Hellbent Hooker Takes Havana: New York’s Grossest Band Puts the Sleaze in Cuban Diplomacy

The dream of a socialist revolution is dead in all but a handful of countries at this point, having crumbled alongside the wall in 1991. Cuba counts itself among these few states that officially pay homage to the revolution, and as such rock music still occupies a tenuous position within the country much like Eastern Germany in the 20th century. Like Germany, the Cuban government runs a rock agency in the hopes of controlling the scene's inherent anti-authoritarianism. Yet unlike its European counterpart, Cuba is slightly more tolerant as the Castro regime occasionally permit foreign bands to tour the island.

While they are allowed to tour, trash talking the state on stage is a no-go and touring bands must be sure to be on their best behavior. So if making a good impression on an ultra-conservative communist dictatorship fresh off the US "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list is the name of the game, then perhaps the last group of people you would want to select would be a sleazy, substance-fueled, cross-dressing metal group. Or, bluntly, Hellbent Hooker.

Hellbent is self-described as "New York's grossest band," an illustrious title they have undoubtedly earned. For anyone who has been (un)fortunate enough to have attended a Hellbent Hooker show stateside, they'll know that it is not uncommon to leave the venue covered in a variety of body fluids. Their previous bassist had a thing for dildoing herself on stage, their front man T-Bone used to wield a razor while performing (which often creates something of a 'splash zone' for those who find themselves up against the stage rail), male genitalia tend to make appearances, and the tampons that rain down upon audiences are usually far from fresh.

The first time I met Hellbent Hooker was after watching them get their asses handed to them in a game of hockey on a hastily constructed skating rink just off the Havana boardwalk. The rink was a project laden with metaphor and an endless source of entertainment for the city's youth (and inebriated adults); an installation dreamt up by New York visual artist Duke Riley as part of his contribution to the Havana Biennial, Cuba's largest art festival. Riley, thinking it would be a good idea to bring these sleaze metal envoys to the most conservative, no bullshit state in the Western Hemisphere, threw a benefit BBQ just two weeks prior to Hellbent's scheduled departure to the land of sugar cane and cigars. Against all odds, the band managed to scrape together just over $7k to make their Cuban 'Mosquito Mojito' tour possible, and Hellbent Hooker found themselves on a direct flight to Havana to partake in their first stint out of the country.

After an afternoon of letting the locals tear up the PVC plastic that was a stand-in for actual ice, the rum-drunk teams representing Havana's Bellas Artes Museum and the Bronx Museum took to the rink. T-Bone was referee and guitarist Blake was defending the net. Everything about the affair was entirely bizarre: from the presence of an ice rink in the middle of the two million person sauna that is Havana to the gaggle of gringo artists chain smoking and pulling from rum bottles. Blake's unintentional vaudeville antics in trying to skate on a less-than-skateable surface proved to be an endless source of delight for Havana's youth (and misery for himself), drawing heckles and empathetic groans from Duke and the peanut gallery. As the game wrapped up and the rum hosed off the surface so the locals can continue skating, I comment on the bizarre nature of the event to one of the members of Duke's massive posse. She laughs at my naivety. "If you think this is bizarre, wait until the show tomorrow night."

The following evening, the ice rink has been transformed into a stage, with PA systems resting against the wooden paneling and a drum set haphazardly poised atop a painter's scaffold with a few wooden crates. I showed up early and began shooting the shit with one of the dozens of local skaters that has turned out for the event, passing a bottle of Havana Club between us as we sat on top of the shipping crate, surveying the scene. Duke and his crew have been prohibited from advertising the event, as evidently the biennial authorities weren't inclined to advertise a metal show, much less one featuring men in makeup. Yet the mere presence of sound equipment on the rink has been enticement enough for many locals, who have turned out in droves to mill about the rink and wait for something to happen. I asked a local in my less than admirable Spanish if he had any idea if this show was still going to happen, since it was nearly two hours past its scheduled start time and the crowd had attracted a gaggle of police officers. He shrugged his shoulders and pulled from the bottle before offering: "In Havana, nothing is guarantee."

As if on cue, there was a commotion on the far side of the container as the recently arrived Hellbent Hooker made their way from a beat 50s era Plymouth to the stage. The woman from the night before is also on top of the shipping container and I gesture to the two police officers standing with their arms folded a little distance from the stage.

"Any chance you think they'll let this thing go on?"

She smiled, "Who knows -- but the band is shitting themselves. They're convinced they're about to be arrested."

"If they can keep their dicks in their pants, it shouldn't be a problem."

"That's a big 'if'."

Diplomats indeed.

Someone grabbed a mic to introduce the band in Spanish for the crowd, their name unfortunately translating to "Determined Prostitute" given the lack of any easy Spanish equivalent for "Hellbent." They played as a four-piece since their bassist Gina, in typical Hellbent Hooker luck, lost her passport at the airport and would not be arriving until the following afternoon, assuming she would be able to get a replacement -- far from a guarantee. The band played a quick set and despite the fact that it is unlikely that anyone in the crowd was expecting to see a kitschy glam-metal outfit perform, most of the audience seemed really into it. I'm nearly positive I saw one of the cops nodding his head in time with the kick drum. After their set, Hellbent quickly packed up their gear and vacated the rink, not keen on waiting around for trouble which, given their track record as a band, would inevitably find them if they dallied much longer.

