Green Bay band's iconic antler helmet lands in Punk Rock Museum

GREEN BAY - Boris the Sprinkler’s antler helmet never made it into space, but it did land Green Bay a spot in the new Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas.

Not a bad gig for a goofy piece of headgear that started out as a reject from a WAPL-FM listener contest, went on to tour the United States and Europe in the 1990s atop frontman Rev. Norb’s head and even popped up on TV’s “The Jenny Jones Show."

But now, it’s really famous.

The motorcycle helmet with deer antlers bolted to each side and “GEEK” spelled out in big letters across the front and “PUNK” across the back was stowed away on top of Norb’s refrigerator when the inquiry came in 2021 asking if Green Bay punk band Boris the Sprinkler would contribute a piece of memorabilia to a forthcoming museum dedicated to the “history, culture and absurdity of rock ‘n’ roll’s bastard stepchild.”

Norb was both honored and a little skeptical, wondering "what level of crackpot" it was. Once he found out Kepi Ghoulie from California punk band the Groovie Ghoulies had offered up his green bass guitar from the ’90s, he knew the project was legit.

“So then I decided, well, I may as well give them the coolest thing, and that’s the antler helmet,” Norb said.

During the Boris heyday from 1992 to 2003, Norb was known for his often elaborate stage fashion. His stinky Wolverine costume, with silverware taped to his hands as claws, was his No. 2 choice to send, but it was ultimately the antler helmet he shipped off to Vegas last year.

The Punk Rock Museum, founded by “Fat Mike” Burkett of NOFX, opened in April. There amongst what is billed as the world’s most expansive display of artifacts, fliers, photos, clothing, instruments, handwritten lyrics and artwork is the Boris the Sprinkler helmet, right by a drum head from Minneapolis band Babes in Toyland.

The two-story, 12,000-square-foot space features memorabilia from such big names of the scene as New York Dolls, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Bad Brains, Devo, Rancid, Rise Against, Debbie Harry and Sum 41. It also has a tattoo shop, a wedding chapel, a dive bar and tour guides from the Ramones and Dead Kennedys.

It’s the latest adventure for the helmet that was originally gifted to Norb by Rick McNeal and Len Nelson of WAPL’s “The Rick & Len Show” decades ago. In connection with a space shuttle launch at the time, the morning show held a contest asking listeners to bring in the weirdest thing they owned that should go along into space.

“Somehow the antler helmet didn’t win, which always made me wonder what was the weirdest thing that they had? What’s weirder than a motorcycle helmet with antlers bolted on it?” Norb said.

(Turns out it was a refrigerator magnet made from coprolite, the fossilized feces of an ancient turtle. McNeal, who now co-hosts WAPL's "The Rick and Cutter Show," remembered it off the top of his head.)

Norb donned the helmet for the first time during a deer hunting weekend show in 1992, just a few months after the band formed. He had a Milwaukee Bucks jersey on, and the guitarist wore blaze orange coveralls. It was a whole theme, and Norb figured the antler helmet would be good for a few laughs for that one show.

He was also thinking: “This is the dumbest thing ever. I’m never wearing this thing again.”

But that's not quite how it worked out.

“Of course, everybody who was at the show was running up to me afterward, ‘When are you going to wear that helmet again? When are you going to wear that helmet again?’ Then I was trapped, because I did not want to wear the helmet more than once.”

It became a signature of the band, showing up not just onstage but on several Boris the Sprinkler album covers with titles Norb would rather not say aloud. The cover illustration of his 2017 book, a collection of his monthly columns for Maximum Rocknroll titled “Fear of a Norb Planet,” shows him wearing the helmet.

When he made an appearance on “The Jenny Jones Show” in 1996 for one of the daytime talk show’s “I Have the Hots for You!” secret crush episodes, he rocked a white motorcycle jacket, zebra print bike shorts and the helmet.

“Did you know you have antlers on your head?” Jones asked him.

“Ah, that explains why I couldn’t get through the door properly,” he answered.

The darn thing nearly sparked an international incident when Boris the Sprinkler was on tour in Europe in 1996 or 1997. The band was at the airport in Dusseldorf, Germany, on its way back home when Norb heard his name on the PA system. There was an irregularity with his luggage, and he needed to go down to baggage hold in the lower level, where a group of inspectors were frantically pointing at the X-ray screens and excitedly talking to one another in German.

“What they were pointing at was, unsurprisingly, the antler helmet at the bottom of my duffel bag,” Norb said.

He thought he was just packing smartly when he stuck his can of Barbasol shaving cream and a bag of Boris the Sprinkler buttons inside the helmet. The staff at the airport, however, thought the metal can was a bomb, the buttons were shrapnel and the helmet somehow part of the device.

They made Norb open the duffel bag and use some of the shaving cream in case it was really a bomb.

“Then they put me on a golf cart and drove me across the tarmac to the plane, which had been held up for me to explain what the heck the antler helmet was and what it was doing in my luggage,” Norb said.

He tried to play it casual as he boarded the plane, with all eyes on him. When his bandmates asked what in the world had happened, he was aware the whole plane was listening. “They thought I had a bomb,” he whispered.

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The antler helmet hasn’t seen as much action in recent years, as Boris the Sprinkler plays only select shows (and none this year). Periodic maintenance, like tightening the screws on the antlers, has kept it functional.

“Because nobody likes a droopy antler helmet,” he said.

Don’t let the fact that it’s only a 4-point buck up there fool you into thinking it’s for lightweights.

“Wear that stuff on your head long enough and it feels like you have a mighty 10-point rack,” Norb said.

He hasn’t made pilgrimage to The Punk Rock Museum yet to see it for himself. He thought about going right when it opened, but he wasn't certain if the helmet had made the cut and worried maybe it was sitting in a storage room in the basement.

“I don’t want to show up and think my thing is in there and then walk out like some dejected jerk afterward,” he said.

Friends who have been to Vegas have sent him photographic proof it’s out there for punk rock fans from all over the world to see. It’s on loan to the museum until 2027, so there’s plenty of time to marvel at how a small, strange piece of local punk rock history has made it big.

“It’s always cool to have Green Bay represented somewhere and, of course, it is Boris the Sprinkler’s unique pleasure to do the representing,” Norb said.

“If you went to a punk rock museum and they didn’t have anything from your hometown you’d be like, ‘Well, what is this museum? They only know the really known stuff. They don’t know anything from my weird little town.’ But if you have something from your town there, then you’re like, ‘Hey, this place is great. They’ve really got their finger on the pulse.’”

Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert.