Ladies and gentlemen, the Butthole Surfers: Singer Gibby Haynes, a six foot six long-haired gutter rat, who's not nearly as stark, grim or demonic as painted by the mainstream music press; Guitarist Paul Leary, who, truth be told, is much more frightening than the aforementioned, ready to unleash his ornery angst at any given moment when not letting loose with frank observations and candid retrospection; King Coffey, a drummer anchoring not only these Butholes but his own record label, Trance Syndicate.
    Recording since 1981, the Buttholes know the rock and roll game well and now stare national stardom in the face thanks to the burgeoning popularity of Electriclarryland, their latest disc on Capitol. We managed to get them to talk to us despite the fact that Brutarian and its writers are, and always will be, small potatoes.

 
Brutarian: Since I've followed Texas music for quite awhile, I'd like to know if the Butthole Surfers have ever met respected underground legends Roky Erickson & the Thirteenth Floor Elevators?

Haynes: Yeah, Roky was a great guy. We put a record out on his label.

Coffey: You could make an argument that if you look at Texas popular music, there's a weird element running through it. Some of the musicians from the fifties, like Roy Orbison, certainly looked weird. Buddy Holly kinda sounded weird when he came out with his heavy drum roll and the toms. He was one of the most original white musicians. You can look at the sixties with ? and the Mysterians and "96 Tears". Then even the Texas psychedelic scene was weird by psychedelic standards. In the seventies there was ZZ Top, one of the strangest bands on the planet. They have a successful repertoire that could be considered mainstream.

Haynes: Well, Willie Nelson just totally fucked off everybody. He totally did his own thing differently. I mean, there's just something about Tex artists.

Coffey: Like Mr. Haynes just pointed out, Willie Nelson is considered a country singer, but really he's a jazz singer. He may do country, but he's a jazz player. Willie could do what he wants. And he's never had a successor.

Leary (just walking in the door half asleep): Goddamn...

Coffey: There's Paul Leary.

Leary: Who fuckin' scheduled this shit so early? Is this Capitol Records' idea of a goddamn joke? I just think this is fucking retarded. (Calming down) Oooh, I had such a good dream going. I was dreaming I was sleeping.

Haynes: Within the last year, I actually had a wet dream. I actually woke up with the semen all over my tummy. I even called Bill Carter and told him. (Laughter)

Brutarian: Have your songs become more reflective as you've grown up? Like "Pepper" deals with several interesting characters.

Haynes (Laughing): Oh, I thought you were gonna say it sounded like Beck because I use the word "like" in it.

Brutarian: Do you guys think of yourselves as unpretentious vulgar bohos who've never been involved or related to any one scene.

Haynes: I thing it's just the name of the band. I can't think of a truly vulgar song. The name is a sophomoric junior high joke. And I think people just assume we're stupid, goofy, immature males - which we are - but there's humor in there. It's generally not a punchline, one liners. We hardly ever have any foul language on our records.

Brutarian: Do you feel more comfortable with your songs than you did back in '83?

Leary: I think the best pop riff we ever wrote was on our 1981 song "Hey". Everyone of our albums has justifiable pop song on it. We're a pop band.

Brutarian: And a very unconventional one at that. Who came up with the theme for the "Pepper" video with Erik Estrada?

Coffey: Video directors come up with videos.

Brutarian: You had nothing to do with the storyline?

Haynes: No. Record companies won't have anything to do with artist directing - unless you're some huge star. It's alot more involved than it looks. But I would include "Pepper" as being another shitty video. It's as good as 90% of the stuff on MTV, but it's disappointing not to get a real good video done.

Coffey: I specifically asked to have Michael and Janet Jackson in our video going through space watching us perform, but Capitol turned it down.

Brutarian: So why bother doing a video then? Did you guys get too big and Capitol needed some more promotional material?

Leary: Well, it was a top tune on the MTV playlist. That's why you do it.

Brutarian: Exposure.

Leary: It translates into sales. Plus, it's fun to make.

Haynes: You know what I like? If you're a big band you can smoke and drink booze in your videos. I we had two or three platinum records on the walls, we could be slamming dope in our videos.

Brutarian: Do you guys ever go onstage fucked up before sets and wonder what the hell you're doing up there?

Haynes: All the time. Just kidding. No one can go onstage and play better if you're all doped up. If I smoke pot before I go on, I get real paranoid about how the kids are getting ripped off. It just freaks me out.

Leary: If music is not real, then pot is not a drug. If we were to take cocaine, then you couldn't play an instrument if you hadn't before. But with pot, you could believe the lie that you could play. And it makes it much more enjoyable. Driving is a little easier when you're stoned, but heroin and cocaine are not driving drugs. I'm much safer in my car when I'm stoned.

Brutarian: Anyway, how would you describe the Buttholes' sound to a musically unhip person?

Leary: We're a pop band. Listen to our first motherfuckin' album. We rhyme "love" with "dove".

Coffey: Just listen to the very first song on the very first album. We're a pop band, as we've already noted.

Leary: It's only recently that we've been doing bullshit rock music because of what people demand.

Brutarian: Why do you differentiate between rock and pop music?

Coffey: Ah, let's not. They're both the same. Now bullshit rock, that's different....

Leary: Grand Funk Railroad was a pop band. Still, it doesn't rock harder than that.

Brutarian: Is it true that Walmart decided not to carry the latest disc because of the cover having a picture of a cartoon character with a pencil shoved in his ear?

Coffey: No, they're carrying it now. You never know. Best Buy had an ad campaign a couple of years ago where there was a son talking to his mom about bands he likes, and one of the bands he mentioned was the Butthole Surfers. No one though twice.

Brutarian: Guitar Influences Paul?

