According to the official band biography, its name originated when teenagers in their neighbourhood warned their younger siblings about them with the words Vorsicht, da sind die bösen Onkels!

Böhse Onkelz maintained its initial lineup until Matthias Röhr (nicknamed "Gonzo", after the Ted Nugent album of the same name) joined them in 1981.

[3] Since Weidner played guitar, Matthias started out on bass; however, they switched instruments before their first recordings for the punk sampler Soundtracks zum Untergang 2.

The album Der nette Mann was released in 1984 by the Rock-O-Rama label, which had left its punk roots behind and concentrated on records by neo-Nazi and far-right bands.

The album also contained the patriotic songs "Stolz" ("Pride") and "Deutschland" ("Germany"), which endeared the band to the far-right scene.

Shortly after the release of the Mexico EP in late 1985, the band split with Rock-O-Rama; it had been defrauded of royalties and was concerned about the growing far-right reputation of the label, which did not represent its viewpoint.

During this period the band was ignored by the media; however, this changed with the growing album sales of Es ist soweit, Wir ham’ noch lange nicht genug and Heilige Lieder.

On 16 June 1990 the band's best friend, Andreas "Trimmi" Trimborn, was stabbed to death during an incident at a bar in Frankfurt's Sachsenhausen district.

Two days later, Böhse Onkelz supporters located the assailant: a Bundeswehr soldier whose father held high military rank.

The killer was acquitted; the judge stated that Böhse Onkelz and its entourage were known to be violent, and the stabbing was committed in self-defense.

Even today, all witnesses reject the claim that Trimmi threatened the killer and his companion (both of whom had allegedly snorted cocaine minutes before the incident).

Russell fell into a deep depression over the loss of his friend, masking his grief with drugs and alcohol; his substance-abuse habits became so destructive that he almost died.

Large department stores, such as Media Markt, World of Music (WOM) and Saturn, refused to sell their albums.

In 1993, on their album Weiß (referring to the Riot of Rostock-Lichtenhagen), the band recorded its first song clearly disapproving of right-wing extremism: "Deutschland im Herbst" ("Germany in Autumn").

The band also acknowledges its past in the skinhead scene, singing: "Ihr seid dumm geboren, genau wie ich.

In 1994 the band moved to Virgin Records (its first major label), for which they released the album Hier sind die Onkelz a year later; it reached No.

Since the mid-1990s, the band referred to their fans as "nephews" and "nieces", strengthening the communal spirit expressed in the song "Danke" from their album Ein böses Märchen...aus tausend finsteren Nächten.

In 2002 the Onkelz released the album Dopamin, which was recorded on the Spanish island of Ibiza and mastered at Abbey Road Studios in London.

[7] On 8 August 2003, despite negative publicity, the Böhse Onkelz were a supporting act for The Rolling Stones at their concert in the open-air arena at the Hanover Fairground.

[8] That year they played a club tour in Germany under their alias, "Los Tioz" (Spanish for "Die Onkelz").

When the band's five-year contract with Virgin ended in 2003 they found a new distributor in SPV GmbH for their final album, Adios.

After the release of the album, a performance at the Wacken Open Air in August 2004[9] and the sold-out "La Ultima" tour, their farewell show took place on 17 and 18 June 2005 at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz (in Lusatia, Brandenburg) under the name Vaya Con Tioz before an audience of approximately 120,000.

On New Year's Eve 2009, Russell was involved in a hit-and-run auto accident under the influence of drugs in which two young men were seriously injured.

On 1 February 2014 they launched a trailer on their official website, stating they would play a concert together and revealed the date and the location, which will be on 20 June on the German race track Hockenheimring.

In earlier years, the Onkelz also sang drinking songs such as "Heute trinken wir richtig", "Alkohol" and "Freibier".

Similar songs include "Wieder mal 'nen Tag verschenkt", "Stand der Dinge", "Das Problem bist Du" and "Dunkler Ort".

The songs "Ein langer Weg", "Scheiße passiert", "Nie wieder", "Flammen", "Deutschland im Herbst", "Buch der Erinnerungen" and "Ohne mich" have a similar motif.

The albums from the Metal Enterprises era (Kneipenterroristen, Es ist soweit, and the EP Lügenmarsch) have been distributed with a different cover by SPV/regel23 since March 2005.