Thomas Seltzer

Thomas Seltzer (born 27 July 1969), also known by his stage name Happy-Tom, is a Norwegian-American musician and television presenter. He is best known as the bassist (temporarily drummer) and chief songwriter of the rock band Turbonegro.

Early life Seltzer was born to an American father and a Norwegian mother in Hamar, Norway. He grew up in Superior, Wisconsin, and relocated to Nesodden in Akershus, Norway, in 1975.

Career

Seltzer is the bassist (originally drummer) and main songwriter for the band Turbonegro. The name was intended as a joke to see whether extreme names for businesses would be approved and he has since kept the name. 'Flesh' has notably been referenced in the Turbonegro songs "Just Flesh" and "Sell Your Body (to the Night)".

Seltzer's documentary UXA – Thomas Seltzers Amerika shows him travelling through the United States to examine the state of the American Dream today. The first season, which aired on NRK in 2020, won the Gullruten Award for Best Documentary Series in 2021. The second season aired in 2022.

In 2022, Seltzer published the book Amerikansk Karmageddon: Tanker om mitt fordømte fedreland, which translates to American Karmageddon: Thoughts about my damned fatherland. The book addresses the same topic as the documentary series: the decline of the United States, but is told from an auto-biographical point of view with more informal language than most non-fiction books. The book received mostly good reviews in the Norwegian press, with a notable exception in Aftenposten who called it untrustworthy and a "pop-intellectual bulldozer".

Personal life Seltzer currently lives in Trondheim with his wife and two children. Seltzer is a friend of Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes, and has interviewed the latter in connection with the band's performance in Paris in February 2016 following the attack on the Bataclan Theatre and for his documentary UXA.

Discography

With Turbonegro

Studio albums

Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives (1992) Never Is Forever (1994) Ass Cobra (1996) Apocalypse Dudes (1998) Scandinavian Leather (2003) Party Animals (2005) Retox (2007) Sexual Harassment (2012) RockNRoll Machine (2018)

Live albums

Darkness Forever! (1999)

Compilation albums

Love It to Deathpunk (2001) Small Feces (2005)