The Hellebores

The Hellebores were a short-lived but sharp-toothed garage punk trio from Palmerston North, active in 2016–2017. The band featured Mon (The Methadonnas) on drums and vocals, Ben Topping (Black Chrome, Old Man Pine) on bass and vocals, and Hugh (Creep Van) on guitar. They took their name from the hellebore plant – toxic, unpleasant, and potentially fatal if ingested – a fitting metaphor for the band’s sound and attitude.

Forming in 2016, The Hellebores played their first show at Snails in Palmerston North in August and quickly hit the road, playing house parties in Wellington and heading north for the Norty or Nice Christmas show at Whammy Bar/Wine Cellar in Auckland later that year .

In June 2017 the band recorded a dozen tracks live in a single session at Snails with Razored Raw founder Matai. Eleven of those songs – including a blistering cover of The Henchmen’s “Zenith Reptile” – were released in September 2017 on Razored Raw. The album captured the band at full throttle: raw, abrasive, and deliberately unpolished, with stripped-down rock ’n’ roll hurled headfirst into garage punk energy .

The track “It Never Ends” appeared on the No NZ compilation in November 2017, also via Razored Raw, and the band picked up a high-profile support slot for US cowpunk lifers Supersuckers that same month .

Later in November 2017, The Hellebores played their final show – an evening set at Neil Roberts Day in Whanganui – before Ben and Mon headed overseas, bringing the band to an abrupt but fittingly explosive end. In their brief run, The Hellebores left behind a noisy, hook-filled document of instinctive, primal punk that sat comfortably alongside other raw Razored Raw releases and nodded heavily to the lineage of The Stooges, Teengenerate, The Oblivians, and Auckland’s own Henchmen.

Origin	Palmerston North
Genre	garage punk
Years Active	2016 – 2017
Labels	Razored Raw
Associated Acts	The Methadonnas, Black Chrome, Creep Van, Old Man Pine
Past Members	Hugh Jenkins (guitar, vocals) Mon (drums, vocals) Ben Topping (bass, vocals)