Johnny Kelly has squashed the idea of a potential Type O Negative reunion, based off his belief that it would be “impossible” without the band’s late frontman Peter Steele.
While speaking with Germany’s Sonic Seducer magazine, the former Type O drummer is asked whether there’s a chance of the industrial goth rockers reconnecting for a tour in honour of Steele, a question possibly prompted by next year’s Pantera reunion plans.
In response, Kelly says: “I don’t know if I would ever wanna do something like take it on the road or… It could never be a reunion; Peter’s not there, so it’s impossible to call it a reunion.
“I think that Peter’s work deserves some kind of celebration,” he continues. “And how that can happen, I really have no idea. But we’ve never seriously considered doing any kind of reunion or putting something out there as Type O Negative without Peter. Peter, his musicianship, his character — without him there, you can’t call it Type O Negative.”
Earlier this year, Kelly revealed that there had been various conversations about a tribute concert for the vocalist, although the idea never grew into a serious possibility. “There was never any serious consideration, like, should we do something? Is there even a point of doing it? Or also, is it just a blatant cash grab? So all these things go through your head” he told Loaded Radio.
“People celebrate [Peter] all the time,” he added. “They do it daily. I see it online all the time and the impact that he had.
“Maybe somewhere down the road there may be something that’s… I don’t know. But I know that for me, it would have to include Kenny [Hickey, guitar] and Josh [Silver, keyboards] as well. Anything that we do, it would have to be the three of us. And there’s no way you’re getting Josh to do anything like that.”.
As for who would perform on vocal duties, he proposes the idea of a female vocalist, so that there would be no chance in having the new singer unfairly compared to Steele.
“I’d want a girl to do it. I’d want a female vocalist — like Ann Wilson [Heart] or something like that” he said. “But even so, that’s the first thing. When you think about doing some kind of tribute show, you’re just gonna get all these people… Yes, Peter was very highly regarded by our peers and stuff like that, and you’ll just get a bunch of dudes up there just trying to sound like Peter. And you can’t do that. And it’s, like, all right, so what’s the most remote thing from Peter? You’d have to do something completely abstract.
“And I would say get a female vocalist. I think Peter would get a kick out of… He would get off on seeing a girl sing his songs, seeing a female sing them. And it would really stress the point of doing something as a tribute instead of trying to recreate something.”