today’s rockers (particularly that heartagram-toting fop from Finland) have acknowledged the measure of TON’s influence in their own work. Click here to see their website (opens a new window).

 

C- How far along on the tour is this?
J- Third show, seven weeks.

C- How did you guys get hooked up with Hatebreed and the Jagermeister tour?
J- You know management and our sponsors.  It just came around through them.    Their all connected with Jager.  It was a big butt-fuck fest. 

C- How did you guys get signed up with SPV records?
J- Well we were on Roadrunner through all those years.  Roadrunner started to think, maybe rightfully so, that they didn’t want to deal with their older bands.  They wanted Nickelback.  They felt they were in a different place sales-wise.  They wanted to deal with a band that sold hundreds of thousands of records, triple platinum.  So they let older stuff slip away.  So rather than resign with a label that obviously wasn’t putting very much care or thought into our money, our efforts, we decided to be in a better place, which puts us higher up on a list.  SPV definitely pushes higher because we are a bigger fish in a small pond.  Roadrunner are what they are.  They felt they outgrew what we were. 

C- How do you guys go about promoting your songs?  (I know most of your songs aren’t necessarily played on the radio)
J- Yea, never. We just basically tour, do press. There is no MTV play for us, and there is never going to be. 

C- I know you guys get some stuff on Headbangers Ball on occasion.
J- Yeah, yeah, we get the specialty shows, and the two plays out of a video.  But at this point I think basically you do a video for your fans.  Youtube and such, because it really doesn’t do much for a career like it used to.  It used to be you release three videos and if you’re in mainstream rock than it got spun on certain stations, but not really for us anyways. 

C- I know that Tara Vanflower is featured on ‘Halloween in Heaven’ on your new cd.  How did that come about?
J- Peter was a big Lycia fan ten years ago and he was always listening to Lycia.  We were listening to some Lycia.  Her and I got to talking when we were doing this record.  We had this dead part in it and we weren’t sure what to do with it and I suggested to Peter that we grab her.  He loves her voice.  He was totally into it so we got together and that was it.

C- It sounds very cool, a nice balance between her voice and his. 
J- Yeah, it’s a big contrast.  He’s got the big hardcore thing going, and she has the light ethereal sound, and it worked out well.  She’s a nice girl.  We became friends over the years. 

C- The songs seem to have a little bit different sound to them ( a little bit faster, almost angrier sound vs. some of your other stuff)  What do you think brought that  about?
J- Well, I don’t think it’s the angriest album we’ve done by far.  We started out doing some pretty angry stuff.  ‘Slow Deep Hard’, I don’t think it gets much angrier than that.  I think the pickup on the tempo, live drums, and just Peter returning a little more to the hardcore thing. 

C- I know ‘Bloody Kisses’, and ‘October Rust’ were a heavier, slower sound, and this new one is a heavy faster sound.
 J- Yeah, it was kind of a goth influence, and I think this one is more of a rock influence album. 

C- How is the songwriting process?
J- It depends you know, Peter comes down with a skeleton, some ideas of what he wants, that’s usually mangled by the time we are finished.  Everyone makes suggestions, and argues, and eventually we come up with what you end up hearing.  Everyone contributes something to it. 

C- You guys just released a special edition of the ‘Dead Again’ cd.  What do you think would encourage the fans that bought the original to come back and buy the special edition?
J- I wouldn’t.  I wouldn’t encourage anyone to buy it.  I think things like that tend to be rip-offs.  We can’t stop them from releasing it.  They have a right to try to make money back.  They laid out a big chunk of money for us.  They have a right to try to get it back.  They are a record company.  They are a business.  I don’t like re-releases.  I don’t like different versions.  That shit really annoys me.  It’s bullshit.  The band did one piece of work, and that’s the cd.  I never like to go back and reevaluate what we’ve done.  Yes of course there are a million things that I would reevaluate later.  I produce so of course I would change things, but I don’t put much thought into it because, you paint a picture and you don’t worry about what colors you use you paint it and than its time to paint a new picture.  It’s not time to go back and try to change the old one.  You get a shot, and you take it, than you take another shot if you’re lucky, and that’s it.  I don’t want to keep going back and rehashing the same crap.  Its like, “it is what it is”.  Let’s do a new one now.  Let’s not try to worry about how we can make the old one sell.  That’s your problem, you’re the record company.  We’re here to make music, and every three years that’s what we do. 

C- Last time I saw you guys it was just around the corner at Sonar.  You guys did a cover of the Beatles’ ‘Magical Mystery Tour’.  Do you guys plan on doing any covers tonight?
J- We don’t plan on doing any covers, because it’s a pretty short set.  We are getting like 55 minutes or an hour.  It’s such a short time.  We feel it’s kind of fucked up to do a cover, even though we like covers, and we do covers in a Type O Negative vain.  Its only 60 minutes and you do 8-12 minutes a song, it doesn’t go very far. 

