I spent seven hours typing this up today. That means, it’s very long. And I still have an hour left to transcribe.

Be warned. Contents include:

Politics. Religion. Peter Steele needing to get his head out of his ass. Missionaries. Type O Negative being Nazis. The problem with Americans. The problem with American Jewry. The downfall of the music industry. Rock stars with day jobs. Fuggetaboutit. And there are links to Israeli bands interspliced within the article… if you don’t want to read the Jew stuff scroll down to the middle.

MI: You’re being recorded.

JS: I didn’t hear that, so I can deny what I say.

MI: OK. last time we did this was about 12 years ago. I made a complete ass out of myself-

JS: I did too.

MI: No. But I want to know, how do you think you’ve changed in the past 12 years, since then?

JS: 12 years ago is a really long time. 12 years ago I was 33. I was an amazingly self-destructive person. I thought I would certainly never see forty. And now I’m staring at 45. I think I’ve changed enormously. That’s probably the biggest way.

MI: Yeah, you have a family too. Most people, you know, in this society can’t handle that.

JS: I can’t handle it either. But that’s OK. I have one anyway. It’s a really hard balance. Leaving four months out of the year…having kids is definitely the hardest thing in the entire world to deal with. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It never ends.

MI: My teacher just came in from Israel, and she just gave a whole class on that. That kids are a blessing, and even though this whole culture thinks it’s a curse, it’s like, they make you have to work on yourself and become a better person, because you have to be somebody to live up to, you know?

JS: You do have to be the example of what you wish your child to be, and that is very difficult.

MI: OK…so let me ask you, how much time do you have?

JS: Whatever you need.

MI: Really? First of all… Well, you want to get into the Jew stuff?

JS: Whatever you want. The Jew stuff?

MI: Yeh!

JS: The Jew stuff.

MI: (giggles)

JS: Let’s talk about the Jew stuff.

MI: OK. Well, you said when we scheduled this interview that “You might not like some of my opinions.” Regarding what? What do you see of an opinion of mine that you’re just like, “Ah, shuddup, ya stupid.”

JS: (holds back a laugh) Well, y’know, as pro-Jewish as I may be, I also see a lot of issues with what’s happening with Jews right now. You know, as far as Israel, and the attitude towards Arabs in general. I’m sure you wouldn’t agree with my opinions, which are that the Jews, very often and certainly not everyone because I will never lump anyone into a single category, but many Jews certainly seem to have a deep hatred for Arabs, and I’m sure many Arabs have a deep hatred for Jews. But the bottom line is it’s not all Arabs that hate Jews and it’s not all Jews that hate Arabs. so what’s going to make Israel survive? Do you have that answer for me? I want to interview you now.

MI: Yeh? I don’t know if you’re gonna want to hear it. The only thing I think is going to make Israel survive… I don’t know. As a religious person, we always say that it doesn’t matter who the enemy is, G-d is letting them win over us because we’re not doing what it is that we are supposed to do. So if everyone is sitting in Israel, but meanwhile they’re stealing, robbing, doing whatever and not living up to the laws of Torah, yeh! G-d’s gonna give us a kick in the butt. And if it’s not going to be the Nazis it’s going to be the Arabs. If it’s not going to be the Arabs it’s going to be somebody else. So personally I don’t say I hate all Arabs, though I do hate the Arabs that I know of, you know, Hamas and all the ones taking the polls where the majority opinion is ‘Yeh, we’re all gonna kill you, and you’re not having a state, you’re not having anything…” I don’t care what you are, if somebody’s a good person they’re a good person, but if a whole population wants to slaughter me…and they’re like, “Yeh, let’s do it-“

JS: Yeh, I agree. When you’re dealing with a terrorist organization like Hamas you definitely do not want…there are no reasonable people in that organization because they are sitting there and calling for the extinction of a people. And that is absolutely unreasonable. I will quickly and efficiently defend myself from such things.

MI: The problem is that we’re not allowed to. First of all, it’s not politically correct. And when you have people with emotions like yourself, it’s a normal thing. I’m a human being and I’m looking at you like you’re a human being. But when those people aren’t looking at you like you’re a human being you gotta stand up. And people don’t understand that that’s what it is. They think, “Oh, it’s just a few Arabs…” No! They voted these people into existence, these are the only people that are sending their kids out to blow us up.

JS: But the truth is, Abbas is probably the best Palestinian leader as far as the Jews should be concerned to date, or in recent history anyway. And he does seem to be moving towards actual…attempting, at least, to stop all that bullshit coming from the now occupied West Bank…

MI: Well, you’re looking at it as someone who reads the news in America. The news I read is that his police force just killed another Jew, that his police force were involved in an assassination attempt on Olmert and that he’s a Holocaust denier… so he’s sitting there smiling and laughing, and this and that…making nice… but first of all it’s bullshit! Second of all, if most of the population doesn’t follow him, who cares? How is he gonna lead if nobody puts confidence in him?

JS: That’s always a problem especially when you have faction groups. Like in Iraq, yknow, you can’t leave Iraq because everyone has different opinions. Who’s gonna lead? Who’s gonna lead a place where every neighborhood has a different opinion? And I’ll tell you another real issue in Israel is that the Jews are all split! The Jews can’t even stick together. Throwing rocks at cars, screaming “Don’t drive on Shabbos!” The Jews are killing each other too!

