No, the title of the latest Butthole Surfers album is not pronounced "pee-owed" and Piouhgd does not translate to "I told you" in the Navajo Indian language. "Rough Trade made that up. We only found out about it from seeing something from Australia," says Buttholes bassist Jeff Pinkus, admitting that they don't read what their record company plans to promulgate about them in advance, especially since it wasn't necessary with their previous record label "Touch and Go were smart. They never showed us anything until it was too late. But they never did anything as embarrassing as this. We just came up with the name and thought it was unpronounceable."

Its impolite to speak ill of the dead, but Rough Trade weren't dead yet, so Jeff's words seem strangely prophetic in light of ensuing events. He tries to be diplomatic about any strained relations with Rough Trade, explaining that he'd wait the six months until their contract was up to fully discuss the problems that the band had with them. But within a quarter of that time, Rough Trade had shut its doors. The only other specific difficulty he does mention is that the label waited so long to release their album once the band finished it that the chants of "Gary Shandling!" on 'Revolution Part T lost their timely value since his TV show was canceled. Fortunately, the song's references to Joey Bishop are tuneless. Jeff says that the reason for Bishop's inclusion is self-explanatory.

Jeff won't categorize their move from Touch and Go to the larger Rough Trade as a stepping stone to a major label deal, but their frequent touring has earned them an ever-growing cult following and made them one of the most popular independent-label acts, with major label support certainly the next step. They never considered replacing departed drummer Teresa Taylor or dancer Kathleen, leaving the core of towering vocalist Gibby Haynes, guitarist and occasional blonde-wig-wearer Paul Leary, drummer King Koffy and Jeff. "It works well with the four of us. The problem with having two drummers was that we often were at different levels of drunkenness and it -made it difficult to keep the beat. Whose beat you kept depended on who you were standing near."

Jeff and Gibby also formed a splinter group/ the Jack Officers, under the premise of creating house music if one had only heard the term but not the product. "The first incarnation of the Jack Officers involved a show where we got contact mikes, which we stuck down their pants. When we hit our crotches, it triggered other effects. We got into all kinds of computer stuff that didn't sound like the Butthole Surfers." Rough Trade released their album Digital Dump, and Gibby may take the concept on the road, but Jeff is busy pursuing other projects now.

Jeff illuminates Piouhgd's enigmatic packaging, revealing that many of the unusual features did not result from any tremendous forethought. For instance, the reason that the album title doesn't appear on the front cover: "We came up with the great graphics and there wasn't room for anything else." The distorted images were created with computer graphics not fun house mirrors. "I wanted to look like the guy from the Geto Boys," he adds. There are no credits on the sleeve simply because they were too lazy to write them out. He was completely unaware of the confusing track numbering on the CD, with two Number 3 tracks and no Number 5. 'Lonesome Bulldog' may come in four parts on Piouhgd, but it's clearer than 1988's Hairway to Steven, on which tracks were identified by pictures rather than titles, causing radio DJs to interpret songs such as 'Syringe' or 'Horse Peeing.'

'No, I'm Iron Man' was intended not as a rebuttal to Black Sabbath but as a tribute to all the drag queens in Atlanta, Jeff's hometown. "All the best ones come from there and show up at our gigs all over the place," Jeff notes. The initials 'PSY' title of the twelve- minute noise-fest-to-narrative that namechecks Lauren Bacall (yes/another celebrity), stand for lots of different things, but Jeff offers no concrete answers and was unaware that some have suggested that two of the letters stood for Sonic Youth because of the musical style. The band hadn't thought of it as one of the meanings, but it is another possibility.

The Jesus and Mary Chain haven't threatened the band with litigation over 'Something', since the Butthole Surfers remembered to fully credit them for writing the music. The song parodies the Mary Chain composition 'Never Understand' from Psychocandy. The two bands had partied together and the original writers were impressed enough with the new version to ask the Surfers how they achieved the dental-drill screeching effects. "We picked that song because it was easy to play, only two chords, and it was the one that stuck out in our minds because of the uh-huhs," says Jeff. He starts to quote some of the lyrics as we discuss it. "When I kicked her in the teeth, she was out the door/I just know she'll be back for more, uh-huh."

They finally committed their version of 'The Hurdy Gurdy Man' to disc after playing it-live for seven years because they were able to create the effects they wanted to achieve with the piece. The video, which features both the band and their dogs, received regular airplay on MTV's 120 Minutes. "I heard they were playing it every Sunday night, but I don't get MTV so I haven't seen it myself." The ironic situation with that network of several years ago has rectified itself; for a period of time, the Butthole Surfers were the most frequently played band on MTV but no one could say their name on the air. A fifteen-second station identification played every hour on the hour featured animation by the guy who created the commercial with Ritz Bitz diving into peanut butter and a soundtrack (well, jingle) by the Butthole Surfers. The animator made $70,000 for his work. The band didn't do as well. Meanwhile, an MTV executive heard their name mentioned on the air at 1 a.m. and was so offended that he banned further reference to them. The official has since moved on and the stigma was removed from their moniker.

Recording the album at their home studio in Texas offered them numerous advantages. "We could take hour-long breaks to do bong hits. We could work at a relaxing pace since we didn't have to worry about how much we were spending on studio rental time, engineer's time and things like that," comments Jeff. "Paul did the engineering because he knows the equipment best" The major downside was some very low quality equipment "Don't ever buy Akai," he implores. "Our $40000 digital mixing board might be fine, but the $3500 analog board now won't track the stuff that we recorded before it was fixed."

At the time of the interview, they were preparing for both their own tour and for the Lollapalooza circus, trying to figure out how to not blow all the fuses with their spectacular new light show. He is intentionally sketchy on details, not wanting to ruin the surprise, but they do bring back their famed (infamous?) penal surgery movies in addition to the computer-controlled blinking and swirling light display. They've never been banned from a dub because of scorch marks left by the fire cymbal, an inverted cymbal that Gibby fills with alcohol, sets ablaze and crashes with a drumstick, sending flames upward. If they had burned the ceiling anywhere, the place probably didn't have enough headroom for the 6 ft, 4 Gibby anyway. But after ten years, Jeff thinks that shock value of the name of the band has finally worn off. But the Butthole Surfers continue to find new ways to shock, offend and challenge. Even if they're too lazy -to admit they're doing it. §