Denim Demons

With their long-term adherence to the doctrine of good times and parties being the be all and end all of the rock'n'roll raison d'être, the hedonistic lifestyle favoured by Norwegian deathpunk proponents Turbonegro was always going to take its toll. So when volatile frontman Hank Von Helvete abandoned the band – again – in mid-2010 it seemed that the juggernaut had reached the end of the line. They'd chalked up seven albums, had innumerable adventures and somehow survived more than two decades as the epitome of rock'n'roll cult heroes, but this time it really was over.

“Absolutely, that was the end,” stresses Thomas “Happy-Tom” Seltzer, Turbonegro's founding bassist and creative heartbeat. “We were sick and tired of being in the band too for years because of Hank's health issues, drugs. Then when he quit to get into Scientology and start a goth band we were like, 'Okay, this is it. Fuck this.'”

Of course Turbonegro had found themselves with their backs to the wall before and prevailed – Von Helvete's drug addictions had caused them to go on hiatus between 1999 and 2002 whilst he recovered – so it wasn't totally a surprise last year when they emerged phoenix-like with a new singer, Tony Sylvester. The former frontman for UK rockers Dukes Of Nothing was well known to the band – he'd been head of the London Turbojugend (the fanclubs formed by hardcore Turbonegro acolytes in various cities) for years – but the way in which he joined the party was still rather random.

“The Turbojugend in Hamburg were going to have their annual convention, and they said, 'Do you guys want to come down and play a party karaoke show and have different singers come and do different songs?'” Happy-Tom recalls. “And we said, 'Yeah, what the hell!' We don't take our legacy that seriously, we were like, 'Fuck it man, let's do it!' I thought Tony could help us make a list of singers – he's always been a good friend of ours – so I emailed him and asked him, and he said, 'Yeah, it's weird because I'm coming to Oslo in two days with some friends to see a band.'

“So he came to Oslo and we sat down and said, 'Who can sing a few songs?' We thought Keith Morris and Jello Biafra would want to do it, and we had a few other people like Mike Patton who might want to do it, and Damian from Fucked Up. Then a few days later it just struck me, 'Fuck, Tony could do some songs!' So I called him and said, 'Why don't you come and try?' So we played some songs, and the first minute into the first song I looked over at Euroboy [guitarist Knut Schreiner] and Rune [Grønn – guitar] and they had smirks on their faces, kind of like Mona Lisa smiles, and I asked them later, 'Why were you smiling a minute into that first song with Tony?' and Euroboy said, 'It's the best I've ever heard the band sound!'

“So we decided to try it out. We had to go to Hamburg and play, and we have very conservative fans – they're always like, 'Why did you make a new record? The new record sucks!' - a lot of them are German and have no sense of humour – and we thought it was going to be a nightmare. So we went there and played to five-hundred Turbojegend and after the first song there was silence for about two seconds and then there was this huge roar, and we were like, 'What the fuck?' People were crying and throwing themselves off the balcony – between songs! We just looked at each other, like, 'What the fuck man?' and then we just knew – 'Fuck! We're back!'”

Even after that triumphant realisation Happy-Tom still had concerns about beginning a new chapter for Turbonegro.

“It's a mixed feeling,” he laughs, “because playing in Turbo is such a blessing, you're playing in your favourite band, but at the same time we've always been jinxed with all kinds of shit – it's like being married to this beautiful woman who also has huge mental health issues. It's like, 'The bitch is back!' Our beautiful deranged bitch was back from the fucking asylum, and we're like, 'No!' and 'Yeah!' at the same time!”

The culmination of this revival is new record, Sexual Harassment, which (vocals aside) seems to be typical Turbonegro fare but in fact had a rather abnormal genesis.

“About three years ago Euroboy and me and Tommy [“Manboy” Akerholdt], who is now our drummer – who used to be our drum technician and guitar tech for years – we started a band with Nick Oliveri called The Germans, and half of the songs on Sexual Harassment were written for The Germans,” Happy-Tom reveals. “If you look closely at the credits on the album you'll see that Nick's credited on several of the songs, because he co-wrote some of them. He came over to cut some demos – that didn't pan out – but when we got back together with Turbo we knew we had those songs. Then we wrote the other half with Tony, which was a big change because he's such a big music nerd and a big punk rock and rock'n'roll history nerd, but he's also an internationally famous Northern Soul DJ, and you can kind of hear that in his voice. Plus Hank never wrote any material, so for us to have a singer who actually writes in the studio with us was a big change creatively.”

Now Turbonegro are returning to Australia for the first time since their glorious 2003 debut, and Happy-Tom beams when discussing that inaugural trip.

“We loved it! We loved Australia! I'd never been there, I'd been to New Zealand – which looks a lot like Norway, which was weird – but we'd always been huge fans of Australian music, everything from Radio Birdman to The Hard-Ons. Australia's always been this magical rock'n'roll country, and the people are sort of like Scandinavians in some weird way, so it's sort of like coming home but also the most different place in the world. The response was amazing – it was almost like the crowd was treating it as a homecoming, there was a weird connection. Maybe being descended from criminals and being descended from Vikings is kind of like the same thing.”

And, finally, the use of blackface and rampant homosexual innuendo that highlighted Turbonegro's early years – was this to shock or for their own amusement?

“Homoerotic aesthetics was always like a sore point for hard rockers,” Happy-Tom deadpans. “We're from the same little village as Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon and Mayhem and Darkthrone, so we had to think, 'Okay, these guys burn down churches, what can we do? Let's be a homo band just to scare them!' That's the only thing that scares our friends, but they loved it, they just embraced it straight off. It was all just about pushing buttons and having fun.”

Turbonegro play the following shows:

Thursday 6 December - The Hi-Fi, Sydney
Friday 7 December - The Hi-Fi, Melbourne
Saturday 8 December - Meredith Music Festival

Sexual Harrassment is out now.