"It’s strange to grow up feeling like 230lbs of mucus and then see all these girls taking their clothes off and throwing them at you." Why one of 90s metal's most unlikely sex symbols wrote a 60s pop bop Austin Powers would be proud of

Peter Steele on stage in scrubs.

The success of Type O Negative’s third studio album, 1993’s goth metal masterpiece Bloody Kisses, was unheard of for a band of their ilk; it was the first album to be certified Gold in Roadrunner Records’ history, contained a massive, surprise, crossover hit in Black No.1 that received heavy rotation across MTV and VH1, turned their frontman into an international sex symbol and seemed to set Type O up as one of the definitive metal bands of the 90s. Not that they were particularly happy about it, of course.

“Every time I hear this album, I hear error, I hear things that are out of tune, I hear things that I wished I had done differently, I hear songs that are too long and boring,” Type O frontman Peter Steele told M.K. Ultra magazine in 1993 of the album, before predicting that Bloody Kisses' follow up “is probably gonna be 40% psychedelic, 40% goth, and 10% industrial...maybe a little sprinkling of big band music in there.”