GIBBY: HAYNES, vocalist
KING: KOFFEE, drummer
PAUL: SNEFF, gtrist
JEFF: TOOTER, bassist
TERRY: TOLKIEN, agitator
COREY'S GHOST: a spectral record company exec.
FE: JAMES & BYRON
LOCALE: TERRY TOLKIEN'S APT, FAG CENTRAL, NY 4/18/86

FE: Did you rehearse all day today?
GIBBY: Just a few hours. We didn't have our equipment there.
FE: Last time we tried to interview yo, we were told that you were rehearsing constantly. do you only rehearse in NY?
GIBBY: Those are false statements that somebody's telling you.
FE: Well, there's been a lot of scuttlebutt going around.
GIBBY: Is it because I'm an asshole? Is that it?
FE: There are just no good sources of information. The sources are all like Charles M. Young.
GIBBY: Charles M. Young is our biggest fan.
FE: He's not that big.
GIBBY: Yeah? Well hes evolution was traced in an old back issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC...uh, where's the weed?
KING: It's in one of those empty looking bags...to the left of you.
FE: The only other sources are like Donny the Punk.
GIBBY: What do you know about Donny the Punk?
FE: He likes hot dogs.
GIBBY: I think great things are destined for Donny the Punk. It think he has the ability to get involved with some sleazy murder or some fatal bank hold-up where he gets shot in the skull or something.
TERRY: He's an FBI plant.
GIBBY: He could be.
KING: An FBI plant...Donny the Punk, get a mohawk haircut.
FE: You guys weren't up to his slamdanceable standards.
GIBBY: Is he really sexually aggressive?
TERRY: He always insults the judge when he gets arrested so he can get thrown in "The Saucy Bin". But he is the only one who still mentions the Butthole Surfers in MRR.
GIBBY: Yeah. It's too bad abot MAXIMUM ROCK & ROLL and Ruth Schwartz and Jello Biafra...
FE: Did you just meet Eric [Boucher] after that Valencia Tool and Die show?
GIBBY: Yep.
FE: Was the first EP recorded at that point?
KING: Nope.
FE: And he just promised to pay for it?
GIBBY: He promised the guy that owned the recording studio that they would eventually get paid for the recording time. Then they let us record.
FE: Did Alternative Tentacles have any distribution then?
GIBBY: They had just broken up with Faulty, but...I guess they didn't. But they managed to do it.
PAUL: We were like the first record to be distributed by Steve Quaalude at Subterranean.
TERRY: And when he first released it he put a sticker on the record that said FREE SINGLE. Everybody thought it was a Buttholes single...
KING: But it was a Voice Farm single in many instances.
TERRY: Yeah. It was whatever he had laying around.
FE: It seems like that would have been a weird point to go with Alternative Tentacles.
GIBBY: I like that. When you're a band called the Butthole Surfers, you leave Texas after you're played like three times, this rock star says he'll put out your record if you're any good...
PAUL: You're eating out of garbage cans.
GIBBY: And you want me to hold out and sign with A&M?
FE: You never had anything going in Texas at all?
GIBBY: They hated us there and we left.
PAUL: It's god's truth.
GIBBY: This dead guy's friends came to see us once 'cause he'd told them we were the worst band ever.
PAUL: After he died they all came to check us out.
GIBBY: And they all told us. But now they're our friends because we've gotten critical acclaim in PLAYBOY magazine.
PAUL: From Charles M. Young.
FE: I thought he had a writer's block.
GIBBY: Who said that?
FE: It's all over NY.
PAUL: Charles "Dental Floss" Young. We'll see Charles very shortly. Charles had to consult a lawyer after the last time we stayed at hes place. The neighbors complained and he was threatened to be evicted.
FE: What did they complain about?
PAUL: Just the fact that we were there.
FE: As Texans?
PAUL: I don't know that it was that. They just heard weird noises in the night and attributed it to us. Charles "Turpentine" Young...
FE: So what were your shows like in Texas?
GIBBY: Have you seen the video we've done? At the end of the video there's one of the songs we did in Texas. This guy came and took all my clothes off. He fucking stripped me.
PAUL: He stripped him 'til he was naked.
GIBBY: Then he made to laugh at me and I said, "Scoff!"
FE: When you first went to California was it with MDC?
GIBBY: No. They went out there and made it big. We were just lonely.
PAUL: There was a trend for Texas bands to move to California.
FE: So there wasn't any Texas package tour or anything?
GIBBY: No. I just called and I got a show on the way out in Phoenix, then we were going to move to LA. We'd talked to the guys in MDC -- they were old friends of ours from Austin -- and we said, "Can we play at this Tool & Die show?" They said, "Yeah." We got up there and they told us we couldn't play, but we'd already loaded all our equipment down into this hole, so they let us play like ten minutes.
KING: Three songs.
GIBBY: They wouldn't let us play one more. Then they kicked us in the balls like we were retarded guys. Then we went and played with the DK's. But before that we played a couple of times at the Grandia Room. We did a great show with us, the Big Boys, the Minutemen and the Descendents.
