Turbonegro first came together in Oslo, Norway during the winter of 1988/89. The line up was Thomas Seltzer, Vegard Heskestad, Pal Bottger Kjaernes, Rune Gronn, Pal Erik Carlin and Carlos Churasco. Their first show was at Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen, Denmark in March of 1989. By April Turbonegro played their first show in their hometown of Oslo. In the following weeks they recorded songs for their debut single Route Zero and the Turboloid 12" EP. Both records were released by Thomas Seltzer's own label, Straightjacket Records, which he started in 1983. This first session was recorded at Nesodden Musikkverksted by Christian Calmeyer. Thomas played bass and drums on Route Zero. An initial pressing of 50 copies came with an exclusive demo tape called 'Computech' featuring a cover of The Stooges '1970'. Turboloid was the second and last release by the original line up. Drummer Carlos Carrasco left to play guitar for Anal Babes. Route Zero was reissued by Sympathy For The Record Industry in 1990 with two songs from the Turbloid EP. In September of that year they left Norway to tour the U.S. Rune was beat up in Minneapolis a few hours after their arrival and remained in the hospital. The band forged on without him but the tour was a disaster. Three weeks later Turbonegro returned to Oslo and broke up.

  In late March '93 Harald played his last show with Turbonegro at Sentrum Scene in Oslo. He quit due to health reasons and was replaced by Hans Erik Husby aka Hanky who would be their best and final vocalist. With the new singer a decision was made to rename the band Stierkampf (the german word for bullfight). They opened up for Poison Idea in Oslo and Denmark as well as The Ramones in August 1993 at the Oslo Rock Festival. The only release as Stierkampf was the Grunge Whore EP on Sympathy for the Record Industry. All songs on this release would resurface on their next album with the exception of 'Six Pack' (orig. Black Flag). 'Never is Forever' (1994) was recorded by Christian Calmeyer at Nesodden Musikkverksted and was limited to 1200 copies. With the release of this album was their first full European Tour. The tour was nick-named "Nihil Jung" and had 17 shows in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Holland.

  By the winter of 1994-95 Turbonegro was back to the old name but with a new look referred to as the 'Al Jolson schtick', fortunately it didn't last long. Happy-Tom summed it up best with the following anecdote: "so there we were backstage with our black faces and wigs and little hats, smoking pot with our all-time heroes the Bad Brains, and the absurdity just didn't cross our minds. I mean, those guys didn't mention it, they were probably just embarrassed on our behalf." The gag was long gone by May of 1995 when they debuted the denim and moustache look. Happy-Tom stated "We feel that denim out-rocks leather at all levels. Leather is for empty, little people. Denim is for us big guys! And the kids love it!"

  With a new look came a new sound. Christian Calmeyer, their engineer at the time, said, "we decided to make things more raw, trying to convey the power of the live performance, if not the sound." The first recordings of the new and improved Turbonegro showed up on the Denim Demon and Bad Mongo singles in spring '95. That summer Turbonegro left for their second attempt at a U.S. tour 'NAMBLIN in the 90's'. They played only eleven shows and in the words of Happy-Tom "at least we didn't get the shit kicked out of us like we did the last time we were in the USA". In fall '95 Bingo and Pal left the band putting Turbonegro on hold. Pal wanted to travel while Bingo didn't like the new musical direction, "less Slayer, more rock'n'roll." Also that year Anthony Martin started his new label Boomba Records so he could release Turbonegro's third album 'Ass Cobra'. It did not come out until the spring of 1996 and by September they were touring Europe again with a new line up. Anders Hornslien from Angst was added as the new drummer, so Thomas went back to playing bass. Pal was replaced by Knut Schreiner, who Thomas had played with in The Vikings. Knut aka Euroboy was a priceless addition to the band in the reshaping of their sound. The 'Prince Of The Rodeo' 7" was his recording debut with Turbonegro and a taste of the greatness to come. Also at this time Pal returned from traveling in Thailand to open his famous 'Pamparius' pizza parlor outside of Oslo in Kolbotn. He decided to rejoin the band as the keyboard player and "dancer". Pal's return would be the final touch in the latest incarnation of the band. The new look, sound and album irritated and fascinated the European underground; people were starting to pay attention to Turbonegro.

  In spring '97 Turbonegro had yet another line up change. Christer Engen, aka Chris Summers, from Big Bang took over on drums and they were ready to tour Europe again. This time out they were opening up with a modified version of a Grand Funk song (We are a Norwegian band). Hank was wearing Alice Cooper like make up and lighting roman candles in his ass (referred to as "assrockets"), they were just warming up to their final and greatest album 'Apocalypse Dudes'. Now it was time to take the new and improved Turbonegro back across the Atlantic with the 'Summer of Head' U.S. tour. They were more warmly received this time around but still played only a few shows that were plagued with problems. Nonetheless, after years of stumbling through line up changes, name changes and various shticks, they had finally found themselves.

