Revolverhas teamed up with Type O Negative for a limited edition Clear w/ Black Swirl vinyl release of their 1991 debut albumSlow, deep and hard.Order now before they are gone!
“There are two types of bands: bands that came about by accident and bands that lie and tell youwas notan accident." That's whatEnter O NegativeKeyboardist and producer Josh Silver told me when I interviewed him for the liner notes of the 2009 remaster of the band's 1991 debut:Slow, deep and hard. The loud and angry album is a far cry from the pounding choruses and doomy goth of their 1993 outburst.bloody kisses.But it established the tongue-in-cheek attitude they maintained throughout their careers.
lyrical,Slow, deep and hardhas more to do with the frontman's politically incorrect sarcasmpeter steel's previous band, NYC Hardcore Bruiserscarnivore, than subsequent Type O versions. Songs like "Unsuccessfully Coping With the Natural Beauty of Infidelity," "Prelude to Agony," and especially "Der Untermensch" sparked rampant and unfounded accusations of misogyny, bigotry, and outright Nazism - mostly from people who couldn't (or could not). refused). ) understand sarcasm. "We never set out to create controversy to get anything done," Silver said. "It just happened - and it wasn't fun. We were grilled by the press. People who came for interviews were really hostile.”
But with the right ears, an open-minded listener will recognize the songs on itSlow, deep and hardfor what they are: hilarious. "I think Peter was at the peak of his lyrical ability," Silver said. "It's something you couldn't do twice because you didn't even know you were doing it while you were doing it. And that is something that is irreplaceable.”
With that in mind, here are ten things you probably didn't know aboutSlow, deep and hard.
1. Josh Silver's parents funded the recording ofSlow, deep and hard.
Recorded at Systems Two in Brooklyn - the same studio that Type O would record all of their future albums in (albeit in a different location) -Slow, deep and hardcosts $6,000 to make. Somehow, Silver convinced his parents to lend him the money. "I'm not even sure I paid them back," he revealed in the 2009 liner notes. "They probably thought they were getting off cheap. It's like, 'We thought we had to pay for college, but you're too stupid to do it.'"
2. The album was originally released under a different band name.
When the band recorded the songs, they didn't use the name Type O Negative. They called themselves Repulsion - until they found out about the former grindcore ancestors from Flint, Michigan, who had releasedhorrifiedin 1989. By that time Steele and co. had already released their material - minus the title "Glass Walls of Limbo" - as a cassette demo with the titleNo more negativeBeforeSigned to Roadrunnerand change their name.
3. The photo usedSlow, deep and hard'S Cover was stolen from a porn magazine.
The picture on the cover ofSlow, deep and hardis a close-up of sexual penetration stolen from a porn magazine. The band resized and photocopied the graphic shot to get the right grain. "It's not an original photo," admitted Silver. "I wish it was mine because the guy has a pretty big cock. But I'm kind of ashamed to take it now - it's like [illegal] downloading. But we didn't know any better then. And it probably would have been easy to get the usage rights." Type O apparently learned its lesson. For the 1992 coverthe origin of feces,They used an original photograph of Steele's hairy anus.
Peter Steele (far right) and Type O Negative
Photo by Jeff Kitts
4. The graphic lyrics of "Unsuccessfully Coping With the Natural Beauty of Infidelity" caused a stir - and caused problems.
Opening your debut album with a nearly 13-minute track is probably not the best idea, but Type O always liked bad ideas. The song itself is a hilariously graphic kiss to an ex-girlfriend that Steele caught with another guy at the now-defunct Brooklyn metal club L'Amour. But the lyrics? "You had dicks in your head and cum on your breath/Put in that diaphragm before you left/Practice freelance gynecology/Where there's a womb there's a way/Your it's free/Bitch! Whore! Cunt!"
Steele then upped the chord progression of Simple Minds' 1985breakfast clubClassic, "Don't You (Forget About Me)" before veering into the immortal chorus, "I know you're fucking someone other." Feminist groups were not amused. Type-O guitarist Kenny Hickey attempted to explain the band's intent in the 2009 liner notes: "We talked about being mad at a woman for cheating on you. We didn't call all women sluts."
5. "Der Untermensch" sparked outrage - and led to accusations that the band were "Nazis".
The title of the album's second track essentially means "subhuman". Literally translated from German, it means "among the people," a common slur used by the Nazis to describe just about anyone who wasn't a goose-stepping Aryan. But, of course, very few people have realized that Type O is satire: silver is Jewish, for one thing. "That song caused a lot of trouble," he recalled. "They just made up a bunch of shit and said we were Nazis. Meanwhile, bands were playing just around the corner that are beating the crowd and no one cares about them. But it was a good thing and a bad thing. As a Jew, of course I never want to be labeled as a Nazi. But make us famous at the same time. That's fine.
6. Type O's European tour forSlow, deep and hardwas a disaster.
Due to the controversy surrounding "Der Untermensch", Type O's first European tour did not go well. "The Germans canceled shows across the board," Hickey recalled. "They smashed windows on the bus, there was a risk of riots and we couldn't go out on the street." Holland has banned Type O completely. "Not because of our views, but because they feared for public safety," Silver explained. "It's really gotten out of hand. I think we did about three shows and the rest got cancelled. Peter was so mad he flew home.
"Sarcasm is not allowed in Europe," he added. “They literally translate texts. You don't get the twist, the parody."
7. The band received flak - and a "freaky" death threat - for "Prelude to Agony".
The album's fourth track is a 12-minute power dirge that begins with a riff straight from Sabbath's "Hole in the Sky" and ends with the sound of a jackhammer and a woman screaming. The band jokingly referred to this sequence as the "jackhammerape," but not everyone laughed. "I remember we got a letter about it," Silver recalled. "You know how killers type those letters in all sorts of fonts? It was like that, and she said something like, 'Rape isn't funny or fashionable. Fuck you. I have to say it was really crazy."
"The song is about betrayal," Silver explained. "MuchSlow, deep and hardis about betrayal - feeling betrayed by relationships and being screwed by women. I mean, that's what concerns most young men, and so do we. It seemed to run like a thread through most of the album, and that was the imaginary revenge part. But we don't encourage rape. We encourage anger. If you don't like it, don't listen to us."
8.Slow, deep and hard'S A minute's silence isn't actually silence.
To the untrained ear, the minute-long interlude "The Misinterpretation of Silence and Its Disastrous Consequences" sounds like a minute of total silence. But in true Type-O fashion, it's not. "It's tape hiss," revealed Silver. "If you turn it up really loud, you'll hear it. We actually just ran a blank cassette. We were hoping people would think it sucked and crank their stereos really loud. Then the next song would kick in..."
9. "Glass Walls of Limbo (Dance Mix)" is a lot more complicated (and less) complicated than it sounds.
The album's ironically titled fifth track basically sounds like six minutes and 44 seconds of song and noise. But it wasn't just thrown together. "The song probably had 36 vocal tracks alone," Silver explained. “There were three parts, and each had 12 tracks. There was no Pro Tools back then, no pitch correction. Peter had to do them until he got it right.” As for the noise? "It was just us banging chains against the studio floor."
10.The MunstersThe title track inspired the main riff in "Gravitational Constant".
In a November 2019 interview withLoudwire, Hickey revealed that the main riff on the album's close, "Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 x 10-8 Cm - 3 Gm - 1 Sec-2" was inspired by the title track of the popular 1960s sitcomThe Munsters.Of course Type O would come backThe Munsterson their 1993 breakout albumbloody kisses, as Steele Lily Munster in the lyrics to Black No. 1” mentioned by name.