![]() ![]() But Steele made an industry of synthesizing the ironic with the sublimely earnest. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)” is a send-up of the goth-girl archetype (”She’s got a date at midnight with Nosferatu/Oh, baby, Lily Munster ain’t got nothing on you”), the title referring to the only thing a Little Miss Scare-All could ever truly fear: the roots of her hair showing. The vampire of South Brooklyn, who shoveled shit between band practices, cut both a relatable and controversial figure. It was, he later told an interviewer for the deluxe reissue of his band Type O Negative’s landmark third album, Bloody Kisses, about “the ultimate goth girl” who was “in love with herself.” And for three hours, while sitting in traffic waiting to unload a truckful of excrement, he composed a song in his head. ![]() He was an archetype for the brooding, hypermasculine metalhead that crawled out of the primordial ooze. I also can’t believe that people like Stalin and Hitler are gonna go to the same place as Mother Teresa.Steele looked like a more Nordic Undertaker, or Glenn Danzig but a foot taller. For me, it’s a frightening thought to go nowhere. ![]() And then you start hoping there is a God. And when you start to think about death, you start to think about what’s after it. But after going through a midlife crisis and having many things change very quickly, it made me realize my mortality. In an interview with Decibel magazine, Steele explained “There are no atheists in foxholes, they say, and I was a foxhole atheist for a long time. In April 2007, Steele revealed that he began identifying himself as Roman Catholic in recent years, after decades of self-professed atheism. Additionally, he later revealed on MTV's Headbangers Ball that the new alliance with SPV Records was probably his favorite thing about Dead Again from a production standpoint. Steele also revealed in recent interviews that Type O Negative's split from Roadrunner Records, aside from a poor offer, had to do with an allegedly unauthorized release of a Best Of compilation. In a 2007 interview, Steele reflected on the posing as merely a naïve publicity stunt. ![]() After finding out via bandmate Kenny Hickey's contacts that only 23 percent of the magazine subscribers were female, Steele somewhat regretted the decision and later made light of it on Life Is Killing Me with the song "I Like Goils". Steele notoriously appeared as a nude centerfold of Playgirl in 1995. This situation was incorporated into "Tripping a Blind Man" on Type O Negative's 2007 album, Dead Again. Additionally, Steele was admittedly very bitter towards his sisters for what he perceived to be a betrayal of sorts that led to his jail time. Included in this DVD is an interview in which Steele briefly mentions his incarceration in Riker's Island and "the psych ward at Kings County Hospital," both stints apparently caused by his heavy substance abuse, for which he also served time on probation. Rumors of his death, terminal illness, and other speculations increased until the mystery was dispelled on the 2006 DVD Symphony for the Devil. However, Steele had indeed disappeared for an extended time with no explanation from the band or management. The website discontinued the tombstone picture in October 2005. According to an article dated May 14, 2005, Steele was not dead the gag was related to their fresh signing with SPV Records. There were unconfirmed rumors at one point of Steele's death after the band website posted an image of a tombstone bearing his name and the dates 1962-2005. Steele was equally known for his dark, deadpan humor, being remarkably self-deprecating for a musician and clinical depression he had occasionally received psychiatric treatment for the latter. He is of Polish, Icelandic, English, and Russian heritage. ![]()
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