Mason: Sabbath and the Beatles seem to be major influences on Steele personally, but some other bands have surprisingly been mentioned as well….like Devo and Cocteau Twins.

Alexander: Yeah, well, you know I remember being in the rehearsal studio with Pete and him listening to stuff like GangGreen, The Mission, Sisters of Mercy or Cocteau Twins..they were certainly not influences on Carnivore, but Pete being, you know a musician first and anything else second, he’s always had his ears and eyes open to good music.

Do you think Steele was always searching for that “style”? When Type O Negative’s Bloody Kisses came out…that was certainly more towards a “gothy” “doomish” sound.

I think we’re all searching all the time. The best artists among us, and I don’t count myself in that league, but, I think for the best artists…it’s a constant search right? It’s a struggle with self. It’s a constant battle because you hear something you really like but you don’t want to copy it right off the bat, so, maybe you listen to the album over and over and you start to assimilate some influences. Like I hear some Cure in the things that Pete does, you know, like, was it an influence when he was fourteen? Probably not. But as we grow older, we get turned on to other bands that are doing cool shit, and you almost can’t help but assimilate some of it.

The events leading up to that famous signing of the contract with, Road Racer? It WAS Road Racer at the time right?

Right. Well, one thing that I really remember is that, I remember having dinner with Vinnie Stigma from Agnostic Front, Cees Wessels, I forget his last name, the head of Road Racer, um….who else was there? (Pause) I think…Billy Milano from SOD (Storm Troopers of Death) …I forget who else, but I remember having a dinner in a Chinese restaurant prior to us getting signed, and then I remember…. Now this is a while…and Pete will probably dispute this…but I believe it was me who like really made contact with Connie Barrett at first. I might not have maybe “made contact” per se…but I remember being the first one to really talk to her, and get her down and you know, pursue it a little bit.

It was interesting, because at the time, Pete wasn’t big on touring. We didn’t like, really leave Brooklyn for that matter, and that was always a disappointment to me cuz I loved to travel and I think, you know, it’s just critical…critical!

So, I remember Connie Barrett coming down, and she’s the one who signed the band.

So, the touring or lack there of was an issue back then with Carnivore?

Oh yeah, I mean, part of it might be that he (Peter) had a real job, I forget what he was doing at the time, but I was ready to just quit any job to do a show on a weekend, it didn’t matter to me.

Carnivore was described by Peter Steele as a sort of cross over between hardcore and metal, saying that he liked the “heaviness of metal and the violence and excitement at hardcore shows.” (Quote taken from “Sound of the Beast” The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal by Ian Christe)

Well, I think that he’s free to say what he wants about it, to me, that statement doesn’t ring true because…that’s discussing a genre…right?…I mean that’s like…that was just the time. Metallica, Motorhead…you know, Motorhead took punk and metal and put it together right? So…yeah, I mean it’s not a false statement, like yeah, we definitely had hardcore aggressiveness as well as metal geatrics. But yeah, I mean, Carnivore and a hundred other fucking bands, you know, at the time were a mixture of …you know…fucking Anthrax…and…you know…all those bands…we all mixed hardcore and metal, that was certainly no big deal.

You said in the short email interview… “I was a pawn in Peter’s game!” What did you mean by that?

That I was what? A pawn? Well you know, it’s his band. Simple as that. It’s like you can’t replace Pete…anyone of those other three guys can go. (obviously reference to present day Type O Negative) You know? I mean, it’s arguable, if Josh went, the band would definitely change, cuz I think Josh is a big part of that band, but you know…the guitar players and the drummers? Whatever! It could be anybody. I mean, Johnny could probably argue that…you know…and nobody likes to hear that…but the bottom line is Pete could throw any guitar player in there basically and it’d be the same band. It’s Pete’s bands. Bottom line.

You also said that you were thrown out by Connie in a Jewish deli and that you made “one mistake too many on stage”.

Yeah, I remember…that was really the big thing, cuz like I was really into moving around, putting on a show, and the perfection was less important to me. I think Pete’s definitely a perfectionist, and, I’m not, and the reason I think that’s why they asked me to leave. Part of it was just totally not into going hardcore. I was not into shaving my head, I was not into “Jack Daniels & Pizza” , “Angry Neurotic Catholics”. It took me long enough to get into it (original concept?) It took me long enough to dig the science-fiction shit, and I wanted to take that…you know….keep going on that. Pete had other ideas and that was part of it…we clashed a couple of…we clashed allot…I clash with everybody…that’s just….you know…that’s part of my nature too. So, you know, we clashed a bit, but the reason I think…the final throws was me fucking up onstage cuz I remember me reading in an interview right after I got kicked out and one of the comments about the new guitar player…that it was…Pete had said that it “was their best show ever because they didn’t make one mistake.” So that kind of like led me to believe that like mistakes were a part of it too and…whatever you know…it’s fuckin rock and roll…you should be a…. (change of thought) …if it’s perfect it’s lame.