Hank Von Hell (ex-Turbonegro) Discusses His Relationship with the Jackass Crew and Steve-O’s Cameo Video Appearance
I’m a fan of everything that reminds me of the Jackass and Viva La Bam glory days. Give me H.I.M, Andrew W.K., CKY and Turbonegro and jam it all into my ears, please!
If you’re anything like me you’ll be glad to hear that this week on The MetalSucks Podcast we sat down with ex-Turbonegro frontman Hank Von Hell, who now has a solo career, to discuss his current relationship with the guys from Jackass and Steve-O’s appearance in his video for “Bum to Bum:”
“In the Turbo days we met up with the Jackass guys pretty early and they were huge Turbonegro fans dating all the way back to when they were an underground skateboard crew that hadn’t gotten their TV show on MTV yet. A Turbo song was being used for Jackass: Number Two (the movie), and also we were guests on the Viva La Bam show on MTV and Steve-O used a Turbo song score on their TV show.
“Every time we were touring the U.S. we were hooking up with those guys but when I left Turbonegro I lost touch with a lot of them. But Steve-O and I kept in contact the whole time and I met up with him when he was touring. We had a special dimension to our friendship due to the fact that we’d been struggling with some of the same demons/issues. So when I asked Steve-O just by chance whether he was interested in coming over and helping me launch a solo comeback thing, and he dropped everything he had and flew over and did it in Sweden, and we filmed it. It was a really cool moment where Steve-O was the force that made it available for me to do a comeback in rock n’ roll.
“Later it turned out that some of the Jackass guys hadn’t heard about this stunt that Steve-O did, and they were mighty insulted that they weren’t part of it too. I know now that at least a couple of those guys are just waiting for their invitation to the next video recording. So the brotherhood between the old punk rockers and the Jackass guys is still very, very strong, and the level of love is just very high.”
Hank Von Hell will be embarking upon his first solo North American tour later this summer, and the dates can be found here. Stay tuned for his upcoming EP and, in the meantime, check out the podcast interview in its entirety below along with the video for “Bum to Bum” starring Steve-O.
