It seems The Forgotten Rebels have spent the past few years living up to their name.

At one time the most notorious and controversial punk band in Canada, they've been almost conspicuous in their absence, leaving the rock 'em-shock 'em assault they employed throughout the '80s to the numerous younger bands that -- subconsciously or not -- they've influenced.

Still, while The Forgotten Rebels founder and singer Mickey DeSadist says the band has never actually packed it in, the Hamilton rockers' recent silence can only help fuel their comeback gig at Lee's Palace Saturday night, in support of their new album Nobodys Hero's.

"We hadn't done a public show for maybe a year, up until a couple of weeks ago," says DeSadist, 40, taking time off from his day job as an underwater welder to nurse a cold.

"The fact is that whether anybody buys the records or not, we're still going to play. We always enjoyed playing, and if the audience cares to show up and watch, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine."

Which kind of sums up the Rebels' career.

Formed, legend has it, in a Tim Hortons in 1977, the group has featured no less than 23 members in 23 years.

They started out playing meat 'n' potatoes punk rock which -- predictably for its time -- fell somewhere between Britain (The Clash, The Pistols) and the U.S. (The New York Dolls, Iggy) and, along with the likes of Teenage Head and The Viletones, helped forge a thrashy Southern Ontario sound.

"We weren't as unfortunate as the people in the punk side of England," DeSadist says. "And we were better looking than they were."

It was the Rebels' mix of political rage and plain political incorrectness that put them on the map.

Their 1978 tune National Unity took a prescient if exasperated look at Quebec Separatism -- "I don't care about the Fleur de Lys/ The B.N.A. means nothing to me/ If they want to go, let them go" -- and was presented to Pierre Trudeau during a campaign stop.

1980's In Love With The System proved a lasting hit on the college party circuit. So did that year's sinister Bomb The Boats, a send-up of racism that was easily misunderstood as an endorsement of it, and 1981's Surfin' On Heroin.

The group's sound has inched from punk to hard rock over the years, but the topics remain touchy: Nobodys Hero's deals with child abuse and violence, not to mention the lighter side of rock 'n' roll life.

"It's somewhere between absurdity and surprise," says DeSadist. "I haven't mellowed at all. It's a whole new gig every time I look at it.

"I don't mind saying what I want because I can take this or leave it. I enjoy it, but I don't need it. It's like alcohol. I like to go to the party, but I don't have to go to every party."

As for outlasting old punk heroes such as The Ramones, whom the Rebels gigged with, the singer takes it in stride.

"We haven't outlasted Beethoven yet," he says, laughing. "But one thing I'll say is that we've sold more records in our lifetime than he did in his."

Also on Saturday's bill are CJ Sleez and The Vapids.

Nobodys Hero's is out on Toronto punk archive label Other People's Music.