MI: You think that’s killing people?

JS: And that’s stupid. If the Jews don’t stick together, it’s over.

MI: Very true.

So you know what? You better forget worrying about all your enemies cause half the people sitting right next to each other that you call your people can’t even get along with each other.

MI: True, true.

JS: And that’s gonna weaken everything.

MI: That’s it, that’s on the nose.

JS: So…

MI: So, we agree. 😛

JS: Finally.

MI: It’s a problem.

JS: I don’t care if you wear a yarmulke, if you’re Reform, if you’re a Hasid, I don’t care. If you’re gonna want to survive to see the next fifty years, everybody better shut the fuck up and deal with each other.

MI: Amen.

JS: And that to me, is even more weakening than having a couple of rockets lobbed over a border. You know those rockets aren’t really that damaging. I’m not saying… I mean, one human life is a terrible thing to take but let’s be honest, it really hasn’t been happening anywhere near as often as it used to…

MI: You know, a whole town is under siege. I can send you a link…every day, can you imagine, for more than a year, just living every minute like “Oh my G-d there’s gonna be an attack, run to the shelter…” The whole town is screwed up.

JS: Well, that’s kind of the nature of living sandwiched in between your enemies, isn’t it?

MI: Well, it wasn’t like that before we withdrew from Aza. What do you think about withdrawing and giving them land?

JS: I wasn’t happy about that at all. When the ultimate goal is to get back Jerusalem which isn’t gonna happen, that’s obvious…

MI: Don’t be so sure with these people but yeah, G-d forbid they should, but yeah…(the bastards in the government are already putting up the ‘borders’- ed.)

JS: Well, that will just cause an enormous revolution…

MI: Yeah… (don’t be so sure about that either, no one seems to give a fuck around here – ed.)

JS: Well, that goal (of the Arabs to get Jerusalem) can’t be accomplished, so there’s no reason to move people closer so they can lob their rockets closer. Personally I would have just completely shut down the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip and made them a nice empty buffer zone…get the settlers out of there, fill it with military, and nobody’s lobbing any rockets anywhere.

MI: People will die for the land, especially there (in the West Bank, more correctly known as Yehuda-Shomron). Cause that’s something it says straight in the Torah: G-d gave it. That’s ours. Once you withdraw…well first of all you’re not allowed to withdraw. It’s a big no-no.

JS: The anti-Israel people would say that the UN gave a piece of land to be used as Israel and said that Jews are not allowed to expand the borders. Which is true, but at the same time, things come up during a period of time and rules change and most of the land…. Well, I certainly know I’m living in a conquered land. The United States isn’t my country. We slaughtered an entire race of people.

MI: We? You weren’t even there, it’s a different race completely. Your grandparents are from where? I remember… your great-grandfather was (left out for the sake of privacy) and he went to Argentina. He was a badass, your great-grandfather. I looked him up.

JS: You probably know more about him than I do.

MI: He was a rabbi – first he was Reform. He was in Europe. I forgot where. Poland, likely – and uh, he was Reform but then he realized it was all bullshit and he became really religious and a rabbi.

JS: Become religious… this is the same thing I’m in. I’m Jewish by heritage. But I’m an atheist, and he probably was as well. I can’t speak for him obviously, I didn’t know him.

MI: But why would he keep all of the –

JS: Being a rabbi. But he probably became a rabbi more so to carry on the heritage than the actual religion.

MI: How do you know?

JS: I don’t! I said I didn’t know him.

MI: Nononono. What I read about him, is that he was mad because he saw it was all bullshit and returned to the Torah and said, “No, this is true, this is the way.” You can look him up, he’s in the Encyclopedia Judaica and you could probably Wiki him also.

JS: Eeeh… is that information really accurate? I’ve read mine, so I know how inaccurate it is.

MI: The Encyclopedia Judaica?

JS: No. Wiki.

MI: That’s true, that’s true. I didn’t even look that up. I was like, I know enough, I don’t care, I don’t need to research a damn thing… OK, so let me ask you a question. Since you’re a proud Jew by heritage…well, why are you an atheist? Forgive me for saying this cause I know it’s a little imposing. But I know your older brother died when you were a kid. Does it have to do with that?

JS: No, not at all. It’s simple. It’s so simple. Psychologically, G-d provides answers for everything and the fact is that the human race despises to simply say, I don’t know. I don’t know what created the world, nor will I ever know. Nor will anyone ever know. And to invent a human answer for such an enormous question is obviously absurd and is obviously put on earth to satisfy the insecurities of humanity.

MI: I don’t know, I’d be pretty secure if I was allowed to do whatever the hell I wanted.

JS: I’d be pretty secure if I thought my life was eternal and I’d have my 60 or 70 years and die and go to heaven and be with my family again. That would make me feel a lot better but unfortunately, my opinion is that I die and that’s the end of everything. And then people say, “Well how do you know that?” and I say well, it’s so simple because…what do you remember from the year 1700?