PAUL: D. Boon was playing guitar on stage and it was literally coming apart. He was falling through.

GIBBY: The stage was made of four-by-four sections of this weird sorta stuff. D. Boon would jump on one section and go floating off into the audience.
PAUL: Biscuit made the whole stage come apart.
GIBBY: It shattered.
FE: So you were based in California for a while?
GIBBY: About two months. Everybody hated us, so we went back to Texas. We scattered and ran with our legs between our tails.
PAUL: Then we realized we couldn't get jobs. Our lives were already ruined.
FE: What ever happened to the album of stuff that was recorded arond the time of ANOTHER MAN'S SAC?
GIBBY: Oh, you're talking about the record that Alternative Tentacles claims, "Never existed, does not exist and will never exist"?
FE: Yeah.
GIBBY: Well, we gave them a cassette tape and we called it REMBRANDT PUSSY HORSE. It was the same basic album, but with a different mix and a few other songs. They were going to put it out, but then after about a year they said they felt the record had never existed and would never exist.
PAUL: Until today they were correct.
GIBBY: Those guys...
FE: What other stuff was going to be on it?
KING: Actually, the two songs on the B-side of CREAM CORN were recorded in NY a long time ago and they were supposed to be part of the original REMBRANDT PUSSY HORSE.
FE: So the record was really put together over the course of a couple of years?
KING: Sure. The base of REMBRANDT PUSSY HORSE was recorded abot four months after ANOTHER MAN'S SAC. Most of the songs were from that same period. We just had all these songs and we didn't know waht to do with them. They took years to come out. The final product has a couple of new songs, but most of the songs were totally us just going into the studio not having any idea what we were going to do. We's just turn on the tape machine and go. We'd have some rough ideas and melodies, but...
FE: You guys seem to change some of your songs almost completely when you play live. Do you ever feel like going back and recording them again?
KING: A lot of times we'll perfect a song live after recording it first. Then we'll start working on the recorded version, trying to get it like the live version. It's kind of a retarded way to work, but it works for us.
FE: Whose idea was that live EP?
KING: Well, it's my least favorite record of the ones we've done. It's important in that it kept us fed and going for a year, but on a sheer artistic level it's a pretty lame record done live and it cost nothing to record. It came out really quick, so...
FE: It seemed like an odd move.
KING: Well, there was no reasoning other than -- let's put out a record. ANOTHER MAN'S SAC was taking too much time. It was recorded, but there was so much going back and forth between record companies.
FE: How'd you hook up with Corey?
KING: He called us. He wanted to do it.
FE: You know we've got his spirit trapped right here in this bottle, so we can check that if you want. Corey, is that how it happened?
COREY'S GHOST: Yeah, that's basically it.
FE: When did you first hear about the Buttholes, Corey?
COREY'S GHOST: Oddly enough, long long before the first record came out the Dead Kennedys played Detroit and I was still in the Necros and we opened for them, Jello cam eback and stayed at my house and he had a cassette of them -- just some real early demo tape thing. That was cool, but I almost immediately got that ripped off. Some time later, about four months before the first 12" came out, Ian MacKaye stayed at our house on his way back from somewhere and he'd just been in Texas and he said, "Hey, I just got these tapes by the Big Boys and the Butthole Surfers." So we dubbed those off of him and that was the first Buttholes thing that we really had on tape and we managed to hang onto it and listen to it a lot. It was basically the demo tape for the first 12" and we were just floored. It went from there. We tried to get ahold of them for quite a while. I had no idea that there was interest on the part of Alternative Tentacles or anything at that point. We just wondered if they were looking for a label. We could never get in touch with them, then the Alternative Tentacles record came out and we were like, "Aw, shit."
FE: Thanks for the details. So you guys initially did ANOTHER MAN'S SAC on your own, right? Not for any particular label?
KING: Yeah, pretty much. It was going to be sort of or own label via the studio we recorded it in. Alternative Tentacles was kind of interested. Then in the meantime, PCP came out 'cause we needed some money quick to keep us going.
GIBBY: Wow man, I wiped the potty seat of my beer and look what I came up with -- Walt Frazier sliding across Madison Square Garden.
PAUL: Yeah, you should always wipe those potty seats.
GIBBY: Oh, this is the potty seat right here [indicates top hole of beer can]. Thought you might think we were referring to something else as "wiping the potty seat", which we never do in public restrooms. We would never put our bodies on foreign plastic.
FE: What do you do? One foot on the roll, one pressed up against the wall?
GIBBY: No. Just pull 'em pants down below your knees and lean back. You don't have to touch anything. You lean your elbows on your knees and you're ready to roll.
PAUL: Gibby climbs up to the top of the stalls to do that.
GIBBY: No I do not. I have before, but I do not.
PAUL: He flies bombing missions.
GIBBY: I said I have before, but I do not. That was in college. On an isolated morning or two.

KING: Handicapped toilets are always useful 'cause they have those railings for extra support.