C- I know you guys have broken out in a middle of a song and have done a cover before. 
J- Yeah, like I said maybe we will work on it later.  Maybe we can grab some more time.   Hatebreed and us are each supposed to play 55 minutes, but they are playing an hour and 20.  Hopefully as the tour goes on we can both do an hour and 10 or something, that would be fine.

C- I thought that you guys were co-headlining the tour?  
 J- Yeah, but whoever is last gets to push the curfew right?  I mean the cops aren’t going to bust in and say yeah 10 more minutes.  We can’t play, we are going to start a riot.  So, whoever is last gets to push the envelope, unfortunately this time it’s not us. 

C- Its pretty cool you guys seem to stay in contact with Sal (who was the original drummer for the band).  On the later part of the tour you are touring with his band My Mortality.  How did that come around?
J- You know, we are still friends and he called up and wanted to put his new band on the bill and those shows aren’t Hatebreed shows, they are Type O headlines, so we have a little more flexibility.  In that case we give him a show.  We aren’t enemies or anything. 
 
C- I didn’t know how things were when he left the band.
J- It was cool.  He wanted to go Life of Agony at the time.  Peter was uncertain to how much touring he wanted to commit to, understandably someone would want to go on tour, and just be involved in fulltime music.  We couldn’t make him that guarantee so he went somewhere where he at least thought he was getting that guarantee.  There were no hard feelings at all. 

C- Do you guys plan on doing any tours with any of the band members’ side projects?  Like Carnivore, or Seventh Void? 
J- Well I’m not.  These guys all have side projects.  Not me.  I don’t plan on any of that.  To me side projects always derail the main focus.  It’s enough caring about one band, putting 100% into that.  I think side projects are just a hassle to the entity, and it kills the communist thing.  (all for the entity)  Everyone starts to have their own agendas and mixed agendas and just a hassle. 

C- Who’s idea was it to credit The Bensonhoist Lesbian Choir on all your cds?
J- That’s something Peter made up years ago.  That’s something we put on every record.  He never wanted to admit that he could sing in that high falsetto voice and sound like 30 women with their feet being tickled.  So he made up that name as a kind of fuck over, like everything we do, make people laugh.  We like to start trouble sometimes.  It’s our nature. 

C- I think its  pretty cool, if you listen to some of your songs you can tell you guys have a sense of humor, and have fun.
J-Through our whole careers.  We know we suck, and we know we are funny.  There are way too many musicians that take themselves way too seriously.  This is music, you’re supposed to be like having a decent time and we are sarcastic New Yorkers and we have to be. 

C- How did it all get started with the crowds chanting ‘You Suck, You Suck’?
J- Well we did The Origin Of The Feces, and it was an EP that was put out.  Our first album “Slow, Deep And Hard” had  a lot of trouble in Europe.  A lot of people called us Nazis and fascists and all this stuff and the record company wanted to capitalize on that and said put out an EP.  We can’t do anything short, so it was the length of a full record anyway.  We did like a fake live thing, where we added some parts to the older songs and did an entire canned audience.  So, we tried to make it like everything that happened to us in a six week period to come down to one show.  It became super sarcastic, super fuck over, really people don’t believe that its bullshit.  We tell them it’s not live and they are like no, no, you didn’t do that, and we did.  We sat there and did the audiences.  We did everything.  They just didn’t believe that it was fake - it was like Spinal Tap. 

C- I think it is very tongue in cheek.  At the shows right before you go on, everyone chants ‘You suck, you suck’
 J- Yeah we did that, it probably happened once a little bit, and we turned it into this whole big crowd thing, and to this day people are still doing it.  Its funny to see the reactions.  The Jaegermeister people, the lizard guy, are like ‘I feel bad for you guys, they are all going you suck you suck.  So I had to explain to him no, those are our fans.  .  He didn’t understand it.  He thought we were getting booed or something.  He was scared for us.  Those are the ones who like us.  

C-I guess it’s kind of like how other bands get some of the crowd to chant fuck you?
J- Well we have had that too, but those are the fans that hate us. 

C-You guys are doing the Heavy Metal Festival coming up in Montreal. 
J- Yeah, our return to Canada after so many years.
 
C-It looks like everyone that’s involved in this tour.  You guys, Hatebreed, 3 Inches of Blood.
 J- I know they are on it yeah. 

