Never heard of em, still 48, very young.

O man, Type-O-Negative is great band and Peter Steele had a great voice, RIP

Damn...and he looked healthy too!

It's seriously fucked up....seriously. I was lucky enough to have met Peter and the guys twice during the various shows they played in Florida. I met them back in 95-96 and I met them again in...um..(can't remember the year, sorry). The second time meeting them that I got backstage was down here at a venue called the "House of Blues" which I believe is nation wide. I remember that concert was the same month as my birthday that year. I was given back stage passes as a birthday present. I've got CD's and ticket stubs signed by the guys in the band (Peter, Kenny, Johnny, and Josh).

Aside from Video games and Electronics, Music, has been the other great inspiration in my life. Oddly enough, if you've ever heard of the band "Full Devil Jacket", their frontman, Josh Brown, is my second cousin on my Mom's side of the family. It was at one of their shows that I got backstage the second time to meet the band. The first time I got back stage to see Type O was at a small venue called "Club Tsunami" I had the chance to sleep with the lead signer of the female band "Drain STH", a girl named Maria Sjöholm. Believe it or not I turned that chance down as it would have meant cheating on my fiancé at the time and I just couldn't do that. Looking back, if I had known how that relationship was going to turn out, I should have jumped on that chance...LoL.

Type O Negative's music changed the way I look at life, the way I view the world and the other people who populate it, and it got me through a very troubled time in my life when suicide was something I thought about on a almost daily basis. Without Type O Negative's music I doubt I'd be sitting here now to type this. The two times I met him Peter seemed like a real stand up guy. He wasn't rude or stuck up and he didn't have the attitude problem that seems to plague musicians after they reach a certain level of fame. He was a real down to Earth dude. I'll never forget what he said to me... "Hey man, it's nice to meet you. Any friend of Josh's is a friend of ours. He said you've been real sick and not doing too well. Thanks for coming out tonight and I hope you start feeling better." (that was back when my stomach problems first started before my doctors figured out I have Crohn's Disease). When he says "Josh" he's referring to my cousin, not his band mate named Josh Silver. Depending on how deep my wife buried the boxes I can probably dig out the pictures from that night. If I find them I'll post them but no promises, I have no idea where they're currently packed.

I don't think there will ever be another "Goth" band to achieve the level of fame and recognition that Type O Negative did. Type O Negative was even excommunicated from the Catholic Church for their song "Christian Woman". Though Peter went through a time in his life when he drank heavily and did a lot of drugs, he did kick his bad habits and for a long time lived clean and sober and was actually a big health nut. Peter Steele was a Huge Inspiration to a lot of people and he and his music shaped the lives of so many other people that I think the world would truly be a different place without him.

Rest in Peace, brother. May you find the peace in death that you often couldn't find in life. The world is truly a darker place without you in it.

Edit: To Honour Peter's passing I'm going to be getting a new tatoo soon. The Type O Negative band symbol. It's a circle with a minus symbol in the center. I'll be getting it on my shoulder or maybe shoulder blade on my upper back.

I agree he never really got over Elizabeth which is pretty evident in more then a few of his songs (Electrocute to name one). They were together for almost 10 years and a lot of his music was inspired by both the love and the pain of losing that love. I'm one of those people that agrees that a Lot of Good Works come from the pain people feel about things in their life. It's like how Blues fans say "No junk = no soul" referring to musicians who write better music when they're high or messed up on some other drug then when they're clean and sober. Without the pain to inspire them some of our best songs and poems and paintings by artists through-out history would have never been made. Good things can come from pain when that pain is channeled correctly.

I too used to dye my hair black. Most of the way through High School my hair was dyed black. Back then my hair went down to my belt, it was that long, and grew rather quickly. My hair grows so fast I was having to re-dye my hair every month or so because my natural color isn't as dark. I would look like I had a "skunk stripe" running down the center of my head. Eventually I let it keep growing and I kept trimming it until all the black was gone but for a long time I looked kind of funny with two toned hair. The only reason I haven't went back to keeping my hair dyed is because I'd either have to A: re-dye it constantly, or B: eventually go through the process of growing it out until the black is gone. I loved the way my hair looked back then though, as did a whole bunch of my girlfriends.

As for the Tat, all the members of the band have/had it, as well as many of their fans. Soon I'll be able to count my-self as one of their number. Normally I don't go along with doing things like that as a lot of people do it just to "fit in" or to "be cool". I'm doing it because of the affect their music has had on my life just as that's the reason you're going back to having black hair.

I still can't get over the sudden-ness of all this. It just came out of no-where. At first a lot of people didn't believe it as not too long ago Peter "Faked news of his death" to promote their album "Dead Again" in 2005. When I first heard this news I was thinking "Please Gods, lets this be another publicity stunt". Sadly...this time it's no stunt

Bummer for sure. I love Type O. I knew I should have seen them last time they were at Harpos in Detroit. Anyone remember when they had a video included in the PC video game "Blood"?