Tom Toxic is probably the best rock n roll songwriter you’ve never heard of, but that’s about to change. The only German in the International Rock-a-Billy Hall Of Fame has left his past as the frontman of the Holstein Rockets behind him and formed his rock n roll supergroup, Tom Toxic and die Poison Jerrys – featuring members of the Stranger Cats and Pfeffer Holstein – and they’re ready to take on the world via their debut album and a landslide of international shows. 

Before they hit London in November for Psychobilly Freakout Festival, they’ve got Psychobilly Kicks Back in Essen to play. The charity one-dayer has a special place in their hearts, as Toxic explains: “It’s because the Poison Jerries has their debut at PKB, three years ago. Back then we were not the Poison Jerries, we were ‘TBA’. We announced ourselves with different names with the acronym TBA, like Tom’s Beer Artists or The Angry Bastards – It was fun!  We only played the show because the Holstein Rockets weren’t able to play because our guitar player had some problems with his hand…so I called a guitar player. Slappin’ Rockabee called a drummer. We had four rehearsals and we played there and it was fucking great, so we decided to keep going. Because our very, very first show was at PKB, I decided our very, very first show after releasing the album should be the PKB too. 

A few months later, our first gig as Tom Toxic & die Poison Jerrys was at the legendary Psychomania Rumble in Potsdamn in 2023, with Serge Baxley of the Scum Rats as our stand-in on lead guitar. It was fun, overwhelming, exciting, all in one. In the beginning we weren’t a band, just a project, so the drummer and the guitar player were only there for help. The drummer kept on with the band for a bit longer because he’s a good friend with Slappin Rockabee. He’s not really a rockabilly or rock and roll guy. He feels at home with hard rock and blues and so on, which gave us a very, very punchy drive back then. After our tour to Tennessee and Vegas in 2023, he decided to leave the band for personal reasons. I had to reform the whole band and we had no permanent lead guitarist.

[In the meantime], Norman Flanders [vocalist of Thee Flanders]  and I started this fun project, die abNORMAN TOMaten, and Norman announced on Facebook that we are looking for a permanent guitarist. Steve [Crown, frontman of Pfeffer Holstein] said, ‘maybe it’s me…’ I contacted him again later and asked, ‘do you want to play something different to Pfeffer? What about playing guitar for Poison Jerries, at least for one show in Husum where we’ll support Demented Are Go?’ And he said, ‘yeah, okay, I can jump in for one gig’. And then we booked a second gig or the day after, and he said, ‘yeah, okay, it’s the same weekend’…I’m happy that he’s playing with us every show and doing silly things like playing London. He just said, ‘yeah, let’s do it’. That’s what I really love.” 

We had a sneak preview of Tom Toxic & die Poison Jerrys debut album, ‘Middle Finger Up’, and naturally we needed to find out more. ‘I Wear Black’ is a translation of one of Toxic’s older songs, and comes from the daily frustrations that many psychobillies will relate to: “I started writing that song because on one single day, I heard four versions of the stupid , why do you wear black? Is it because you are Johnny Cash? Or has someone died? Do you think you are fat? All this stupid… yeah, you know, if you wear black, you hear a lot of these stupid sentences throughout your life. Now, I’m answering all these questions in one song.”

On the other hand, ‘(I Am Like A) Tardigrade’ comes from Toxic’s favourite minibeast. “Everyone has to love the Tardigrades. It’s a little tiny stumpy animal which could survive almost everything. You can dry them out for months, years and if you put a single drop of water on them, they can come back to life. You can put them into the air, into space where there’s no pressure, no air, no nothing, and if you take them back, they are still alive. Scientists made an experiment and shot Tardigrades out of a very small pistol at a wall and the impact was the same as like a bullet shooting out of a 9mm to a tree. And the Tardigrades survived! They deep froze the Tardigrades to the lowest  temperature which is possible to create by man. After they unfroze them, they were alive. So I thought, these little bastards are very strong and that’s why I chose them as my spirit animal. I thought I have to sing a song about them and then one of my last breakups happened and I thought, ‘yeah you can do what you want but you will not be able to kill me because now I’m strong like a Tardigrade!’ I’m not the tallest rock and roller around, I am like a Tardigrade.”

We go back to the roots of ‘Dirty Old Town’. I put it back to the roots because the version we all know from from the Dubliners or from the Pogues but Evan McColl who wrote it in 1949, doesn’t write it as a waltz rhythm. It was a simple sing-along song for a musical. The funny thing is everybody thinks it’s an Irish traditional song. No, it’s written for a British coal miner’s town [Salford].  So why do I put it into a rock and roll shape? It’s because I love this song, but we are no Irish folk band. We are a rock and roll band and I thought about if it’s possible to sing it as a rock and roll song. I tried and it worked. It took a bit of persuading to get my bandmates to try it as a rock and roll song. If I take a look on our YouTube channel it proves that it was a good idea, because the most played song is ‘Dirty Old Town’.

One of my favourite songs on ‘Middle Finger Up’ is ‘Real Friendship’, mostly because of what I say with the lyrics because they came out of my heart. It’s really my point of view on friendship. It’s my definition and, yeah, ‘Real’ uses one of those less common arrangements, so it’s one of the ones I love very much.

‘The Other End Of The Highway’ is [nearly] forty years old now. I wrote that song when I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. I wrote this song in East Germany and it was almost like it is now. A bit different in the arrangements, a few other words. But yeah, I was twenty when I wrote the song, and I was without a girlfriend again. I hated [living in East Germany] and I emmigrated to the West with my parents. So, ‘for twenty years I’ve been living here, but now it is enough / ‘cos I can’t find my baby, no I can’t find any love’. They were the simplest rhymes I had in my head back then. I wanted to go to the other side of the [Iron] Curtain. I can’t sing, ‘I go to the other side of the curtain’, so I went ‘to the other end of the highway’. It is a song I’ve had in my repertoire for thirty years, since my first band, Tom Toxic and the Trashcans, and a little later it was covered by the Coastguards and released as B-Side to ‘I’m On The Flight’ in 2014. We, Tom Toxic & die Poison Jerrys, play it always as the last song of the set, and we give the audience the opportunity to count in another chorus again and again…we play as long as the audience counts ‘1, 2, 3’…or until one of the band members on the stage is close to dying.

About fourteen months ago I thought, ‘that’s it.’ I was ready to quit music. Step by step, the hope came back and now we are releasing our debut album. Who would have thought that we will release a debut album one year after I thought my career was dead? So yeah, I’m excited about it, and I’m excited about playing outside Germany for the first time. Okay, the first time was in Vienna with the Holstein Rockets. The second time was as part of the project in Las Vegas. But this is kind of my band, and that’s important to me. I hope to see everyone in London for Psychobilly Freakout Festival!”

Kate Allvey

Buy a copy of ‘Middle Fingers Up!’ here

Tom Toxic & Die Poison Jerrys are:

Tom Toxic – Vocals and Rhythm Guitar
Steve Crown – Lead guitar
Slappin Rockabee – Bass
Tobi (or not Tobi) – drums