GIBBY: Those are always frequented by homosexuals, though.
KING: (sings) Knock three times on the ceiling...
GIBBY: Twice on the pipes...In Texas they have bathtubs in the men's rooms.
FE: But about the recording thing...
BAND: (gurgling)
FE: Help! Corey!
COREY: What happened was that the Buttholes had recorded ANOTHER MAN'S SAC and REMBRANDT PUSSY HORSE all on credit at this guy's studio in Texas. They ran up this huge recording bill there and so ANOTHER MAN'S SAC was all ready to go but Alternative Tentancles was really dragging their feet on getting arount to it. I think it was basically that they didn't have enough money to get the tapes out of hock. So the guy who owned the studio, Bob O'Neill, also ran the short-lived Ward 9 record label, who put out COTTAGE CHEESE FROM THE LIPS OF DEATH. So anyway, they owed this guy a bunch of money, he sort of runds this label and I don't think they were real happy about the idea of thier record coming out on Ward 9, but they had no other way of paying for it, so this guy was going to put it out. Then, we finally got in touch with them. So we worked things out from there. They were about to play NY again and we said, "Why don't you stop off here on the way?" We set up a show in Detroit, they came by and hung out for a while and we all got along real well. So ANOTHER MAN'S SAC came out the last week of '84. The Buttholes liked working with us, but they felt like they still owed Alternative Tentacles something because they'd released two EP's, but they'd never gotten to do an album. So they were gonna do REMBRANDT with 'em, but Alternative Tentacles was giving 'em such a hard time about royalties for the first two records that I guess they go fed up.
FE: So REMBRANDT dragged on for two and a half years?
COREY'S GHOST: Yeah, at least that.
FE: Jesus, why couldn't you guys have just told us that. How about a simple question. Who's in the band now?
GIBBY: Just these four people. We had another girl drummer but she split. Yesterday. We dropped her off in Knoxville, Tennessee.
FE: Did she want to get off there?
KING: We ate a Morrison's in Knoxville and I believe that's where the decision was made. It was the fish almondine.
GIBBY: We were going to drop her at Nashville at the airport, but we drove right by it. We were distracted because she was wearing this wicked aftershave called Crushed Snail or something.
KING: Eau de Cowpasture At Night.
GIBBY: Crushed Earwig aftershave. It's cheap, but she was great.
FE: She'd originally planned to do the whole tour?
GIBBY: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. It's hard to say with Cabbage.
FE: How long was she in the band?
BAND: (croaking)
FE: Any help here, Corey?
COREY'S GHOST: Well, Theresa quit in December ['85], it was not long after that they got Cabbage. Probably January.
FE: Thanks, pal. You guys always seem to have a fluctuating rhythm section.
PAUL: The King has always ruled.
GIBBY: Theresa was with us for a long time.
FE: But King wasn't the original drummer.
PAUL: He's the only drummer I care to think about.
FE: Who played drums before King?
BAND: (silence)
FE: Spirit?
COREY'S GHOST: Some nameless drummer. My knowledge of pre-King Buttholes is very limited.
FE: Oh. You plan to look for a second drummer in Europe?
KING: We're going to be looking for pussy this time.
GIBBY: Is that truly it in terms of weed? We've got this video of a couple of guys suckin' their dicks through these big glass tubes. You want to see it?
FE: Not really. You're only playing one show in NT this time?
GIBBY: Yeah. It seems like everywhere we play we insult people and make them regret having us there.
PAUL: Takes 'em about sex months to forget about it. Then we come back. There's a lot of people out there you can get pissed off.
FE: Where do they get most pissed off?
GIBBY: Between their ears.
PAUL: We never have any problems in NY.
GIBBY: We got ripped off by a hick fairy highschool punk rock promoter in Birmingham, Alabama, which is shuch a fucking drag. The only thing I could do when it was over was spit on his eye and pour a beer down the back of his Sony Trinitron.
FE: Why didn't you just take it?
GIBBY: Which do you think is more devastating? It was destroyed.
JEFF: Yeah. And he had to look at it for a long time.
GIBBY: The television was gone. what was the guy's name? Lollipop Produciton? He was a big old lovey queer. A big lovey faggot. He'd went to NY once and thought that he'd seen Jesus. He saw a drag queen and then he was one.
FE: How long will you be in Europe this time?
GIBBY: I don't know. About a month and a half. It's open-ended. Everything's open-ended or else how would it get out?
FE: It seemed as if your last trip there stretched out a bit.
GIBBY: No it didn't. It was planned and it happened and fare thee well. This time we're hoping to be extended, 'though we're being billed as being from Mexico.
FE: Los Butthole Surfers?
GIBBY: No. Just the Butthole Surfers From Mexico. The last time we were there we claimed we were from Mexico.
FE: Where did you play?
GIBBY: We played all over Holland, we played in Berlin, in Norway, in England...
FE: And REMBRANDT PUSSY HORSE is coming out in a bunch of countries, each with a different cover?
