Apocalypse Dudes: Turbonegro

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HANK VON HELVETE used to stick lit Roman candles up his butt.

Not anymore.

The hefty lead singer of the glammy Norwegian rock band Turbonegro has given up the self-described "assrockets" since the group's reformation in 2002, following three years of hiatus so Von Helvete could dry out from a nasty heroin addiction.

But don't think Turbonegro has become more mature; the self-described "death-punks" have a new CD, "Retox," that features songs titled "Everybody Loves a Chubby Dude," "Hell Toupee" and "Stroke the Shaft."

"I don't think we'll be able to grow up," said Von Helvete. "The punks who stayed punk stopped dressing up so weird, but inside the violence is still there."

Turbonegro is still dressing up weird, taking on the personas of everything from a gay sailor to a gay Nazi, but don't think the group is just having a laugh.

"We always try to avoid becoming a wacky band — a jokecore band," Von Helvete said. This coming from guy who is in a band called "Turbonegro" and dresses up like a chubby Alice Cooper.

"Then again, dark humor has always been part of the Northern European culture," he said. "It's been 2,000 years of very hard living — what's to do except laugh about it?"

Turbonegro takes the primal thrust of The Stooges and runs it through '70s punk and '80s hair metal. But it's the live visuals that push Turbonegro over the top, lead by Von Helvete as the corpulent ringmaster, complete with facepaint and a top hat.

"I always do the paint; I do a new kind of costume now," Von Helvete said of his getup for the "Retox" tour. "I got some stars and stripes things going on now. It's more like a Mr. Freedom thing."

The band's strong imagery even influences its songwriting and album creation.

"We always think like movies — visual scenarios," Von Helvete said. "We make a picture in our heads, and on 'Party Animals' we had a picture of a punk stabbing another guy while he was blowing bubblegum. The picture for 'Retox' was three kids standing in a garbage dump, drinking beer and watching two dogs make it out — laughing at them, pointing. So we wanted an infantile, backyard punk thing going on with this album."

The only thing missing is an assrocket.

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; with Mondo Generator and Year Long Disaster, Wed., 8 p.m., $17; 202-667-7960. (U St.-Cardozo)

Photos courtesy Cooking Vinyl/Turbonegro