  In the autumn of 1997 their next/last album 'Apocalypse Dudes' was recorded at Endless Sound studios in Oslo with producer Pål Klaastad. When Happy-Tom was asked if their new sound and album has anything to do with Euroboy's entry into the band, he replied, "Yep, he's a genius, and so is our new drummer Chris Summers, The Prince of Drummers. We released the punk album of the millenium with 'Ass Cobra', and didn't want to make an 'Ass Cobra' part two plus we spent two years writing new stuff, so as to make sure that every song is a hit, so we ended up making the rock album of the next millenium." The album was released in March '98 by Boomba Records. However it was released in Norway exclusively by Virgin. It is no coincidence that it was their most successful record and by far their best. Jello Biafra was quoted as saying, "the new Turbonegro record is possibly the most important European record ever." 'Apocalypse Dudes' is all hits all the way through. Turbonegro supported the album playing 24 sold out shows throughout Europe and by that fall they were ready to attack Europe again with 16 dates on the 'Darkness Forever' tour. Unfortunately this tour would be their last and ultimately the end of Turbonegro. According to Happy-Tom "Turbonegro broke up in the waiting room of a psychiatric emergency ward in Milan, Italy." Hank's mental indisposition became a real problem thus the remainder of the tour was cancelled. They bid their farewell December 18, 1998 at Mars in their hometown of Oslo. Turbonegro's last words were "Yeah-Yeah! Yeah-Yeah!"

Res-Erection

The summer of 2002 brought them back. Three headlining slots at major European festivals marked a renaissance rarely witnessed, they were bigger - and astoundingly better - than ever.

Shortly after the Bizarre Festival the band proclaimed that they signed a record deal for two new albums with Burning Heart Records, an independent record company from Sweden with a long tradition in the punk & hardcore sector. Burning Heart also licensed Turbonegro's most successful albums Ass Cobra and Apocalypse Dudes from Bitzcore and reissued them as digipak CDs with additional video footage from the recent Res-erection show at Quart. Turbonegro appeared in an episode of Viva La Bam during Season 1. The band ends up playing their concert at Bam's West Chester home. Their single, "All My Friends Are Dead", was also used in some episodes of the show.

The band released the highly anticipated album, the second part of the Apocalypse trilogy, Scandinavian Leather in 2003, complete with artwork of a skull Ouroboros from legendary Revolver-designer Klaus Voorman. A US tour with Queens Of The Stone Age proved that the American Turbojugend contingent had grown completely out of control, and almost 150 shows later, Turbonegro finished the Scandinavian Leather campaign by selling out the House of Blues in Los Angeles two days in a row in December 2004.

While Scandinavian Leather was recorded at their own Crystal Canyon Studio in Oslo, Turbonegro decided to bring in Steven Shane McDonald as co-producer for Party Animals. McDonald played bass and sang in Hawthorne, California band Redd Kross from the age of 11, and "Standing in front of Poseur" from the bands 1979 debut EP is still a punk rock classic. Redd Kross transformed from being an archetypical L.A.-punk band to taking in influences from the glam and stadium rock of the seventies, not unlike what Turbonegro has done through their career. In recent years McDonald has worked with artists such as Beck and The White Stripes. On Party Animals, he's done his best to keep the bubblegum intact in the stadium rock and the sharp edged punk rock. This follow-up to 2003’s Scandinavian Leather and the last offering in the Apocalypse trilogy was released throughout Europe on the 9th of May (Norway 2nd of May). It continued and brought to perfection the '70s and '80s glam metal and hard rock influenced party-oriented deathpunk sound that was first introduced on Apocalypse Dudes. Party Animals was followed by intense touring throughout Europe – and in October they visited the US. A collection of remixes and rarities also appeared in 2005 as Small Feces.

Turbonegro are on tour again in 2006 with mostly European locations. They keep reinvading the world with their deathpunk sound; probably the best summary of the band is by Happy-Tom: "Most rock 'n' roll bands start as a riot but end up as a parody. We started up as a parody but ended up as a revolution."

On March 8, 2007 the new single "Do You Do You Dig Destruction" was released in Norway. The single is from the album, Retox. The album was released on June 13, 2007.

On July 10 2007 Turbonegro was one of the warm-up bands, alongside HIM, at Metallicas Headlining concert at Valle Hovin Stadium in Oslo, Norway.

