Turbonegro

Turbonegro emerged from Oslo, Norway, during the 1990s with a clear emphasis on trashy, hedonistic, and decadent fun, drawing far more from the pop-metal, hard-rock, and glam-metal sounds of the 1970s and 1980s than from the alternative-rock style favored by most of their regional contemporaries. The group fused punk elements with the styles of Alice Cooper, Quiet Riot, Mötley Crüe, and Judas Priest, delivering late-1990s recordings that reveled in their own excess. Every member hailed from Norway, yet the band consistently wrote and performed its lyrics in English. Lead singer Hank Von Helvete delivered those words with convincing fluency, allowing only faint traces of a Scandinavian accent to surface. The lineup during that period also featured lead guitarist Euroboy, bassist Happy Tom, rhythm guitarist Rune Rebellion, keyboardist and percussionist Pål Pot Pamparius, and drummer Chris Summers.

Apocalypse Dudes was tracked in 1997 and issued in the United States by Man’s Ruin at the start of 1999. By the close of 1998 the band had already dissolved; Darkness Forever!, a set of live recordings from its final year, appeared in early 2001. The split proved brief, and Turbonegro resumed live dates in 2002 before issuing Scandinavian Leather the following year. A short run of northern European shows accompanied the release of the seventh album, Party Animals, in 2005. A remix collection titled Small Feces, Vol. 1 surfaced in 2006, and the full-length Retox arrived in 2007. After parting ways with Summers and Von Helvete, the group brought in vocalist Tony Sylvester and drummer Tommy Akerholdt as replacements in 2011, then released its ninth album, Sexual Harassment, in 2012.

Extensive touring across Sweden, Denmark, and the rest of Europe occupied the ensuing years, yet the band delayed its return to the studio. Rocknroll Machine finally appeared in 2018 as a comparatively polished release on the Scandinavian Leather imprint, except in the United States, where Burger Records handled distribution. The record marked the first studio effort without original frontman Hank Von Helvete, who passed away in Oslo on November 19, 2021, at the age of 49.