Shaped in Austin, Texas, however of no fastened abode for a lot of their late-’80s heyday, the Butthole Surfers resembled a cross between Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and the early, no-budget Alice Cooper—a roaming freak present of improvised druggy chaos. Alongside the way in which, they left behind a path of deranged and broken recordings.
Stalwarts of the post-hardcore underground that spawned Massive Black, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr., Butthole Surfers appeared the least doubtless of the scene ever to go mainstream. As a substitute, they appeared extra more likely to develop right into a Dadaist Grateful Useless for the Nineteen Nineties, enjoying to ever-larger crowds of the turned-on devoted, however method too bizarre for radio and Walmart. The identify alone appeared like an act of economic suicide. However, shocking all people, Butthole Surfers signed to a serious label, made an album with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, traveled the USA on the primary Lollapalooza tour, and, ultimately, cleaned up with the fashionable rock radio hit “Pepper.”
Talking from their Austin houses, guitarist Paul Leary and drummer King Coffey focus on their pre-crossover days of insanitary madness, by way of the newest batch of Butthole Surfers reissues from Matador Data: Cream Corn From the Socket of Davis, Locust Abortion Technician, and Hairway to Steven.
King Coffey: She had mind issues, supposedly partially attributable to the strobe lights we used onstage. The docs requested, “Have you ever ever been uncovered to any strobes?” And Teresa laughed, “Oh, you’ll by no means know what number of strobes I’ve witnessed.” She struggled by means of many issues in her remaining 10 years. However I’m simply so grateful that we had an opportunity to know her and play together with her and be her de facto brothers.
The 2 of you pounding away at your stand-up drum kits was fairly a sight again within the day—Teresa’s flaming purple tresses flailing! Sonically impactful, too, the dual drum assault.
Coffey: After I first joined the band, I used to be doing actual primary kick and snare drums, from having been on this hardcore band the Hugh Beaumont Expertise. Taking part in like a wind-up monkey. Within the Buttholes, Teresa began enjoying these actually cool tribal beats. I realized play simply being together with her and watching her. We sort of labored with one mind.
The primary time I noticed a Buttholes present, in 1987, I used to be completely unprepared for the audio-visual assault. Singer Gibby Haynes squirted flammable liquid on a cymbal, set it ablaze, and saved smashing the cymbal with a drumstick—flames shot as much as the ceiling! I’m pondering, Is that this entire venue going to go up in smoke?
Paul Leary: We had been actually fortunate, as a result of we set fires each night time for a decade, however we by no means received damage. One time, Gibby received injured by an exploding espresso pot, however that was once we had been staying at a home in Georgia. His pores and skin was falling off his arm for a month. In these days, we couldn’t afford a physician. However we by no means received injured on the precise stage. Even with the shotgun.
The shotgun?
Leary: We’re enjoying the primary Lollapalooza tour—second on the invoice, within the mid-afternoon. Our mild present wouldn’t work in daylight, so Gibby received a 12-gauge pump shotgun and he’d load it up with what’s referred to as popper hundreds—they don’t shoot bullets, however they’re used to coach canines, by having a louder, extra violent explosion than an everyday shell. Siouxsie and the Banshees was on that first Lollapalooza invoice. At one present, I used to be enjoying a solo and I seemed down—there’s Gibby and Siouxsie at my ft, wrestling round with a shotgun pointed at my head, attempting to seize it from one another. That was like seeing a rattlesnake—I jumped 10 ft within the air.
