Today's music has hit an all time, cookie cutter high. In the days of yore, it was so important to be original. Something new, something ground breaking, something controversial. At the moment though, Scandinavia is like an active volcano of underground, extremely aggressive music that will explode at any moment to deliver punk rock the world hasn't seen since the late 70s.

Way ahead of the pack in the Northern European onslaught is the self-proclaimed masters of death punk, Turbonegro. This band has plowed its way through the underground for less than a decade, and already has a tribute album that features acts like Queens Of The Stone Age and Nashville Pussy. With a break up in '98, Turbonegro just became more infamous, and their popularity and fan base grew rapidly. Since reforming, they have been a juggernaut, headlining major festivals in Europe in front of 44,000 people. They've signed on to Epitaph Records and have re-released two of their finest records Ass Cobra and Apocalypse Dudes. And Scandinavian Leather, just out, is being considered a masterpiece by critics worldwide.

Controversy and Turbonegro of late seem to be the same word. The band has been called the new Sex Pistols for being crude, vulgar and disgusting, and they have no problem telling you and everybody else how they feel. Every show in the states on their recent tour has been a sellout, including the Gypsy Tea Room when the Turbs got to Big-D recently.

Before Turbonegro hit the stage that night, Pål Pot Pamparius (keys, percussion, gtr.) and Happy Tom (bass) in all their modesty told how they're enjoying their great success.

"Yes, our record went gold on the first day in Norway," Tom explains. "We sold twice as many as the No. 2 CD on the list, which was the terrible new Madonna record. We've sold more records in Norway than both Madonna and Christina Aguilera. Our DVD is doing pretty well too."

"It's been No. 1 for eight weeks," Pål Pot adds, "and that's a record for DVD's in Europe. It's beating out Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd; you name it. We're kicking their ass.

"We're doing well everywhere," Tom continues. "Germany, Sweden, Spain, The States, and I heard our gig on the boat in London is rated the best concert in 2003. We played this private gig on the Thames River, and it almost capsized. We were on one side of the boat, and the crowd on the other. We had to pull the boat back in the docks, because we had to move the crowd to stop it from tipping over. Half way through the set, it was hard to define who was in the fucking band."

"The audience was up on the stage just jumping around and going wild," notes Pål Pot. Commenting on the tribute album, Tom admits, "I feel tribute albums are basically horrible, but I like ours. It's real good."

"It sort of puts a statement down of what we did before we took a little vacation (the break up)," Pål Pal adds. "It proves that what we did before was really great music, since we just got bigger over all those years."

With everything falling perfectly in place, they've also become a tabloid favorite in Europe. "The Prince of Norway is a pretty cool guy," Tom relates, "and he ended up marrying a single mom. She was a waitress, and one day she's going to be the queen. She's a real party girl, and so is her dad, who's this totally obnoxious drunk who's been in the media a lot. He's become a real embarrassment to the prince and the royal family. So we were playing at this festival in his hometown. He still lives there, so we called him up and asked if he would introduce us at the show.

"It was way cool because, the day of the concert, the princess announced she was pregnant with the Heir to the throne. So no one could believe it when her dad walked on stage. There were 11,000 people at the show, and you could hear a pin drop. He walked out in his admiral jacket (cause he thinks he's royalty) and told the crowd that Turbonegro was bigger news than the pregnancy. It was all over the news on television, newspapers, the tabloids it was great!"

The Turb's are doing it all, including saving a professional sports franchise.

St. Pauli FC is a soccer team from Hamburg, Germany. "They're real big losers, who have never won anything," Tom laughs. "They're very embarrassing. They really play at a Special Olympic's level. The crowd at their games is full of old sailors with beards and pipes, pimps and whores. The team has gone bankrupt nine times, so we did a show at their stadium (6,000 people) to help them out. They're a team we can identify with," Pål Pal adds. "They do everything wrong from finances to playing the game. You have to tell them sometimes that the ball has to go into the goal to win."

With all this said and done, Happy Tom ends this article by telling about their massive worldwide fan clubs. "Kiss has an army, and we have a navy. It's becoming a monster, and we have no control over it. There's a chapter now in Hawaii, Tel-Aviv and South Africa. It's kind of like a deadhead thing but more like the Manson family."

thanks to Linda Hollar!

turbojugend usa 2003