MI: Well, I could say we have the mesorah or whatever, that we have everyone who passed down all of the stories, all of the memories.

JS: Yeh, but what do you personally remember from the year 1700?

MI: I’ll tell you the truth. I have from the war (from the Holocaust), all my grandparents were there. So it went into me a little bit…it’s funny, like, if I’m in a place and I was never there but my grandparents were there, it’s like, I know the place…(my brother also felt that when he went to Poland on March of the Living…ed.)

JS: Well, if you ask MOST people, they say I wasn’t here. I wasn’t here 100 years ago. That’s right, you weren’t. And you won’t be again. It’s not hard to understand. It’s very simple. You didn’t exist for thousands of years. And you didn’t miss anything. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It was nothing. And that’s exactly what’s coming when you die. Nothing. And the only bitch is, I’m not even gonna be able to tell you that. Cause there’s gonna be nothing.

MI: How are you sure? What about all these people who say they came back –

JS: Oh, yeah. The brain plays great tricks on you when you are dying and you’re in pain. The brain is a very powerful organ.

MI: I don’t know. My dad believes in G-d but he’s very anti-religious.

JS: Well, if I believed in G-d, I would be anti-religious because all of these rabbis and priests and all of these people who are supposed to be the pillars of the community are fuckin’ crooked as hell, half of them! And it’s bullshit! You’re supposed to be an example. You’re supposed to live an honest and modest life. And these fuckin’ guys are evading taxes and doing all kinds of fucked up shit ten times worse and using their status half the time, and I’m not saying all of them, there are honest rabbis and there are honest priests but probably not many, just like there are not many honest people. So if you’re gonna talk the talk, you should walk the fuckin’ walk and no one does.

MI: You just said no one. You generalized.

JS: You’re right. I’m sure there are honest people.

MI: I can introduce you to a few. But they’re all in Israel.

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JS: Very few, I’m sure. I can be honest and do the right thing and try to be the best I can be, and G-d has nothing to do with it. I do not fear punishment in an afterlife. I’m not looking for mitzvahs to get into heaven, I just do the right thing because I feel it’s important to do that. And that’s it. No other reason.

MI: How do you decide what’s the right thing?

JS: I don’t need the Torah.

MI: But what made you decide what’s the right thing?

JS: Instinctual ethics.

MI: Instinctual ethics.

JS: Instinctual ethics.

MI: If my instinctual ethics tell me that I should go whack someone over the head because he’s a bastard, you’re telling me that you don’t have that feeling or you don’t hold yourself back?

JS: I do hold myself back. I would only use violence in self-defense. I would not be the perpetrator of violence. If someone attacks me, then I will attack back. That’s survival. I would never need to justify survival. If someone is threatening my existence, I have no qualms about doing whatever it is that is necessary to survive. That’s instinct. Even an animal will do that. I mean, corner a dog, see what happens to you.

MI: Right, but you have the power to be abstract. No dog has the power to be abstract.

JS: I don’t know, there are some pretty smart dogs out there, but you’re probably right.

MI: Well…ok. Back to what you were saying before… they say the reason the Messiah doesn’t come is that people aren’t living up to what they are supposed to be. I’ve seen a lot of hypocrisy. And don’t think like I think about religious people that “Oooh, everybody’s great.” I have been screwed over by religious people, I have been screwed over by rabbis…but G-d always takes care of me. He puts me in the right place. For example, this one rabbi I worked for didn’t pay me for like two months and then he was mad I left. He was like “I needed a secretary!” and I said, “You didn’t pay me for two months!” and he wouldn’t pay me! So it turned out, I kept getting to people who knew him and places where he was, and it turns out that he does this to a lot of people. I kept trying to get people in his community to get him to pay me and then, I ended up working on the same floor as his lawyer’s office. On J. I would hock his lawyer all day, “Where’s my money, where’s my money?” And I took him to court, and there were rabbis that helped me, or at least tried to. And he didn’t listen to them. (I DID get paid in the end). People are people, yo.

JS: That’s right. And there is good and bad in everything. If you’re going to be a spiritual leader you’re announcing that you’ve taken a larger responsibility to do the right thing. And not just, y’know, do whatever the fuck you feel like and use your tax-free status to earn extra money and live in a 30 bedroom house, that’s bullshit. Taking on that title should mean, should, and it certainly doesn’t, that you are going to make an effort to the best of your ability to live righteously.

MI: I know a lot of good people. I can’t say I don’t. I can’t say that the majority of the ones I have come in contact with are bad, because most of them are good. Have you ever met any, hung out with any, talked to any? Or is it just y’know, what you.. I mean, I’m not G-d forbid criticizing you –

JS: There was a story about a rabbi –

MI: In the newspaper, you read it? How did you hear it? Have you ever talked to rabbis?

JS: Like I said, I’m sure there are honest rabbis too. Don’t get me wrong.

MI: Do you ever talk to rabbis?

JS: Once in a while.

MI: You’ve hung out, and you know them, and you’ve seen them day-to-day?

JS: Well, actually I know a rabbi, personally.

MI: You speak with him. You know him personally. And you probably like him.

JS: Eeeeehh….

MI: Like, you don’t think he’s a douchebag, right?

