My high school friend Bryan came back home after a summer away. He had a cassette tape with all sorts of new metal tunes on it. There was this one with some lyric like: “Lick me she begged, she pulled down my head… I LOVE TO EAT PUSSY! A taste so fine like sweet April wine, I won’t trade for any money”. 

Well! Wasn’t THAT something for teenager me to hear!

We had no idea who it was – no Shazam in those days, kids. We at first thought it was Sodom, but I checked one of their albums out and it was no where near the same style let along song. Eventually I found out it was the band Carnivore, the pre-Type O Negative band for Peter Steele.

I admit, I like Carnivore. Yes, it’s all the horrible things you say it is… it’s a cartoon, a reflection of the time. It’s art, like it or don’t. I mean come on! They’re dressing up like some sort of Mad Max post-nuclear apocalyptic cavemen! They look like jackasses! It’s goofy! Do you really think this is serious? 

Well… the music is (kinda). You start to get the feel for where Peter was going. Listen to him croon on “Male Supremacy“. It’s Conan. It’s Dungeons & Dragons. It’s the stuff goth girls swoon for. Proto-Type-O.

Mark “Psycho” Abramson at Roadrunner was my radio rep and he knew I dug Carnivore. He got me this early copy of a demo from a band called Repulsion, which was going to be Peter’s next thing. The name was already taken, so they switched to Type O Negative, and the rest is history. It was cool to get the early peek into that project. 

I also remember being at a Pantera / Wrathchild America show at The Bayou. During the show, Phil Anselmo called out a dude in the crowd he saw with a Carnivore shirt. Backstage after the show, I spoke with Phil about it and he brought up the Repulsion stuff, which we then talked about for a bit.

Never got to see Type O live nor met Peter. Was always fascinated by his early distain and later embrace of Catholicism (I’m sure in part because of Nettie).