After I heard the news about Turbonegro I got a little curious about what former vocalist Hank von Helvete was up to with his new band. The name was weird enough to get my attention and it was relatively easy to track down, so I soon had Doctor Midnight and The Mercy Cult’s first release, I Declare: Treason in my possession.

Well. It’s pretty weird.  It starts out with an ominous, spoken word intro but when you listen to the actual words it’s rather uplifting in it’s own cult-ish way.

I am here to declare everlasting love, it shall be light.
I am God, I believe in you.
You are the light, you are what’s coming next.
You are the past and the future.
You’re the beloved one…

Nice stuff, right? If I didn’t know better, I’d totally join this Doctor fellow. He sounds legit.

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Turbonegro are back! Turbonegro are back! Okay, I can’t be the only one excited about this. I am? What is wrong with you?

I was scrolling through Kerrang!’s online site on the off-chance there was something worth reading, and, weirdly enough, there was. Tony Sylvester, the former head of the London branch of Turbojugend (Turbonegro’s official fan club/world-wide gang) and their UK press officer, has stepped in to fill front man Hank Von Helvete’s dandy shoes. The Norwegian party-band went on hiatus in 2009 after Hank left to, and I quote, “Pursue a career in acting, the Church of Scientology and goth rock,” leaving me with a party-sized hole in my heart. Great euphemisms for a crippling drug habit, not so great for Hank. Luckily, he seems to be doing fine now, and just released an album this month with his new band, Dr. Midnight and the Mercy Cult.

And now Turbonegro are coming back, too! Happy days!

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If you’ve read MetalSucks at all in the past twelve months, you know who Kvelertak are. I named their self-titled release the best album of 2010, and that album found its way onto Kip Wingerschmidt and Leyla Ford’s year-end lists, too. Anso has publicly declared his adoration for the group. And then the band headlined our South by South Death party at SXSW last month.

We love this band. They’re fucking great.

And yet, I knew almost nothing about them beyond their music.

Which made the opportunity to chat with vocalist Erlend Hjelvik all the more exciting. I wasn’t going into this interview trying to find fresh ways to ask the same old questions. I was going into this interview because I legitimately wanted to know: Who the hell are you dudes, and where did you come from?

Get the answers from Mr. Hjelvik himself after the jump. In addition to getting some backstory on the band (Did you know that certain members used to play different instruments within the group? I sure as hell didn’t!), Hjelvik discusses his desire to write lyrics in Norwegian, the band’s first American tour, their plans for the next year and beyond, his black metal side project, and more.

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Ah, Valentine’s Day. Reviled by most, enjoyed by the smug, and shrugged off by the belligerently ambivalent. But while most of us couldn’t care less about this specific day in February, it’s still an annoyance that comes around every year. Kind of like the common cold.

Now, most places will have shitloads of “quirky” recommendations you can do with your special someone, even if you’re of the metalhead persuasion. You can hold sweaty hands in the privacy of your parents’ basement, pour each other some classy Motorhead wine, and share a blood pudding in the dreamy light of those church candles. It’s all very nice and sweet to be… nice and sweet.

But you know what’s better? DOING IT. With a killer soundtrack. So on this very special day, I’ve made you all a romantically inappropriate mix tape.

Picking “mood” songs is a little too obvious for my taste. I mean yeah, Faith No More’s “Stripsearch” (Actually, that might be more of a stripping song than a sexing one, but ,hmm, “Evidence” maybe? Heh, “Be Aggressive” might work for some. Either way, Patton’s voice = nudity.) and NIN’s “Closer” are both appropriate (for very different reasons), but that’s no fun. Go forth and find that special someone willing to get, get naked to these select songs. There’s a little something for everyone. St. Valentine would’ve wanted it that way.

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Turbonegro oozes with street level glam-rock grit, and they’re goddamn proud of it. Despite all of their lyrics being in English, this over-the-top band formed in the late ’80s comes from Oslo, Norway, which doesn’t particularly strike me as a geographical purveyor of rawk (obviously metal is a different story), but watching them perform this past Tuesday night at the Nokia Theater in New York (with Nick Oliveri’s Mondo Generator as support), they might as well have been transplanted from the Lower East Side heyday of glam and trash. And the truth is, that era is no doubt what got these tri-curious chaps started on their mission of filthiness in the first place.

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