JS: Actually, I do.

MI: Nebach. Alright.

JS: (chuckles)

MI: (giggles)

JS: I don’t think it has anything to do with him being a rabbi. I think he was a douchebag before he was a rabbi.

MI: Oh! So there ya go!

JS: But like I said, when you take on a title, you are agreeing to be a leader and that comes with responsibility. And people unfortunately, some of them, not all, don’t take it seriously. And the Catholics have a whole different set of problems. At least Jews can have sex when they’re rabbis. I mean, look at what the Church is going through.

MI: Fuggetabout it. Don’t start me, my friend.

JS: They’re too busy raping boys… but that’s a whole other issue. But there are honest priests as well. It’s just like everything else. There is good and bad. But I can’t sit there and I can’t have faith. That’s the bottom line.

MI: Well, you’re not supposed to have faith in people.

JS: I don’t have faith in people.

MI: The way you’re looking at this is: this is the people, this is the religion; hence, the hell with the religion. Which is completely understandable. However, a person is supposed to live up to the religion, not the other way around.

JS: I just don’t believe in it. I’m not saying other people shouldn’t believe in it. To me, all organized religion seems absurd. So I can’t possibly say that I’m religious. I’m a Jew by birth and heritage, and I will mention one other thing on the subject of Israel and Judaicahorror… Israel is a state that removes the nomadic nature of Jews and I’ve read these theories of people as well as that it’s pretty obvious that about half the Jewish population lives in Israel and about half the Jewish population lives in Brooklyn. And there are scattered Jews all over the world, of course. But now the Jews are less nomadic and they’re all concentrated in Israel. It certainly makes the Jewish people a much easier target. Because all you have to do is waste 40 miles of territory and you’ve just wiped out half the Jews. So I think it’s kind of dangerous in one sense that everybody’s clustering together –

MI: Oy, gevolt.

JS: All it’s going to take is one asshole with a nuke and we’re going to be reliving the 1940s again because we’re gonna be down millions of people all over again.

MI: Now this is where we disagree. It doesn’t matter where you’re clustered, where you’re not clustered… I mean, I don’t know, bro. I hear what you’re saying and it makes sense from a logical perspective. But that’s where religious people…that’s where the differences of opinion come in. If G-d wants you to be trashed, you are going to be trashed anyway.

JS: If you’re in Israel when it happens I’ll never get to talk to you about it again.

MI: Who said?

JS: We’ll maybe have another conversation about it. I don’t know. I’m not talking about religiously though, I’m talking about military strategy. The military reality is that it’s pretty easy to wipe out a tiny strip of land.

MI: I hear you loud and clear. But the thing is, it’s different rules there. Because of the religion. You’ve never went there, have you?

JS: No.

MI: When you go, you’ll understand it. There’s something there…

JS: I’d love to go, I’m dying to go.

MI: Dude, if I have a house you’re always invited. You, the wife, the kids, I don’t know… I wanted to bring Type O but I’m kind of…there was a guy who wanted to bring you, I was talking to Johnny about it. But then Peter came out with his, uh, wonderful little ditty and I was like “What the fuck? I don’t want him in my country!” Let’s go to that a little bit, yeh?

JS: Sure!

MI: Why do you put up with his bullshit? What is this?!

JS: Everyone has a right to their opinion. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with him, does it?

MI: No… but I know him enough to know that he does Jew jokes and he does all sorts of shit.

JS: I’d agree that Israel is a self-proclaimed state. To a small degree, y’know everybody gets their territory the way they get it. We stole the United States from a bunch of natives. Everyone gets what they get. So I’m not pissed that Israel exists. I can never agree with that song and certainly he is never going to change the mind – converting Zion is ridiculous and not going to happen.

MI: Where did he pull that out of?

JS: Eyyy, it’s a song. He has the right to his opinion. (He has the right to kiss my ass – ed.) He’s the lyricist. He wrote the lyrics.

MI: And you aid and abet, though. You were saying before about rabbis and how they are supposed to be leaders and how they take on responsibility. You guys as rock stars –

JS: Musicians don’t have that responsibility. I am not a pillar of the community. I am what you should not be.

MI: Kids don’t think that.

JS: Well, then their parents are teaching them bad things, aren’t they?

MI: If their parents are teaching them, yeh.

JS: That’s not my fault. If the US and European values are going to elevate media figures and everyone’s going to admire a bunch of assholes in a rock band, then you know what? I didn’t teach them that. To me, that’s a skewed value. I wouldn’t ever teach my kids that that’s what you should be admiring: some rock asshole.

MI: You don’t have to teach them. It’s the culture that teaches them.

JS: I know! You can unteach them, can’t you? You can try. But it is very difficult. I’m not taking responsibility for raising the world. Art has always been controversial. Art has always been opinionated. And it’s not always been my opinion. Listen, you remember Piss Christ where that guy put a crucifix in urine? They did that in the Brooklyn Museum or something. This guy had jars of urine with crucifixes in them.

MI: I remember something with the feces and Giuliani –

JS: Yeh, that was it. That was the same thing. Who cares? That’s not art. That’s just stupid. But art is subjective. People have the right to have whatever fucking opinion they want as long as they act within the law.