The band will tour Europe late summer in 2007, including an appearance at Download Festival and playing 10 intimate gigs in the United Kingdom.

The Turbonegro official site was completely redesigned for the new album release, the new site debuted on June 11, 2007.

On October 27, 2007, Rune Rebellion played his last live show with Turbonegro in Stavanger, and subsequently left the band. He stated "The decision was made this Summer, realizing I hadn't had time off at all from work or touring for three years." Despite his departure from the position of rhythm guitar, he is still closely collaborating with the band by running their label, Scandinavian Leather Recordings and managing their itinerary.

On March 3, 2008, it was announced that Chris Summers had been asked to leave the band. Chris had already been gone from the band for 6 months due to a broken foot. On the band's website, they cited that "personal problems and a focus on other projects, we have been forced to ask drummer Chris Summers to resign from Turbonegro." Chris' replacement was announced to be Vikings drummer Thomas Dahl, who had been filling in for Chris since he broke his foot.

Recently, guitarist Euroboy also announced that he and Happy-Tom are working on a new album with the working title Tumours.[6]

On August 7th 2008 Turbonegro celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Apocalypse Dudes by performing the entire album at the Øya Festival in Oslo, Norway.

Musical style

Their lyrics often attack political correctness; for example, the cover of the single "Bad Mongo" depicts Adolf Hitler as mentally retarded, and in the song "Hobbit Motherfuckers", they complain that there is "not enough suffering" and "not enough natural selection". Their genre of punk has been self-described as deathpunk. The band stated their music superseded existing genres, so they dubbed it deathpunk as a way to avoid being pigeon-holed into musical groupings they felt they were above. Lyrics referencing the genre choice include ("gimme deathpunk baby, and I like it", from the song "Get it on"). Being a fun project with common predecessors (Sex Pistols wearing swastikas, etc), Turbonegro have been praised by some as playing the most up-to-date form of punk, and refusing to be categorized being nowhere as clearly expressed as in this anarchic blend of humour, shock and sexuality.

In the Turbonegro – The Movie DVD extras, Happy Tom utters that early on, festival goers expected TRBNGR to be gothic metal or black metal in the vein of other Norwegian bands. The band is notorious for their on-stage gimmicks. An early version of the band wore blackface and wigs on-stage in an effort to challenge those watching their shows. On The Reserection DVD the band states that early on they were often driven away from shows they were to play because they weren't edgy enough or didn't fit the look that the crowd wanted. As a result, the on-stage schticks started to become as much of the Turbonegro experience as the music. Following several tours in black-face, the band started an odd-ball theme of tight denim pants, nautically themed stage props and homosexual innuendo, stylistically similar to the characters of Tom of Finland. A tongue-in-cheek joke, the homosexual/transvestite stage presence found its way into the band's music, including songs such as "Prince of the Rodeo" and "Rendezvous with Anus" which are both thinly veiled references to anal intercourse. Levis jeans endorsements soon followed from the stage antics, and the trucker cut jacket soon became standard fare amongst fans.

Widely acclaimed as the band's first break out album Ass Cobra (1996) had an album cover that was a direct parody of The Beach Boys Pet Sounds album cover. Jello Biafra would later comment that it was one of the best punk albums of the '90s. Following Ass Cobra was Turbonegro's most critically acclaimed release Apocalypse Dudes (1998). Apocalypse Dudes' introduced a combination of '70s arena rock, irreverent lyrics, and punk stylings which brought the band a level of notoriety that they had not achieved at any other point in their history.

Band Name

Initially the band had two running ideas for band names; Nazipenis and Turbonegro. They were advised that a band named Nazipenis would never sell records, so they chose Turbonegro as an arguably more consumer-friendly choice. The band's name raised some eyebrows, and for that reason their first releases were sometimes branded TRBNGR, perhaps to preclude backlash against what some consider to be a racist name. However, the band's stated motivations are anti-racist, trying to change the attitude of racism and nationalism perceived as prevalent in parts of Scandinavia. Founding member Thomas Seltzer once said, "A turbonegro is a large, well-equipped, armed black male in a fast car, out for vengeance. We are his prophets."

The original name ended up as a name of the band's tribute band, Nazipenis.

According to lead guitarist Euroboy, the band name also has a peculiar origin. "I think Pål saw it spray-painted on a brick wall in a tube-station in a suburb of Oslo back in the day. It's actually two Latin words, it means fast and black and we thought that was a cool name for a band. Because our music is very fast and very dark. And also, it's a name for a colour. In the car-industry, it's the name for the paint, for the darkest paint. If you want to paint your car black, the most black colour of all is Turbonegro."