C- Are you guys excited about playing with Iron Maiden at all?  I’m not sure how you feel about festivals vs. clubs?
J- I don’t have any real preference.  Festivals can go great or they can go horrible.  Clubs can go great and clubs can go horrible.  Normally I do like a more intimate show.  I think 9 out of 10 times its better to play smaller places, but you never know.  Sound checks, we aren’t a two guitar band, we have a keyboard.  As far as playing with Iron Maiden, nothing against Iron Maiden I’ve never really been a fan.  They are certainly a classic band.  I can recognize that someone is classic without actually liking them.  There is plenty of classic stuff that I’m just not a fan of, but I’m willing to admit that its classic.  Famous people really don’t impress me.  Was it fun to play with Black Sabbath? Yeah, it was.  Why?  I love Black Sabbath.  Was it fun to play with Pantera?  Yes it was, because I love Pantera? No, because they are funny guys, they are really good guys.  They are fucking nuts.  It was the most fun we ever had.  They were just crazy.  To live that life.  It’s not bullshit, it’s how they really are, all the time, 24/7.  It was a great show.  You don’t even have to love the band musically.  It was just entertaining.   They were all really cool, and nice people too.  It makes a lot more enjoyable too, to get along with the people you tour with. 

C- What are your tour plans after Jagermeister?
J- We didn’t plan this tour.  We are actually getting ready to do another record.  This just came up, and we were like ok we will do it. 

C- Do you have songs ready for another record coming up?
J- No, we were going to start.  Than this popped up, and we figured we would do this.  The amount of time we spend in between records (three years) what’s another seven weeks? Right

C- Do you have another video planned for this record?
J- Doubt it.  I was surprised we got two.  I was expecting none or one.  None would’ve been my first expectation.  To us it’s not really a big deal anymore.  It’s really for the fans.  Do I want to do one? Sure I do.  I want the fans to at least get something, but we don’t pay for it, so someone has to at least be willing to pay for it.  SPV came to the table for two, which is far more than I expected.  I’m pretty satisfied with that.

C -Do you guys have a long contract coming up with them?
J- No, not long.  Maybe one more, depends what they offer, what we sell.  The future is always shaky.  It’s shaky for everybody.  There are two kinds of people in the music business, the people who know their future is shaky, and the stupid people.  I’m not worried.  The downloading and all that shit.  It’s just really hard to make a living at this point.  I can see what’s happening.  Record companies are in the toilet.  Music stores are out of business. Chains are folding.

C- You have to change how things are being done.  Instead of everyone buying cds, they are buying single songs.
J-That’s right.  That’s number one, they are buying single songs.  One day they will probably pay for a band to put out a song at a time, because it’s not even worth doing an album. 

C- How do you promote an album when everyone is pulling up iTunes  and such?
J- iTunes?  That’s ok, it’s when they sell it to each other.

C- iTunes is alright, since at least they are paying for your songs.
J- You can’t stop once its digital.  It’s all over the place.  People say like Bob (the producer of Pink Floyd) he said “if you are waiting for the funeral of the music business, don’t bother waiting.  It’s already here.”  Buying downloads, there are some, but the majority of it is theft.  We are a record company or a band.  You can’t negotiate a contract, because there is nothing to pay for it.  Why would a record company pay for your album?  They can’t sell them. 

C- It seems it is more to do with touring and merchandise.
J- Yeah, that’s right.  There are bands that sell a million records that can’t fill a club.  We don’t sell a million records, but we can still fill a club.  It’s interesting.

C- You guys seem to have a good solid fan base.
J- Yeah, we have toured for eighteen years.  A lot of these bands now, have the sales figures, but they just haven’t gone out there.  Their MTV hits are going by whatever their latest single is, and those fans flip flop just as quickly as they have come to you.  They will leave you just as quick.  We have a core following and that’s something that has taken a lot of years to put together.  We work hard.  Our fans are relatively loyal.  It’s good. 

C- I’m a big fan.  What I like is you guys seem to be consistent in your sound.  When you get a Type O record or song, you know what you’re getting.  A friend of mine brought me out to see you guys about 12 or 13 years ago at Bohagers, ever since than I try to come out and see you guys live whenever I can.  You always put on a good show, whether it’s a bigger club or a smaller one.
J- Identity is a big issue.  Nowadays music is so generic at this point.  Music in general, I could put together 10 bands and you couldn’t tell me who was who, because it’s just generic.  There’s no identity.  I think what you’re latching onto is identity.  Even though we have like, six studio albums, they all have their own sound but they all sound like Type O.

C- You can come down the street and put one cd in and you would know what it is.
 J- That’s something bands these days don’t have is an identity.  They are flip flopping and searching.  They are just never found any type of identity. 

C- It seems like if you put in a Type O cd it may take someone who isn’t a fan a minute to ‘get it’
J- I don’t care why they put it on.  That’s your job.
 

C- Well as someone who really enjoys music, I try to get others to listen to some of the things that I enjoy.
J- Well thanks.  We are probably more word of mouth than anything.  We have never been enormously supported by the radio, maybe during a brief period in 1994.  (very brief).  That was fourteen years ago.  We are still here.  Something is working. 

C- Thanks I really appreciate your time!
J- Sure, anytime!

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