MI: Who makes the law?

JS: Not G-d, for me.

MI: Other people don’t share the same ethics as you. There has to be a standard and the standard, at least in the United States, is Judeo-Christianity. Whether or not you want to believe it, that is what you are spewing, my friend. You’re not spewing the ethics of some ninja who says “I will kill anyone I feel like” or some kind of Hindu– you are spewing Judeo-Christian ethics!

JS: That’s not necessarily true! I’m sure there are plenty of Hindu and Buddhist influences as well. These religions are as old as Judaism.

MI: No. It says in the Torah (in a specific time frame) that Abraham sent his children from Kna’an off to the East where they started these religions.

JS: Well, that’s supposition.

MI: So you say. You’re supposing that it’s not true. I’m not.

JS: But it’s supposition. You have to have faith to believe that absolutely.

MI: Well, why do you have faith that United States history happened? Cause you read it in a book, right?

JS: Uhh…

MI: Or because people told you.

JS: And with the same value, I’m sure a lot of it’s bullshit. I have to try to decide with my own mind and looking at what some of the results are and yes, I’m sure many of the facts have been skewed over the small 300 year history of the US – I’m sure many of the things are bullshit. So what’s the difference?

MI: Because in every place in the world, with only little tiny tweaks here and there, the Jewish faith stayed the same no matter how far you traveled, no matter where you were.

JS: How can it stay the same when you got a bunch of people in Israel who can’t even agree with each other?

MI: It’s the religion, not the people. The religion stayed the same.

JS: Some people drive on Shabbos, and the ultra-Orthodox think that those people don’t know anything about being Jewish, and Jews don’t even agree with each other!

MI: Yeah, but that’s the big problem. The reason we were kicked out of that land in the first place is…first of all, our nature isn’t nomadic (does frikkin’ Flatbush look nomadic to you?!? That ain’t no trailer park, son- ed.). We had a land. But because of the exact problem you’re describing we got booted out of it. The whole exile right now is because of the problem you’re describing. Now, once people start seeing what you’re saying they need to see, then it’s not going to be like this anymore.

JS: Maybe I should just ride in on a donkey.

MI: (chortling) Did you ever see the episode of Beavis and Butthead on David Letterman?

JS: (taken slightly aback) No.

MI: Beavis and Butthead were fighting on the chair, like, pushing each other off as to who would get to sit closer to the desk… I can see you and Peter fighting over who gets to be the Messiah, on the donkey…. You should get closer to the head though…

JS: Maybe it will be the person you least expect.

MI: What do you mean? Johnny?

JS: I’m gonna ride in and I’m gonna collect ten percent from each neighborhood. It’s a pretty good deal.

MI: I just want you to know that where I give my money to, I was in their house and I know that it goes to poor people. And there is something about giving ten percent of your money to charity. Big deal.

JS: Great. I’m all for charity.

MI: If it’s going to the right place. You’re not allowed to give it just to some knucklehead. You have to give to something that you know is OK.

JS: I never give to tzedaka. Fuck that shit. I don’t trust ‘em. Ten percent? Who’s your accountant?

MI: The LAAAWD. (in a James Brown voice)

JS: These guys run around with a pocket full of cash.

MI: Not my rabbi/rebbitzen. You go to their house, they live in a very simple apartment for the past like forty years, maybe fifty, and I see. I see her on the phone every minute, everyone calls her, “I need money, I need money.” I see people on the street and they ask for help, I say “Why don’t you go to her?” and they say, “Oh, I went to her like three times, the last time she had to turn me away, she didn’t have money.” And like, I see them, so if you don’t see them in action, you don’t believe it.

JS: No, I believe there are actual charitable things that are absolutely necessary and that people should donate time, but I’m not going to trust any schmuck that rings my bell, just because I have a mezuzah hanging.

MI: Why do you have a mezuzah if you’re such an atheist, huh? I don’t think you’re such an atheist.

JS: Ask G-d. If I was an Indian, I would have a totem pole. I might even do a rain dance and expect it to rain.

MI: Eeeeeh.. you’re not such an atheist. I mean, you are but you’re not.

JS: I am.

MI: Really?

JS: Absolutely.

MI: OK. I believe you. Maybe.

JS: You have to believe me. It’s not open for debate. I’m an atheist. Absolutely.

MI: You don’t even think maaaybe, a little tiny bit?

JS: That’s agnostic. I’m not agnostic.

MI: So.. who made an eyeball? You think it just kinda, popped into existence?

JS: What?

MI: An eyeball, man. It’s a very intricate machine. You just can’t DO it. What, it just evolved? One molecule off, and a person can’t breathe.

JS: Evolution!

MI: Evolution. One molecule off and you’re FUCKED! One stupid miniscule little thing that you can’t even see, and you can have somebody who is Down Syndrome, you can have somebody who has three legs.

JS: Yeah, and that’s another problem with the Jews.

MI: Cause they’re intermarrying… but it’s not just that.

JS: I had to go through tons of genetic screening when I had my child because my wife is Jewish.

MI: You did for Tay-Sachs, likely. Everybody does.

