“I had an altercation with someone…” he says, pausing as if waiting for a rimshot, “over a woman of course. As for those legal problems he mentioned, it sounds like Steele’s luck hasn’t changed. It’s a rare moment of levity in a conversation that frequently veers toward melancholy, heartbreak, and the tales of loss that have laced Type O’s music ever since the release of their 1991 debut Slow Deep And Hard, an autobiographical account of Steele’s failed romances, first darkened the world with its slinking, funereal dirges. Not out of ridicule, but in knowing agreement that you haven’t lost everything if you still have your sense of humour.

But Pete Steele’s life was also one plagued by personal loss, bouts of severe depression, and an outlook so exuberantly free of any kind of optimism, that all anyone could really do was laugh at it. Sure, Pete Steele was a musical visionary whose trademark baritone and gallows humour fused a language of love and loss with gothically-tinged, Sabbath-loving sounds to create one of the 90s most successful yet inimitable metal bands. It was a tragically fitting postscript on a famously cheerless existence. For anyone who knew anything about Pete Steele or his music, the understated epitaph spoke volumes. The only clue as to the news’ veracity was an enigmatic image posted on the official Type O Negative web site: an illustrated tombstone that read read ‘Peter Steele, 1962-2005’. On May 13, 2005, the world of heavy music was shaken to its very foundations by rumours that founding Type O Negative frontman and bassist Pete Steele was dead.

Peter steele playgirl magazine photos