It’s a sign of getter older when the heroes of your teenage years start dropping dead. Last week I paid tribute to Slipknot bassist Paul Gray, who sadly passed aged only 38, mere weeks after the equally sad death of (former Sabbath front man and solo artist) Ronnie Dio. While as a teenage metal fan I respected both these men, neither of their bands had the impact on me Type O Negative did. So you imagine my shock and heart rending sadness when I discovered that not only had that bands iconic lead singer, Peter Steele, passed away, but that he had died weeks before either of the aforementioned, and with almost none of the press attention.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ3aiM8K6D0

For those who don’t share my interest in underground music, Type O Negative were the Goth Metal band (and I’m talking Goth in the musical sense, not just the aesthetic one.) Their music was a cross between the Sisters of Mercy, Black Sabbath, and the Beatles, ultra melodic, ultra heavy and with an almost cartoonish sense of misery surrounding them. It wasn’t their sound that made me love them though, it was that I indentified with both the melancholy and the humour of the band. Pete Steele had exactly the same attitude to Goth I did, he knew not to take it too seriously. With songs like the Goth Girl send-up Black No 1, the melodramatic ballad Love you to Death and the hilariously slow and heavy cover of Hall & Oates’ Summer Breeze, the band showed that they kept their collective tongue firmly in cheek when it came to their chosen sub-genre.

In 2005 an image of a tomb stone appeared on the bands website. It read Peter Steele 1962 – 2005. This turned out to be a hoax, with Steele actually doing a stint in Rikers Island Penitentiary for possession, and then in rehab. Five years later when rumours again began to circulate of his death, his hardcore fans expected another joke. Well he got em’ again, this time by actually being dead. I like to think he would have gotten a perverse sense of satisfaction out of that.

Peter Steele RIP