GIBBY: No. Just one. We were planning to do that a while ago, but it got all fucked up because a European record label called private detectives on us.
FE: They called private detectives?
GIBBY: No. We just had a typical falling out with somebody who called us assholes and the most self-centered people he'd ever dealt with.
FE: You should have shaved him.
GIBBY: He was already shaved.
COREY'S GHOST: If you don't mid me setting this straight, the original plan was for REMBRANDT to have a US cover and English cover, a Belgian cover and possibly another one. But it all fell through because of schmucks not getting things together right. It got all messed up. The one European jacket that did come out for REMBRANDT isn't even what it's supposed to be. The band sent artwork for the record jacket and separate artwork for a promotional poster and the people ended up combining the two and making up their own thing.
GIBBY: Yeah ... if your wife slips in some drag queen's vomit, you don't help her up. Even if she's got vomit all over her knees. That's right. And her pantyhose.
KING: Don't even help her up.
GIBBY: That's right. Don't lift your wife out of that drag queen vomit.
FE: You can't clean that stuff out.
GIBBY: You can Wisk it out!
FE: Are you playing big places in England this time?
GIBBY: I don't know. We didn't play anything big at all the last time we were there so I hope to fucking god yes.
FE: But you got a lot of coverage.
GIBBY: There was nothing else going on that week and it wasn't that they liked us so much. They just hate Americans and they like to laugh at a good joke.
FE: Were they familiar with your stuff at all?
GIBBY: Hell no. Hell fucking no. This guy from Kentucky was doing our records over there. He's got a fucking beard!
PAUL: He owes us a truck.
GIBBY: Yeah he does, that fucking cripple.
PAUL: I'd like to take his truck away from him.
FE: What kinda truck?
PAUL: I bet he doesn't have one.
GIBBY: He doesn't have a truck. He doesn't got no dentist.
PAUL: They don't have dentists over there in England.
GIBBY: Fuck no.
PAUL: They drink tea.
FE: How were the shows there?
GIBBY: They were fun. They were really fun. I coldn't tell if they liked us. We did a good job. We had fun at the show in...
PAUL: Wales?
GIBBY: Wales, yeah.
KING: Rotterdam?
GIBBY: Yeah. What a show in Rotterdam. We used to have a cassette of the radio interview that was played over the Dutch radio station.
KING: Yeah. Gibby was put on videotape putting his dick on the record executive's shoulder from behind. For a long time. The guy didn't even know it was there for a long time.
GIBBY: Yeah. And Kid Congo Powers was following me around 'cause he wanted to be my friend. Then I realized that he thought I had all the money, and he was waiting for me to pass out so he could take it all out of my pcket. I was walking around breaking bottles and trying to push people over these fifty foot things ...
PAUL: Gibby took on five Dutch security guards. That was a fun night. I ended up trying to carry all the band's equipment back to the hotel by myself. I almost left an overcoat and something else behind because I couldn't carry them, not knowing that all our money was in the coat. Everybody else took off.
GIBBY: I didn't take off.

PAUL: Gibby was taking on the entire bouncer scene looking for the money that I was getting ready to leave in the bushes.
FE: you playing Rotterdam again this time?
GIBBY: I don't know. Those people put a lot of mayonnaise on their french fries.
KING: Germans are really into butter sandwiches. They'll give you like two pieces of bread with a big slab of butter in between. What's it like to live in New England? Do you ever get embarassed that it's called New England?
FE: There's a lot of high-steppin' seafood up there.
GIBBY: We're real interested in lobsters and clams on the beach. In a pit. And the chicks and sweaters and the naked swims in the ocean at night. Like "Jaws". We went by the bridge up there at Chappaquidick. Spraypainted up there it said, "TED LOVES MARY". It was a long time ago. It was great. I went to Martha's Vineyard for a vacation and I took ten joints with me for eight days. I got to smoke a joint every day and one day I smoked three. I remember one time I smoked a joint and went to play with this kid who happened to be born on the same day of the same year I was. He was like this real geek I had somehow met there and I was real stoned and shit. So I went out to this beach with this real weird red clay. I painted myself all over with red clay and was running around freaking out and this guy was laughing at me. I realized this guy was a geek and he was laughing at me. So I was way more geek than he was. I was a stone geek.
FE: How long ago was this?
GIBBY: I don't know ... eighth grade or so ... I think the whole world is King Koffee's toothbrush.
KING: Yeah ... the world spins around, the tide rolls in ...
FE: But what about your teeth?
GIBBY: They feel like spinning tops or grapes.
KING: Yeah they're never gonna stop.
GIBBY: 'Til.
KING: You leave the griddle.
GIBBY: And then they'll?
KING: Just slow down.
GIBBY: How you gonna keep on.
KING: Spinning my life away?
GIBBY: How you gonna keep turnin'? A little Don MacLean.
FE: Will you be heading back to Texas after Europe?
GIBBY: Yeah.
FE: No more Georgian odysseys?
