Type O Negative recently announced their reissue of Dead Again, which may have gotten some of you wondering – why the hell is Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin on the album cover? In an interview with the Behind The Vinyl podcast, guitarist Kenny Hickey reveals the cover's dark-but-funny origins.
In the interview, Hickey said his habits at the time made him the most likely candidate in the band to pass away, right up until frontman Peter Steele passed on in 2010. Hickey said the cover fed into the idea of being "indestructible" despite all the things that might kill you, a reference to all the times Rasputin damn near died.
Oh, and it also had to both with both Steele and Rasputin having big dicks. But you can Google those yourselves.
"For a long time, I was the one most likely to die, and then it switched over to him. So we were always waiting for somebody to die. After a while, it starts feeding into this mythology of 'Maybe he's indestructible.' That's what gave birth to the cover of Dead Again, of Rasputin.
"I used to call him 'Rasputin.' Because he'd get drunk and you [couldn't] kill him. He had a foot-long penis and he was dancing on the table. That was Peter. So I just called him Rasputin. That's how it ended up becoming the cover. And then that starts feeding into this mythology, and then suddenly, reality check, then you realize we're all mortal and everyone can die, and everyone will. So it's a shock."
Hickey later added that he only recently got sober after years of partying, which is great! Congratulations!
"I just got sober. I have two years and nine months now. I was more… I can't say I was more controlled. I was off the rocker a lot, but there was times when I had to be more controlled 'cause I had kids and a wife. Peter didn't. So I would come back home and I'd on like a beer-only diet, something like that. And when I was away, I'd lose my mind. I'm lucky to be here too. And I'm grateful — grateful to be here. And I love being sober. I should have [done] this 20 years ago.
"I think you get used to being a certain way. You build a reward system in your life, whatever it is — sex, food, whatever, beautiful women, rock and roll. For most of my life, since I was 12, one of my main reward systems was booze. So to change that is a very, very, very hard thing. It's a very big thing. Look at me. It took me 54 years. But you can — you can switch your reward system to other things."
