He was based at Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where his job involved park maintenance,driving vehicles including garbage trucks and steamrollers, and eventual promotion to the role of park supervisor. Steele worked for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation up until he began touring with Type O Negative in the summer of 1994. Steele started taking guitar lessons at age 12, moving on to bass six months later. His father fought in World War II and later worked at a shipyard. Steele was the youngest of six children, with five older sisters. He was raised in the Bensonhurst and Brighton Beach neighborhoods of Brooklyn.
His father was of Russian and Polish descent and his mother of Scottish-Irish, Norwegian, and Icelandic ancestry.
Murrow High School located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. Before forming Type O Negative, he had created the metal group Fallout and the thrash band Carnivore.Įarly life Steele was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn into a Roman Catholic family and attended Edward R. Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk (Janu– April 14, 2010), known professionally as Peter Steele, was the lead singer, bassist and composer for the gothic metal band Type O Negative.