GIBBY: No. No. REM ditched us. They never even gave us the time of day. We put 'em on the guest list every fuckin' time we play in NY...
TERRY: They're coming tomorrow.
KING: Yeah.
GIBBY: We burned our truck in front of Michael Stipe's house. Then we spraypainted a poem there. Then we freebased in the drummer's frontyard.
FE: Is there any truth to the rumor that Amy Carter was one of your fans down there?
KING: Yeah, She was a huge fan. We met her.
PAUL: Yeah. Jimmy as well. Jimmy and Rosalyn came to pick her up. It was a pretty touching experience. I didn't touch him, though. Gibby touched his penis to Amy Carter's suitcase which was, five minutes after that, touched by Jimmy Carter, so...
FE: Was she staying with the band?
PAUL: No. She was staying with this girl who invited us to her parents' house while her parents were out of town. Her brother was the boyfriend of Amy Carter at the time. She was staying at the house and they came to pick her up one time after a show. At four o'clock in the morning, believe it or not, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter and secret service men pull into this driveway to pick up Amy. We had just gotten through smoking out on hash and we were all drinking beer. We were like trying to wave away this cloud of smoke and look at Jimmy who's looking back at us lookin' at him. As soon as Amy turned her back, Gibby jumped up and rubbed his dick all over her purse and suitcase.
KING: The President of the United States' finger was touching Gibby's pubic hairs. Amy was pretty cool. She walked into the room wearing a Psychedelic Furs t-shirt. [longest sustained general laughter of the night]
PAUL: We always wanted to do an interview with Amy Carter.
KING: Supposedly she really wanted to see the Psychedelic Furs when they played this free outdoor show in Rockin' Athens or somewhere, but it was too big of a security risk. so she saw the soundcheck and took off.
FE: So does she wander around now in a Buttholes shirt?
KING: I don't think she has one. But supposedly she was kind of upset that she didn't get introduced to us 'cause she knew who we were and had one of our records. She's really into the Meatmen.
FE: Tesco will dream of a video.
KING: But her freinds shoved her out of the house as we totally filled the place with hash smoke. The secret service was all arond and we put her in the garage to wait 'til her parents showed up.
FE: Where were you based in Georgia?
GIBBY: Winterville. It's right near Athens.
FE: What was your reason for going?
GIBBY: Have you ever been to the south? Atlanta? Athens? It's cool. And being musicians, we were instantly accepted into the Athens underground.
KING: We got some rally good acid in San Francisco and towards the end of the tour we had no shows lined up. We had all our stuff in storage and it was kind of time tostart living somewhere again. We thought, well none of us has ever been to Georgia. Whay don't we move to Athens and hang out with REM and date Let's Active? YEAH! ALRIGHT! So it was agreed upon, we were going to move to Athens, Georgia. We just drove straight there and looked for a place to live.
FE: How long were you there?
KING: About six months.
GIBBY: Our next door neighbor there grew fresh vegetables and we ate french fried eggplant and fresh everything.
PAUL: Squash casseroles.
FE: What did you do down there?
KING: We recorded. We bought our first eight-track and set to recording our own stuff. The first side of CREAM CORN was recorded in Georgia. They were kitchen recordings, done right next to the fryer and the bacon grease. LOCUST ABORTION TECHNICIANS will be mostly eight-track recordings.
FE: When was that recorded?
KING: Not long after CREAM CORN. Still in Georgia, about the same time. Actually the songs on CREAM CORN were recorded a little bit after we finished LOCUST ABORTION. That's when we came up with those two songs.
FE: It's not easy to fugure out the chronology or personnel of the band's recordings since there's never any info on the record sleeves.
KING: Yeah, and I think that's cool. The band isn't really like Wham! or anything. There're certain basics that compose a performance, the rest is just a relative collection of people. None of us are particularly attracted to the idea of having our pictures on the covers of albums of anything. It's like my big thing is to be as vague and anonymous as is humanly possible.
FE: That makes documenting the band's career pretty tough.
KING: It shouldn't really matter. Who really cares? The record is its own entity unto itself.
FE: We care about that stuff a lot. Who plays bass on the CREAM CORN stuff that was done in Georgia?
BAND: (sniffling)
FE: OK, dicks. Corey, what's the deal on bass players? I mean, how many have there been?
COREY'S GHOST: Well again, there were two nameless guys first. They would've played on all the early stuff, then there was Terrence. He was with them for about a year. He would've played on the session they did at Kramer's studio in NY in the fall of '84. Then he quit and Trevor joined just before they did the video, so that would have een in February of '85. He quit in the early summer, maybe June. Then they were living near Athens and they knew a guy down there who was a good bass player named Juan. He helped them out for a while, but he wasn't really in the band. He played those with them, but he wasn't into being in a band. Then after that, Kramer joined. Kramer was with them for about four months, but when they got back from Europe the first time they weren't really doing much, and he'd just bought this studio so he left in November ... that was only a temporary thing anyway. Now there's Jeff. He just showed up on their doorstep one day, "I can play bass."

