This ice cream truck dispenses only ‘metal music and disappointment’

Here’s a story that seems tailor-made for our season of discontent under the heavy thumb of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s about a guy in Minneapolis who drives a black ice cream truck. It plays the familiar ice-cream truck jingle, but it also blares death metal from the sound system. And it has no intent of stopping to sell you any frozen treats.

“I will coast right past them with the sinister look of rejection,” explains the website of Hell General, the name of the truck. It’s a 1973 AM General FJ-8A Postal delivery truck that owner Matt Peterson acquired in 2009, spent a couple years restoring and painted black.

Peterson tells City Pages he got the idea when thinking about his own experience with an ice cream man at age 10, when he flagged down a truck, realized he didn’t have any money on him and sprinted back to the house to retrieve some. But when he reached the front porch, he realized the ice cream man was pulling away. He pounded on the window to try and get him to stop but ended up shattering the glass and badly cutting himself. Which strikes us as simultaneously tragic and metal AF.

His truck is plastered with the logos of metal bands attached to popsicle sticks, to make it look like a menu, and he can’t drive in the rain because the windshield wipers don’t work. He’s experienced lots of disappointment from fathers and 12-year-old kids who were expecting ice cream, but he tells City Pages he returns the occasional rude gesture with a peace sign.

You can read more about Hell General at City Pages.