I met up with the band later for drinks at a Cuban-Swedish fusion restaurant in Havana Vieja, wanting to get to know them a bit better now after I had agreed to write a story about their escapades in the one of the few countries on earth where "counter-revolutionary activity" is still a punishable offense. While the story was more or less wrote itself given the band's penchant for mishaps (their latest goof occurring when they tried score some weed off a few locals, who ended up handing them eight thimble sized baggies of "sunburnt grass" which needless to say did absolutely nothing for anybody), the real problem was going to be describing the band itself. In terms of both sound and aesthetic, the band is reminiscent of a heavier version of W.A.S.P. In terms of luck, they approach Spinal Tap status.

As we sat downing Mojitos, Bucanero beer and whatever the hell qualifies as Cuban-Swedish fusion food, Blake perfectly sums up the outfit: "we're basically a B-movie Mötley Crüe. Nothing -- I'm being serious here -- nothing ever goes right for us."

With the band's real reason for coming to Cuba awaiting them the following night, a show at Maxim which is Havana's only metal club, Blake speculated on all the things that could go wrong in the 24-hour interim that separates them from the show: Hurricane. Attack by a pack of rabid dogs. Simultaneous onset of chronic diarrhea. Even supposing they made it to the venue, this was no guarantee that the show would go on. Asking Hellbent Hooker to mind their Ps and Qs while on stage (which really amounts to asking them to please refrain from pissing on their audience) is like asking the sun to stop shining. Yet if they were going to be able to play at a club run by the Castro regime, they would need to temper their act, something that they did not seem capable.

I found Gina, Blake and T-Bone at their casa particular the following day at around noon. The mission for the day was clear: find T-Bone a pair of high heels for the show, no small task considering that T-Bone has giant feet in terms of women's shoe sizes and in Cuba most shoes are sold (sometimes illegally) from random houses. Without the help of a local to point you in the right direction, the search will be basically hopeless. T-Bone and Blake were both feeling a bit under the weather, with Blake throwing up earlier in the day and T-Bone likely just wickedly hungover. Blake agreed to accompany us on our hunt for a black size 43 women's heels while T-Bone rests up.

After several hours of window shopping in the belly of Havana's most infamous tourist trap, dodging old European women weighed down from the monstrous DSLRs slung around their neck and Cuban jinteros trying to sell us everything from cigars to their sisters, we have yet to find any heels in T-Bone's size. Soundcheck was quickly approaching so we abandoned our search and hightailed it back to grab Hellbent's gear and ferry it down to the venue in rusty old Studebakers. Soundcheck was at 5:30 and Hellbent Hooker arrives promptly at 7:15. Michael, the other guitarist in Hellbent, had not been seen all day, prompting nervous speculation from the other members as to what might have happened to him. Blake shoots me a knowing look; here at last is the Hellbent curse catching up to them.

The band powered through sound check to get a bite to eat before they went on stage, and happened upon a hole in the wall chicken place which doesn't exactly look appealing to anybody. Beggars can't be choosers, as they say. As I picked at my cheese sandwich, I looked over at Blake, who's head is down on the table with dreadlocks encircling a plate of pollo asado. Goosebumps are raised along his arm and he is visibly quaking. Evidently, the sickness which took him down in the morning was back with a vengeance. Half of Duke's crew seemed to have come down with whatever strain of fever was now violently working its way through Blake's body, incapacitating people for a full 24 hours. While everyone else was wiping sweat from their brows from the humid evening air, Blake complained of how freezing it was, something that will only be exacerbated by the fact that he had to change into fishnets in a venue where the A/C was cranked to "sub-arctic."

With Blake's condition deteriorating by the minute and Michael still nowhere to be found, Hellbent made its way back to the venue where they are due to perform in half an hour, no one liking the odds of actually being able to perform. When we arrived back at Maxim, Michael was there waiting and looking refreshed from a day spent perusing Cuban art galleries, imbibing spirits and meeting sexy locals, a hilarious juxtaposition to his beat bandmates.

Saturday nights are generally the metal nights at Maxim, but as luck would have it Hellbent played on a Friday. They opened for mostly electronica-oriented outfits, including a dub-infused screamo group. Once again, Hellbent found themselves performing to about 200 people, most of whom had not come expect a metal show, and once again, Hellbent Hooker managed to win over the crowd. The band ran through their full seven song set for an audience that looked as confused as they were impressed. And possibly more impressively, they did in fact manage to not spill any menstrual blood, urine, semen, or bowel movements on their audience and kept their genitalia (mostly) covered.

After their flawless, albeit relatively tame performance, the band quickly disrobed, not even bothering to take off their makeup, desperate to get back to catch a few hours of sleep before their flight at some unholy time the following morning. As the band waited on the curb for taxis, they were approached by dozens of locals who told them how much they enjoyed the show, imploring them to come back another time.

Much to everyone's surprise, Cuba is still looking forward to normalized relations with the U.S., despite Hellbent having spent a week within their borders.