FE: But Corey, who played on the Georgia CREAM CORN stuff?
COREY'S GHOST: That would be either Trevor or Paul. Trevor played on some of the stuff that was recorded in Georgia. If they recorded those tracks after Trevor was gone, Paul would've just recorded the bass on them.
FE: Thanks, Corey. So basically, you guys just recorded while you were down in Georgia?
GIBBY: And we went to the Oconee Shoals and the Apalachee Shoals where King had the time of his goddamn life!
PAUL: We threw our dog over the waterfall and ate boiled peanuts.
GIBBY: Threw Mark Farner over the waterfall. We were there when it rained on the hot rocks and we saw steam!
FE: How could you give up those cultural riches?
GIBBY: That's a goddamn good question, motherfucker.
KING: We do many things we regret.
FE: Were you able to play down there?
KING: Yeah.
GIBBY: No. We never play arond where we're from. Wherever we're from they do not like us. People hate us.
PAUL: That's why we had to leave.
GIBBY: It's true.
FE: How were you able to exist in Texas for a year before you started touring?
GIBBY: We left there because they hated us.
FE: I thought you hadn't played enough for them to hate you.
GIBBY: Yeah, right. BUt so what? We played at John Schon's art gallery, then we played and they called us the Surfboard Fuckers. A forty year old divorced woman's mongoloid son threw a beer bottle at us on time. They hated us in Texas. We bought kegs for them in Austin...
KING: To make them come listen to us play.
GIBBY: So they'd fill their big old half gallon mugs full and walk away to listen to who knows?
FE: You ever play Ft. Worth?
GIBBY: no, but King Koffee's from Ft. Worth. I've been to a drag queen steak house there and a restaurant that serves a great Arkansas Traveller.
KING: It's Cowtown -- where the West begins.
GIBBY: No, that's St. Louis.
KING: I think the West begins in many places, depending where you're from. It's all relative. Yeah, Gibby found me jacking off in a Mexican in East Ft. Worth. The rest is history. I was asked to join the band.
GIBBY: Yeah. Manifest destiny. I can't believe you did that, Koffee.
KING: Tuna fish.
GIBBY: While we're talkin' about Madonna -- I met her in fuckin' LA and some person took a Polaroid of me and her. Look, here's a picture of me and Madonna. [it's true --ed.] We're backstage in Jesus and Marychain's dressing room. I'm shirtless and she's whispering in my ear, "Look. Who are they taking my picture?" The only words she ever said to me. What a woman.
FE: Where was Sean?
GIBBY: He wasn't there. I really wish he was. I liked him in "The Snowman and the Peninsula".
FE: Are you from Austin?
GIBBY: I'm from Dallas, King's from Ft. Worth, Paul's from San Antonio.
FE: Where did the band come together?
GIBBY: Well, we all went to college together. Trinity College in San Antonio.
FE: Did the band start there?
BAND: (giggling)
FE: What do you say, oh Great One?
COREY'S GHOST: No, I don't think they started there.
FE: Were you all on the basketball team?
GIBBY: No, but I had a great roommate from the basketball team.
PAUL: Gary Shearer that slammed his dick on the wall?
GIBBY: Yeah. He'd wake up in the morning with a boner and I'd hear this WONK-WONK-WONK. Then he'd go, "Look at this!" and he'd be slammin' this big old boner against the wall. His father was totally hairless and one time he noticed he was going bald, so he asked hid daddy, "Father, when did you start going bald?" His dad said, "I'm not bald." He was serious. I met Mr. Shearer one time and he was intense. He had a ranch house with three chimneys and alligators in cages. His wife divorced him and remarried James Drury -- The Virginian -- and lived down the street from the drummer form ZZ Top. I wish I lived down the street from the drummer of ZZ Top.
KING: Gibby and I saw him at a Burger King in Beaumont, Texas. It freaked us out.
GIBBY: He came up to us and started asking us questions.
KING: He wanted to know if we were in a band. He was getting a big kick out of it.
GIBBY: Yeah. we pulled up in this U-Haul truck and we'd just woke up and we were just like this [close yr eyes and imagine --ed.]. He was driving a Ferrari or something and he started talking to us from some low red sportscar.
KING: Talking about his ranches scattered throughout Texas.
GIBBY: Yeah, how his brothers were livin' on 'em and we never let on that we knew who he was. He didn't ask what band we were in, but he went like, "Oh, you're in a band, huh?"
GIBBY: ZZ fucking Top. Man, I feel privileged. I met Madonna. I met the drummer for ZZ Top. I met Eddie Money. I met Van Halen when they were little stuff and I found the guitar player from Journey -- who played with Carlos Santana -- I found his ring where he'd left it at a white porcelain sink backstage at the Cotton Bowl. I met Arnold Palmer, Mickey Mantle. I met Pancho Segura and I tried to get him to sign my autograph and he said, "Not now, son. Not now." Don January, the famous golfer. His brother broke my mother's arm.
FE: Does Trinity College have any religious affiliations?
