BIOGRAPHY (con't)   < Previous Page | Next Page > "Most rock 'n' roll bands start as a riot, but end up as a parody," remarks Happy-Tom, the bassist and mastermind behind the dark power that is Turbonegro. "We started as a parody, but ended up as a revolution." The Turbonegro saga commenced in Oslo in 1989. The initial line-up included Happy-Tom, back then the drummer, and guitarists Pål Pot Pamparius and Rune Rebellion. They originally considered using the name "Nazipenis". Instead, they settled on Turbonegro, evoking "a large well-equipped, armed black male in a fast car, out for vengeance. We are his prophets." Neither name was really indicative of any grand career strategy, or thoughts of global success. After making a messy entrance with 1992's debut, 'Hot Cars And Spent Contraceptives', the band reached the dizzy frontier of their own expectations when they got to support the Ramones. Soon, though, they unearthed a mighty new singer in Hank von Helvete (or "Hank from Hell"). With 1994's 'Never Is Forever', they forged the sound of 'Deathpunk', an ultra-snotty, irritant evolution of the old form. The album was dedicated to muso-rockers Blue Oyster Cult - a fuck-you to the punk scene, with its blinkered lo-fi aesthetic; also, an expression of genuine love for rock grandeur. Turbonegro identified with rare nonconformist elements in Scandinavia's punk scene like Sweden's Union Carbide Productions, who actively went about winding up the earnest, dreadlocked politico brigade. They quickly stepped up the antagonism. On tour, they wore Al Jolson-style 'blackface' and afro wigs. To many, their name suggested involvement in Norway's Black Metal scene. Feeling somewhat outgunned by the church-burning antics of their diabolical fellow-countrymen, the band held a crisis meeting to brainstorm ideas for how to unsettle even Black Metal fans. When the hangover wore off, they found one word on a scrap of paper: "homo". The band soon styled themselves as "threatening gay men playing loud rock music". They wore sailor's hats, trucker-cut jackets and tight jeans in blue denim ("the only textile that was actually designed for kicking ass"), and women's make-up. 1996's 'Ass Cobra' contained the songs 'Sailor Man', 'Denim Demon' ("I am a saint for semen") and 'I Got Erection'. Almost unbelievably, they landed an endorsement deal with Levi's - life-size cardboard cut-outs of Turbonegro adorned shop-fronts across Scandinavia. Turbonegro as they are today clicked into place with the arrival of "totalitarian guitar hero" Euroboy, and Chris Summers "the Rolex of drummers", and the release of 1997's masterpiece, 'Apocalypse Dudes'. To accommodate the new arrivals, Happy-Tom, now modelling his hair after Myra Hindley. switched to bass. Pål Pot Pamparius returned from a stint running his own pizza restaurant in Kolbotn, near Oslo - celebrated in the track, 'The Age of Pamparius' - in a multi-instrumental 'Bez' role. With technical acumen in the ranks greatly enhanced, Turbo now had the chops to take their punk-meets-'70s-rock vision to its logical conclusion. 'Apocalypse Dudes' sounded like 'Tommy' played by The Damned, with a new libretto from Jean Genet. Punks in Scandinavia only sneered at Euroboy's guitar solos, but the mighty riffage of 'Get It On' and 'Prince of the Rodeo' saw NYC hipster's bible Grand Royal hype '.Dudes' as "the rock & roll album of the decade". A cult exploded around the band, as the likes of Dave Grohl and Jello Biafra raved about Norway's Boys In Blue. Happy-Tom remembers: "People were saying , 'Yeah, rock & roll is coming back!' And we were like, 'Where?!' We thought rock & roll was in a pretty bad state if a bunch of slightly overweight and underweight Norwegians had to dress up and pretend to be homosexual to revive it." Grunge and Britpop were wilting, Radiohead and Limp Bizkit were on the rise. Terrible days! To be Norwegian, cod-gay and actually breaking through was a near-miraculous feat. On stage, Hank emerged as a magnetic if volatile presence, his eyes blacked out with Alice Cooper eye make-up, his rump routinely lit up by a roman candle fizzing between clenched buttcheeks. Privately, though, he'd been self-medicating his depression with heroin. The trails of addiction led to him missing numerous gigs. On the road in '98, he suffered a nervous breakdown. In the waiting room of a psychiatric emergency room in Milan, the band were forced to split up, losing a lot of money in cancellation fees, but, more - losing their dream. After one last farewell show in Oslo that December, the six 'Negroes scattered. Hank went into recluse in the tiny fishing village of Lofoten, where he lived at his grandparents' house, and worked variously as a radio DJ, and the guide at a local whaling museum. In the meantime, the band's legend multiplied to fever pitch. Proving the human tendency towards necrophilia, their fan club, Turbojugend, went into overdrive, shifting boxfuls of blue-denim merchandise. Eventually, in Summer 2002, three European festivals offered Turbo pots of cash to reform. With Hank's health restored, they agreed, and duly tore it up in front of 100,000+ fans. Where lame cult acts like The Velvet Underground reformed and quickly scurried back to their Art House, Turbo charged on, making 'Scandinavian Leather' (2003) - an album with a dense Nordic metal sound, and ultra-dark, blood-dripping lyrics to match. Its macabre self-devouring-animal sleeve was designed by Klaus Voormann, responsible for the artwork to The Beatles's 'Revolver'. Now with a decent budget behind them, Turbonegro were able to indulge their stadium rock fantasies to the max. Throughout Europe and America, live audiences were showered with Turbo's own Zillion Dollar notes, blasted out from a giant wind machine. Instead of playing to 50 disapproving bozos in NOFX T-shirts, their audiences were bigger, wilder, and revelled in such wind-up tactics, forming a curious but unique bond. Tours supporting , Queens Of The Stone Age were insane, but profile-building: the '.Leather' phase concluded with two headline shows at House of Blues on LA's Sunset Strip (it must've been Lana Clarkson's week off.) LA provided the spiritual backdrop for their next abum, 'Party Animals' - a back-to-basics punk record inspired by heroes Black Flag and Redd Kross, whose leading light, Steve McDonald, was summoned to Norway to produce. Turbo's love of pop harmonies (think Cheap Trick) and glam-rock made for a lighter, Californian vibe on gems like 'Blow Me (Like The Wind)', 'If You See Kaye' and 'Hot Stuff/Hot Shit' - although, the stomping 'City of Satan' warned of falling prey to LA plasticity. One of the band's proudest moments arrived on the ensuing tour, when Hank told the long-running XXXX-cert "Aristocrats" joke onstage in Sweden, with the Swedish royal family as the central characters. "It involved incest and shitting," Happy-Tom recalls. The Swedish royal family sued, causing a massive tabloid scandal. Turbo were still getting up noses - the noses just got bigger. < Previous Page | Next Page >   TURBONEGRO © 2008