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. As a left-handed bass guitar proved to be too expensive at the time, Steele purchased a right-handed bass and taught himself to play it. This came about when one of his earliest bands, Aggression (also featuring Josh Silver), for which Steele played left-handed rhythm guitar, threatened to kick him out unless he switched to bass guitar. Though Steele was naturally left-handed, he played right-handed bass guitars throughout his career. Steele started taking guitar lessons at age 12, before 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 Polish and Russian descent and his mother of Scottish-Irish, Norwegian, and Icelandic ancestry. Murrow High School located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. Steele was born on January 4, 1962, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York City, to a Catholic family, and attended Edward R.
