Thomas Seltzer (born 27 July 1969 in

Hamar Hamar is a List of cities in Norway, town in Hamar Municipality in Innlandet Counties of Norway, county, Norway. Hamar is the administrative centre of Hamar Municipality. It is located in the Districts of Norway, traditional region of Hedmarken. ...

, Norway) is a musician in the band

Turbonegro Turbonegro (Turboneger in Norway) is a Norwegian rock band, active from 1989 to 1998 and from 2002 to the present. The band combines glam rock, punk rock, and hard rock into a self-described "deathpunk" musical style. History Early years (1 ...

, a television talk show host and documentary creator, and an author.

Personal life

Seltzer was born to an American father and a Norwegian mother. Although he was born in Norway and has lived in Norway since his early childhood, Seltzer retains his

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

citizenship and has never been a citizen of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

''de jure''. Seltzer applied for Norwegian citizenship in

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

, but got rejected due to Norwegian laws prohibiting

multiple citizenship Multiple/dual citizenship (or multiple/dual nationality) is a legal status in which a person is concurrently regarded as a national or citizen of more than one country under the laws of those countries. Conceptually, citizenship is focused on t ...

. The Seltzer family hails originally from

Midland, Texas Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States. A small part of Midland is in Martin County. At the 2020 census, Midland's population was 132,524. It is the principal city of the Midland, Texas metropolitan ...

in the United States, but together with his five-year-older brother he grew up in

Superior, Wisconsin , native_name_lang = oj , nickname = , total_type = , motto = , image_skyline = Tower Avenue.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = Downtown Superior , ima ...

. At six, in 1975, he moved to

Nesodden Nesodden is a municipality in Akershus in Viken county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Follo. The administrative centre of the municipality is Nesoddtangen. The parish of ''Næsodden'' was established as a municipality on 1 ...

Akershus Akershus () is a traditional region and current electoral district in Norway, with Oslo as its main city and traditional capital. It is named after the Akershus Fortress in Oslo. From the middle ages to 1919, Akershus was a fief and main county ...

, Norway. Seltzer currently lives in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

where he workis as a talkshow host and documentarist for the public Norwegian national television channel

NRK NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting Aksjeselskap, AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and ...

.Klikk.no: Thomas Seltzer til Trygdekontoret - Turbo-sjefen får NRK-program
22 January 2009

Musical career

Seltzer is the

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...

(originally

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...

) and main songwriter for the band

. He is famous for wearing feminine makeup and a sailor's uniform. He has also gone under the names "Tom of Norway" and "Bongo". He has also played in the bands Akutt Innleggelse, The Vikings, Oslo Motherfuckers, and Scum.

Documentary and book about the United States

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

in 2020, won the prize for the best documentary in

Gullruten Gullruten ("Golden Screen") is an annual award for the Norwegian TV industry, founded in 1998 by ''Norske Film- og TV-produsenters forening''. The awarding committee has representatives from the major national TV companies, NRK, TV 2, TV3 and TV ...

2021. The second season aired in 2022. In 2022 he 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. It is more auto-biographical than the documentary series, and the language is more informal than most non-fiction books. Many reviewers have praised the book, describing it as "a powerful achievement", well-referenced and convincing despite its informal style, and a successful combination of personal stories with broad cultural analysis. However,

Aftenposten ( in the masthead; ; Norwegian for "The Evening Post") is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen) and estimated 1.2 million ...

's reviewer called it untrustworthy and a "pop-intellectual bulldozer".

Trivia

His

enkeltpersonforetak (ENK) is a type of sole proprietorship in Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Pen ...

is named Menneskekjøtt Engros,Nøkkelopplysninger fra Enhetsregisteret
translating to Human Meat Wholesale Inc. This was intended as a joke to see whether extreme names for businesses would be approved, and he has kept the name.

References

1969 births Living people Norwegian bass guitarists Norwegian male bass guitarists 20th-century Norwegian drummers 21st-century Norwegian drummers Norwegian rock drummers Male drummers Turbonegro members People from Nesodden Norwegian multi-instrumentalists American people of Norwegian descent Norwegian people of American descent 20th-century guitarists 21st-century Norwegian guitarists 20th-century drummers {{bass-guitarist-stub