GIBBY: No. It's got a pretty big endowment. That's pretty religious.
PAUL: And the Methodist Church keeps them stocked.
GIBBY: It's a liberal arts institution. Shitload of queers there. Shitload of drugs. Shitload of loose bitches. A lotta fellaion and cunnilingus. It's a pretty hip place to sex down for a couple of years. Study up, sex down. Get some drinkin' done, play a little ball, smoke a little pot, spend a little money, eat a little bad food.
FE: Did you graduate?
GIBBY: Oh yeah, cum hairdo. I remember Dr. Steve Bouton told me, "Look at you, Hanes. Look at you."
PAUL: When he caught you jacking off with the wine bottle?
GIBBY: Yeah. He came in and spilled something on my carpet and I said, "God damn it. First thing I get caught jackin' off in the shower with a wine bottle up my ass and now this." They freaked out over that.
FE: Were you all there at the same time?
GIBBY: Paul graduated a year earlier.
FE: Was King there?
GIBBY: Sure, but he didn't graduate.
PAUL: King's trying to go to college now. We won't let him.
GIBBY: He's trying to be a Golden Boy.
PAUL: Before he forgets it all.
FE: Did you do any musical stuff at school?
PAUL: No. I did before college and after, but not during.
FE: What was the earlier stuff?
PAUL: I played in heavy metal garage bands with Mexicans.
KING: Just the other day I was telling Paul how much I liked the name of the band he played with in fifth grade -- the Crowd Pleasers.
FE: Had you had any bands before this?
KING: Nope.
FE: What brought it on?
KING: Uh, you know ...
PAUL: Creativity, schmeativity ... it was the mounting pressures of life.
KING: It seemed dictated that we should be in a band.
PAUL: You either work for a living or you're in a band.
GIBBY: Hey -- the foam in the toilet made the shape of Africa. Then a penis-shape that swallowed it up with a star where the balls were.
FE: You worked for a while as an accountant.
GIBBY: Yeah. We all did, I don't know why we thought it would be cool to move to LA and be in a band.
FE: And you've done the band full-time since it started?
GIBBY: Sure.
KING: It was a long time ago.
GIBBY: Kind of weird to be associated with something called the Butthole Surfers for a long time. Kim Fowley called yesterday. Said he wanted to make us the next Tiny Tim. Only because he thought each of us was one third as smart.
FE: He's really tall.
GIBBY: "Kim Fowley Is Tall." What a name for a song! It's better than "Dick on My Leg". That was a Right To Eat Fred Astaire's asshole.
FE: What about Black Poop? Were they an actual band?
PAUL: That was an actual band.
GIBBY: Black Poop was never a band.
PAUL: Yes it was. We were approached by Black Poop in the parking lot of River City Music Cafe.
GIBBY: That's right! But it was where we got our Ampeg, not...
PAUL: No it was not. It was River City. We were ight across from the convenience store. Black Poop had all their chicks in a van and they had an acoustic set.
GIBBY: We never saw Black Poop, but we saw people who said they saw them and said they were great.
PAUL: We saw Ed Asner's Gay and they were really good. They were four guys with lime green polyester leisure suits with padding in them. They had thses cheap homemade latex masks that were supposed to look like Ed Asner and they did an acoustic set where they all ended up twitching on the ground after every song.
FE: Where in Texas were you based?
PAUL: We haven't been based in Texas for four years.
FE: But what about before that? I mean you were from Texas somewhere ... OK don't tell us, we've got our fuckin' Ouija board. Well?
COREY'S GHOST: Well, they'll live in Austin when they get back, but they were originally from San Antonio. Up until they took their three year on-the-road leave of absence.
FE: Thanks. You always seem to head back to Texas.
PAUL: This is the first time we've headed back in three years.
FE: I thought you'd gone back after the last East Coast tour.
PAUL: We passed through, played a show there. Ever since they found out that we can play shows in NY, we can play Austin.
FE: You didn't play much before that?
PAUL: We did a long time ago. We played a lot in Austin for a while.
KING: Club Foot and stuff. I guess we'll be based in Austin after we come back.
FE: What's your schedule in Europe this time?
GIBBY: Well, the people who've set up the tour are planning for us to spend eleven thouseand dollars ...
FE: Just getting around?
GIBBY: Yeah. I think they've got blonde-headed girls with titls and long hair and maybe a braid sticking up their butts...
PAUL: That'd be cool. I'd go for that. In our rider we insist on twelve year old girls sticking their ten foot long blonde ponytails up our butts and pulling them out.
KING: Slowly.
FE: But that doesn't help you get around.
GIBBY: Sure it does.
FE: But not with equipment.
GIBBY: We don't have equipment. They supply it. They respect musicians in Europe. You just show up with your body and they think you're Johnny Thunders on drugs.
PAUL: They'll even feed you a nice dinner backstage.
GIBBY: Yeah. And if it'snot a nice dinner they'll at least think it's a nice dinner.
KING: Some butter on bread with a slice of tomato.