JS: Oh it’s not just Tay-Sachs, it’s 16 different things that Eastern European Jews are prone to. Is that punishment from G-d for not obeying the Torah properly.

MI: Could be. But it might not be. I’m not G-d. I can’t tell you. But I’ll tell you what the religious people say: that it’s supposed to be a blessing, that it’s supposed to make the parent grow, so you have kid in order to learn how to give and think of something that’s not just you, blah blah-

JS: That’s certainly true. I’ll say that. You don’t have to be religious to believe that.

MI: They always tell you common sense things. In the school I went to – let me ask you a question, do you remember me at all when I was a kid, like back when I was not religious?

JS: Vaguely.

MI: Let me just say, with Torah, you learn how to work on yourself and become a better person. I didn’t get that out of our culture. You learn how to be stronger, you learn why you’re around. You learn ways to make yourself grow. Like, if you’re an angry person, you learn ways to kill that. If you’re a sad person, you learn ways to make yourself snap out of it. I won’t say it’s psychology – but yeah, it’s a hell of a lot of psychology…and the whole thing is, OK, you’re in this world to make it a better place because G-d gave you a purpose to be here and you need to do what He says because it’s going to make you better. I’m just telling you why I did it.

JS: That’s fine. I’m not preaching against religion. I’m simply telling you my opinion. I’m not saying other people shouldn’t be religious. It would be a boring world if everyone were the same.

MI: My only problem is what you said before. Like, I could sit here and talk to you, normal, and not judge you. But people judge each other.

JS: I’m not judging people. I’m only saying that people should do the right thing regardless of what label they’re hanging on themselves.

MI: But who judges what’s the right thing (in Billy Crystal have fun storming the castle voice)?

JS: Well I’ll tell you, if I walk up to someone and stick a gun in his face and take their money, that’s not the right thing.

MI: Says who? Depends what culture you’re in.

JS: Says me.

MI: Says you. For you. But if there is no consensus-

JS: I don’t need a consensus to know that stealing and murder and rape is wrong.

MI: You don’t. But there is a lot of people who do need that. We have other cultures that we try to treat with respect and dignity that think it’s OK to put a rape victim in jail, that think it’s OK to behead a teacher because she let kids name a teddy bear Mohammed, that’s their culture. I’m not saying every Arab thinks like this, but their culture…that’s what they’re doing. No?

JS: I’m not out to fix the world, either.

MI: I know, but when you’re dealing… man, we are going on so many tangents…

JS: You’re judging, I’m not judging.

MI: Yeah, I am.

JS: It’s not your place to worry about somebody else’s culture and what they’re doing. I can’t stop a whole group of people from believing what they believe.

MI: But you’re talking about Israel and Israel is in the middle of both cultures – the West and Islam. It’s a different world. The Arab culture mixes with the Western culture there in a big way, and it’s all different rules. And people don’t want to see it. The Western culture is about permissiveness and Arab culture is .. ah forget it.

JS: I know what you’re saying, that Western culture is very permissive and Arab culture is very restricting.

MI: It depends who’s being restricted.

JS: It would seem that way, you’re right. But in Japan, look what happens. They’re becoming more Western and 100 years ago, they barely had any murder at all. Now that they’ve become more Western, more murder.

MI: How do you know about Japan?

JS: I like Japanese history…

MI: I remember you like Sun-Tzu, but that’s Chinese…

JS: I know a lot about Eastern philosophy, and I’m well aware that Westerners can’t possibly imagine what a completely different culture, like being a Moslem or being a Buddhist – they can’t even just start to imagine what this stuff is about.

MI: With all that in mind, do you think that Americans have a good sense about what is going on in Iraq?

JS: I don’t think they have good sense about anything. They do the right thing sometimes, and they do the wrong thing sometimes. And half the time they do the right thing they do it for the wrong reasons, and half the time they do the wrong thing they do it for the right reason. We’ve grown up in a place, especially this last generation, that really has very little clue of how lucky we are to have what we have. It’s a place where you’re relatively free and there can be things like giant Jewish neighborhoods and really, no one is fucking with us that bad at all.

MI: Not yet.

JS: That’s right. And my last complaint about the Jews is that American Jews have delved so deeply into intellectual pursuits that they have completely lost their mechanical ability. And they really better get back to learning how to fire a gun, learning how to drive a car, learning how to fix a car, learning how to do things that are basic to survival. It’s OK to learn Torah and spend all your time in school…Israeli Jews are very physical. They can take an American-made machine and make it three times better. I think that’s something that in America is a really, really big issue. Too much time with your head in a book. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be educated and that you shouldn’t study. I’m very glad the Jews tend to be a race that values education. But there’s more to life than education. There’s living. You have to get out there and get your hands dirty.

MI: OK, now as a Jew, how do you feel, in the metal world, when you see iron crosses and swastikas as trendy, as normal?

JS: I don’t think it’s trendy, because the minute anybody uses a swastika two things happen: the public can’t really display anything they do and they get a little hardcore following of children that just think it’s cool to be angry and anti-PC. I’m anti-PC, but I’m not toting swastikas around. I don’t worry about it. There’s always going to be a group of real Nazis, and there’s always going to be a group of angry little kids that don’t know shit and think they’re Nazis, and think it’s cool because it aggravates the rest of the world. I don’t think it’s super trendy. I mean, there’s always been a number of bands that claim to be skinheads or anti-Jews or anti-Semitic or whatever, but I don’t see it as super trendy.

