Back in black

>> The resurrected Turbonegro
never wanted to be loved

FATED TO BE HATED: Turbonegro

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

In late 1998, Oslo, Norway’s Turbonegro released one of the underground’s most revered rock ’n’ roll records, Apocalypse Dudes. On this fourth outing, the band introduced ’70s arena rock heroics in the vein of AC/DC and vintage Alice Cooper to their trademark Ramones/Poison Idea punk rock sound. With everything in place for superstardom, Turbonegro embarked on a European tour that would end abruptly in a psychiatric ward in Milan, Italy. Singer Hank Von Helvete had succumbed to self-medicating his depression with heroin, and the tour would end prematurely when Helvete was deemed too unstable to continue the tour. Upon returning home, he retired to a remote northern area of Norway and became a tour guide in a whaling museum, with rock ’n’ roll fading to a distant and painful memory.

While the band was dormant, their infamy only grew. The documentary Turbonegro: The Movie only fanned the flames, while their followers became part of an exclusive fan club dubbing itself Turbojugend (“Turbo youth”) and tales of their live shows took on mythical proportions. Four years after that fateful day in Milan, the band agreed to reform and play three festivals in Europe, and the rest is, as they say, rock ’n’ roll history.

“When we got back together,” says Helvete, “we really wanted to be in the band and work with a newfound appreciation for what we have. I think it’s way better now, and our records just keep getting better.”

Since reforming, the band have proven to be clever thieves in the songwriting department, borrowing quite liberally and sometimes quoting directly from their musical heroes. There is little doubt about Turbonegro musically, but the other reason the band is so highly regarded is its provocative presentation. After briefly trying out minstrel make-up to offend the P.C. police, Turbonegro hit gold when they ripped a page from homoerotic illustrator Tom of Finland’s book and took on a butch-homo look.

“We come from Norway, where bands were burning down churches and murdering each other at the time. We were neighbours with these people, and we knew them and we saw them really scare the hell out of the world. So we thought, what could be more scary, and found out that homosexuality in rock ’n’ roll is a really scary issue for people. Black metal bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone told me later that they were actually scared shitless of us and thought we were the most evil band in the world.”

Now that the band are in their post-apocalyptic days, they’re finding out that no matter how hard they try to offend, it seems that too many people are in on their joke. But Helvete still looks back fondly to when they were the most hated band on the planet.

“We were playing this hippie festival in France that was kind of like the Burning Man festival. Everybody there was tripping really hard on the mushrooms that grew wild on the field of the festival. I got up on stage and told everybody in fluent French that they were all pedophiles and it caused this huge riot. The security just left and we had to run for our lives to get out of there.

“It’s kind of strange now because we never did anything to be liked, and now there are thousands of people all over the world who get tattoos of the band.”

With Mondo Generator at
Le National on Sunday,
Sept. 23, 9 p.m., $30