COREY'S GHOST: If I can just butt in again, I'd just like to say that all this stuff about Europe is not really going to pan out. The first time they went to Europe the tour was set up by schmucks and this time it was set up by schmucks again. I predict they'll get over there and the people who set the thing up will have fucked up and not gotten them the right papers for England. As a result, they'll be kicked out of England before they're able to straighten things out. They'll still make it Germany and a few other spots in Europe, but the people who set it up will have been such assholes that the band'll be losing money left and right, so they'll just say fuck it and split.
FE: Yikes. You guys hear that?
BAND: (snivelling)
FE: You plan to record as soon as you're back?
GIBBY: We've already got a single recorded. One side of it is every single one of our songs we've ever put out on record all at once.
FE: How many songs is that?
GIBBY: Thirty-two. Which was my number in college as a basketball player. And in highschool and junior high.

FE: Did you arrange that?
GIBBY: No. It was Tony Dorsett's number. And Walt Garrison's and Kareem Abdul Jabaar's number...
KING: Dorsett's not thirty-two.
FE: Fake numbers?
GIBBY: No. It was my number in highschool and junior high and it was Walt Garrison's number.
FE: How many songs do you guys have?
GIBBY: Thirty-two.
FE: No, overall, how many?
GIBBY: Thirty-four.
FE: If you guys practice as much as you seem to you must have a lot of songs.
GIBBY: But if we don't practice as much as we seem to ... we never claimed to be quick or smart or anything. So maybe we just have one song and we fuck it up so much that people think...
PAUL: We just can't stand to songs we write, so we have to come up with other ones.
GIBBY: Yeah. That's what Paul's mom said about the Minutemen, back in like '81. Paul was real impressed 'cause I'd told him that they wrote like seven songs every week. Paul told his mom that and hiis mom said, "Yeah. They write another song just cause they can't stand the one they wrote before."
FE: You aren't as prolific.
GIBBY: We've written lots of songs. We've forgotten many songs. That's the way it goes. C'est la vie. Great songs like ... uh ... what's one we didn't record?
KING: "Fuck Your Wife?"
GIBBY: Yeah. "I Fuck Your Wife". What a good tune. What about "Cupfull of Penis Hole Tick Spouts"? Remember that one? It was a rockin' bastard. God damn! "Blonde Uncle Cave"? Fuckin' killer tunes.
PAUL: "Nicotine Gerbil"...
GIBBY: Yeah, but that's the blues. It all got erased. I've got a shoebox full of old practice apes that's got all kinds of songs we forgot.
FE: You always seem to have the songs all ready for your next two or three projects.
GIBBY: Yeah, we've got a bunch of songs recorded that don't even have names. We don't know what they're called or anything. It's totally out of control. We've got no plans whatever.
FE: I don't believe it. If you could drive that van all the way here...
GIBBY: Yeah. But that van cost us thirty thousand dollars. We don't know what the fuck we're doing. I guaran-fucking-tee it.
JEFF: It's the lifestyle we choose.
GIBBY: Well, we do have another record coming ot after LOCUST ABORTION TECHNICIANS called THE BUTTHOLE SURFERS BUY A SYNTHESIZER. Then after that...
FE: When did you record the Detroit stuff for REMBRANDT?
BAND: (glugging)
FE: OK, be like that. Corey?
COREY'S GHOST: That was in the spring of '85, when Trevor was still in the band. We were thinking about moving out of Detroit right about then and we had some leftover studio time, so we said, "Why don't you guys just use it up for whatever." Initially there was talk of doing a 12", but it never came about.
FE: Thanks. So is LOCUST ABORTION TECHNICIANS finished?
BAND: (slurping)
COREY'S GHOST: Well, that consists of the Georgia recordings, but they've never really been mixed. They'll be remixed in Austin and the band will probably record some new stuff to augment them too. That will be LOCUST. But there's gonna be a single before that called "human Cannonball" and it's really amazing. A really great rock single.
FE: Is that the one with all of their songs?
COREY'S GHOST: No. I don't know what's going to happen with that. Uh oh, look, I gotta go. You're on your own for the rest.
FE: OK. So, uh, what's next?
PAUL: We're producing an album by the Jack Officers.
GIBBY: Yeah, there's that.
FE: Do the names always exist before the product?
GIBBY: I always just come up with names. They change with my moods, but I always subconsciously come up with names and titles. Whenever I come up with sad titles I'm in a bad mood. Sometimes I realize what I'm thinking ... it's like where the scientific and terrifying merge.
FE: So there are lost albums along the way?
GIBBY: There are lost lives, lost fortunes, lost children ...
KING: Destroyed minds.
GIBBY: Yeah. Found minds, Satanism...
PAUL: Meaningless relationships.
KING: Wasted histories of lost civilizations.
GIBBY: And brothers named Zeff.
KING: And spelunkers.
GIBBY: Yeah. The spelunker ride at Six Flags. That's the way we should view ourselves -- as ancient indian burial ground.
FE: That sounds about right.