MI: What do you think of all of the controversy surrounding Carnivore?

JS: The old controversy?

MI: Eeeh… they still got a reputation.

JS: Well, I think rock is also a place where people push the limits. The trichogram that was used by Carnivore was also a South African white power symbol at one point. Do I think that it was intentionally used to imitate that? No. I’m sure Peter just came up with a graphic symbol that would aggravate people.

MI: Mark (former Carnivore guitarist) told me why. He said it was like, one branch for each guy.

JS: Yeah! And did it aggravate people? Sure! They called us Nazis.

MI: They called Type O Nazis?

JS: Yeah! What happened in the early 90s?

MI: That was pretty cool though. You guys had a lot of controversy. I wish you could have capitalized on it somehow.

JS: Yeah, they made this thing up!!

MI: They had pictures of Peter made with “Kill on Sight” under it.

JS: We had three weeks of shows basically cancelled. That was our first European tour.

MI: And you had a Molotov cocktail thrown at you, no?

JS: We had so much press out of that that it was probably worthwhile just to go there and get cancelled rather than play.

MI: I once interviewed Kenny about it… that was the year the Berlin Wall came down.

JS: It was a couple of years…it came down in 1995 no?

MI: No, 1991.

JS: Not that early. Go Wiki it.

MI: Umm…hold on… November 9, 1989.

JS: Wow. 1989.

MI: Happy belated birthday, btw.

JS: Thanks. I’m getting old.

MI: My grandmother’s 80 something (til 120 in health at least) … you’re not old yet.

JS: (changes subject) Yeh, I guess the Berlin Wall was coming down then. I had a piece of it at one point but I think I gave it away as a gift.

MI: You guys went there at a really tense time.

JS: It’s always tense there. The new generation of Germans who are not responsible for what happened in the 40s and 30s tend to overcompensate because there’s a lot of guilt, so you get this incensed reaction to things such as Type O Negative and that’s just overkill. I mean, the bottom line is that there are bands in Germany that admit they’re anti-Semitic and this and that, and they probably get less of a response than Type O.

MI: You guys never had a lot of Top 40 acknowledgement but you really stayed the course and you’ve influenced so many people. Underdog. What do you think of that?

JS: I think there was a point that when Bloody Kisses came out, it was a very different type of music for the time. I think we did something very original and very interesting for that time period. Even though it never really saw an incredible amount of commercial success, I think it was artistically successful. That’s what I care about. I could certainly use some money to survive, but it is what it is. You don’t get to go back and re-do it. Most bands never do it. So I’m pretty happy to have been part of something that had that kind of longevity. We did influence a lot of musicians and a big chunk of music and it’s an honor to have been involved in something like that.

MI: You’re talking like it’s dead already.

JS: No, I’m just talking like it’s not likely that we’re going to be that influential. Not many people are influential over a two-decade period. So the reality is that it’s not likely that we are going to put out something groundbreaking that’s gonna influence 7000 bands. We have done what we do, we do what we do, and we do at least have our own identity. And that’s something that I fail to see in almost any band that is coming out today. It all sounds the same, it’s all fucking double bass and screaming, Black Sabbath rip-off and it all sounds the same. You give me 20 songs on SOU and I can’t even fuckin’ tell who’s who.

MI: Did you hear anything from Israel yet? Besides what I gave you?

JS: I checked out stuff that you have on your page, and it’s hard to understand the Hebrew.

MI: It’s not in Hebrew.

JS: Some of it is.

MI: Orphaned Land is in Hebrew. But that’s only a couple of songs, they sing in like seven languages.

JS: Honestly, I can’t say I remember any of it. I don’t like any music. I’m a tough sell.

MI: What do you like now?

JS: Same thing that I always liked. The Beatles and Black Sabbath.

MI: That’s it, huh?

JS: Pretty much. I like some… I’m not going to say newer bands, because they aren’t new anymore. I think people like Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden, they were kinda trendsetters to a degree, but we’re talking about 15 years ago already. Trent Reznor is the last person that I can say did something completely groundbreaking. He influenced an entire genre and that’s a very rare thing to do. And he had commercial success so he had the best of everything. At least he can afford to eat now.

MI: Oy, don’t cry poverty to me, I hope you’re OK.

JS: I’m not living in poverty, I’m living middle class. That’s fine.

MI: Do you have a day job also? So many bands have day jobs.

JS: Not yet, but I’m going to, real soon. Gotta support the family, y’know.

MI: What do you think about the music industry now? The downfall.

JS: It’s fallen! It’s over! There is no music industry anymore. Everybody’s firing their record company staff…producer Bob Ezrin, of small bands like Pink Floyd, KISS… gigantic, gigantic… very talented man- he said that if you’re waiting for the funeral of the music industry, don’t bother waiting, it’s already happened. People aren’t buying downloads…

MI: They’re swiping it.

JS: So there’s no outlets left, at least temporarily, until someone comes up with a better idea, but I don’t think they’re going to, is touring and t-shirts. And then on top of it people start bitching that your t-shirts cost too much. So I think that people want us to send them a t-shirt every time they download our stuff for free. And then an iron-on patch, so they can iron it onto their t-shirt thing every time they download. It’s just making it very hard to be an artist and to support yourself. In my opinion you’re going to see less and less quality music because the people that are going to be doing it are people that are willing to do it as a hobby which means you can’t put as much time into it. You know, if I could sit there and support my family and worry about making a Type O record every three years in a row which is what I’ve been doing for the past twenty years and really put in 1 billion percent into every single thing we do and sit there for thousands of hours, to me, you get a much better product than a bunch of people that are going to do it for free and live in their mother’s basement and go have to work jobs in between to support their families. They just won’t have enough time. But it is what it is. We’re here. People have heard me complain endlessly about downloading. It’s not gonna change. I know that. And that’s it. And mp3s sound like shit.

MI: What do you think is the best medium? Vinyl?

JS: Naah, I think CDs are fine. They sound great.

MI: If you have a good system I guess.

JS: People are hearing great mixes over things that don’t even reproduce half of what was put into it.

MI: That’s really sad. I never looked at it that way.

JS: That’s cause you’re not the guy sitting there for three years doing it.

MI: Do you have something else coming out?

JS: I would imagine that we’ll start working on a new album when everyone finishes their side issues.

MI: Speaking of side issues, your friend Peter has to get his head out of his ass.

JS: You said it, I didn’t.

MI: And I’ll say it, and I’ll keep saying it.

JS: You’re judging.

MI: Him I can judge.

JS: Why?

MI: Because! The man has so much potential. The man was like a king. The man was amazing. What did he do to himself?

JS: I don’t know. You tell me. What did he do to himself? You’re the judgmental one at the moment.

yooooy none was hotter…. and now, feh. but man, if anyone knows a religious Jewish guy that looks like this, hook me up yo…

MI: I’m really judgmental and I admit it wholeheartedly. When somebody goes and he worships himself, he follows his own desires and that’s all he like concerns himself with, he degenerates and becomes worse and worse. His egotism envelops him. Basically, it makes him into a piece of shit. What happened to Peter, is, instead of expounding on the good things in his personality, he instead decided to sit in the stink of his own despair, follow wherever his hormones led him to, and wherever his mind and drug addiction led him to, and he just let himself go. And to me, he was the man, this friend of yours. It’s just so sad. It’s just so disheartening. It’s just so WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO YOURSELF?? Besides the fact that this @hristian bullshit just pisses me off, but this is something separate.

JS: What, he can’t be @hristian?

MI: He can be @hristian but if someone says that all the Jews need to convert, that offends me. I don’t like missionaries. I will fight them to the death. I hate them.

JS: That’s the one thing about the religious Jews I like. They don’t want you. They don’t try to convert you because they don’t want you.

MI: It’s not about that. It’s that you have to do it from yourself. If somebody has the truth they don’t have to go selling it in a lie. For example, there’s this one club in Israel called the Jamm. Missionaries opened it. So they let kids come, and they let them play for free, and give them apple juice, and what they would do is find kids who were vulnerable, and they tell the kids that we’ll give you an apartment, we’ll pay your rent, but you have to get baptized. And in Brighton Beach, I used to go with this Russian anti-missionary group. The churches would have these Hebrew services. And some of the tricks they would do is they would tell the Russians who were like, fresh off the boat, looking for a community, “Oh, yeah, we’ll take you to a real Jewish seder.” And they would go and sit at the table, and the priest masquerading as a Jew would hold up the matzah and be like, this is the body of @rist, and the wine, this is the blood. To me, if your religion is any good, you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to lie. You don’t need to trick people. The only reason they want to trick us is because they’re still pissed at us that we said no. We were the last stand that said, no, we’re not keeping you, we want our Torah the way it is and fuck you. That’s why the New Testament is anti-Semitic, that’s why the Koran is anti-Semitic in certain places. Everyone’s pissed cause we said no. This is why I hate them. And when I saw this kinda shit coming out of Peter I was upset… it’s like, you idolize these people and then something like this comes out of them it’s like…

JS: I told you it was a mistake to idolize rock stars.

MI: Yeah, I know.

JS: That was something I told you an hour ago.

MI: Yep. We’ve been on the phone an hour.

JS: I was right again!

MI: Yeh, nu, nu. I can say you’re right.

JS: There ya go. There are plenty of good people, though… every day-

MI: I love Johnny, BTW. I think he’s such a nice person. I don’t know him really well but he’s always polite and he always gives you time, he’s really nice.

JS: Good.

TO BE CONTINUED –

MARCH 12!!!!!!
METAL ISRAEL NIGHT AT OLD FRIEND ROCK BAR
YOEL SOLOMON STREET JERUSALEM
25 SHEK = 1 BEER + 1 RAFFLE TICKET TO WIN CDS FROM AWESOME ISRAELI BANDS
AND POSTERS OF INTERNATIONAL BANDS
AND WHO KNOWS WHAT THE HELL WE WILL COME UP WITH TIL THEN
MARCH 12!! bezrat Hashem.