Leary: Mark Farner of Grank Funk, Roy Clark, Gene Simmons... I don't care what kind of music they play, as long as they're good.

Brutarian: On the one hand, the media has made you guys much bigger monster than you come off as. Do you think the image is justified? Do you think fans see it this way?

Leary: The Butthole Surfers don't really have an image. Like you look at that band Psychotica with the guy with no penis who comes out in a silver suit and they have colored smoke - that's an image. ZZ Top has an image. We are without image. We are all surface area without volume.

Coffey: And so therefore, people have not distorted our image enough.

Brutarian: So it's time to distort your image more?

Coffey: It's up to you to distort our image.

Haynes: If we can be said to have an image it's a creation of the press.

Brutarian: Well, I think with some of the things you do, you push the envelope a little bit. You're anti-image so you sort of create an image.

Haynes: It's really difficult to not have an image.

Coffey: Hey, remember that guy who had that really shitty pickup truck in Austin? And on the back window on the top written in dust was "Dino De La Hoya"?

Leary: I saw a Plymouth with custom lettering. The guy spelled Plymouth "P-l-i-m-o-u-t-h". It was all crooked. But pachucos, to me, are the most influential artists in the world. A pachuco will take anything and turn it into something great to reflect his own unique and individual style. It's usually a reflection of him sniffing the glue. If you've never hung out with some guys sniffing a red rag, ....that's so fucking cool.

Haynes: Like a guy who wears his jock strap on the outside of his pants. Now that's art.

Brutarian: Low Rider magazine would appreciate this. They had a special issue devoted solely to airbrush art.

Leary: That's a smoke screen, because the true art is the better art within. Have you ever heard a pachuco say "Hey hippy, suck my peepee"? I bet you they didn't put that in Low Rider. They weed out the guys who call themselves artists and flush them down the commode. I'm from San Antonio and I worship pachucos. My goal in life is to be a pachuco. But I was really bummed out when I couldn't be a pachuco. I had all that Irish heritage I had to deal with.

Haynes: As a band one time we tried to become pachucos. We had these khaki pants that were about twenty inches too big in the waist, and extra extra large flannel shirts and white undershirts and hair nets. King looked good in a hair net.

Leary: We went and bought those pointy shoes that were called Delega-tays.

Coffey: They were fake Stacey Adams.

Leary: Yeah. We couldn't afford the real ones.

Coffey: Actually, they were called Delegates. We preferred to call them Delega-tays.

Haynes: Little roach killers.

Brutarian: You have a problem with roaches?

Leary: Gibby nailed two of his cockroaches to the wall of the tool shed in San Antonio where we recorded our first record. And the appeared to die from time to time, but a few minutes later you'd hold a lighter up to it and it would dance.

Haynes: I had a pet roach one time and all he ate was one bean and a human hair. Then he finally died. You could tell he was eating the bean, because just a little bit of it would be gone.

Brutarian: How do you guys feel being made poster children for the Christian Coalition?

Coffey: I think it's cool how the Christian Coalition is the key to the Republican party now. I think that's rocking. They couldn't win without them so Dole had to pick someone who was anti-abortion.

Brutarian: So I doubt you'll be voting for the Republican ticket in the near future?

Coffey: You'll never catch me in a voting booth. The only booth you'll catch me in is the one you got to put quarters in.

Brutarian: Well, I voted for myself. I think Clinton's a dick and a liar.

Leary: I think his wife is a bigger dick and a liar.

Haynes: I like Hillary Clinton because she refused to be made fun of. She's the sexiest thing in the White House since Jackie O.

Leary: No, I disagree. The sexiest thing in the White House is Chelsea. She's got so hot lately. She really come into her own.

Brutarian: Wouldn't you like to find out she a Butthole fan?

Leary: I'm sure she like "Pepper". I did meet Amy Carter. And she was wearing a Psychedelic Furs t-shirt.

Coffey: She, on the other hand, is more intellectually attractive.

Brutarian: And Chelsea inspires thoughts of debauchery! If she had invited you would you have played at one of the inaugural balls?

Haynes: I think it's sick when bands do that. If I ever see Michael Stipe I'm gonna give him shit. Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe up there singing for the President of the United States!

Coffey: We had a bass player years back who lost all respect for the Turtles when they played at Trisha Nixon's party.

Brutarian: Playing at a birthday, even Trisha Nixon's is different from playing an inauguration party.

Haynes: Nixon was a good president.

Coffey: Yeah, but he had a potty mouth.

Haynes: LBJ had a potty mouth.

Leary: He used to bark his orfer to his aides from the toilet. I used to work for a guy like that at the lumber yard.

Coffey: LBJ was the cooles because if he ever had a problem with anybody, he had one simple solution. He'd take off his clothes and his problems would go away. All his detractors would disappear.

Brutarian: Well, didn't you guys go onstage naked once? Was that a political statement?

Haynes: No. It was because I forgot to wear underwear. Otherwise, I woudl have been underwear clad.

Leary: Take off your clothes and go stagediving until you realize there's a finger up your butt. You can get your dick snapped. You ever been dick snapped?

Brutarian: Not that I can remember. And speaking of snapping, what about the Turtles? You've covered stuff before, ever had a desire to do a Turtles' song?

Coffey: No, because the Turtles are pricks. The whole De La Soul thing with the samples was bullshit. They wrote some great songs. But I'm not going to contribute any money to them because they're fucking assholes. Plus, they were doing that Six Flags (an amusement park chain) tour thing. I've met some people who went to that, and they said the Turtles really sucked hard.

Brutarian: So in the twilight of your career you couldn't see yourself playing a park like New Jersey's Great Adventure?

Coffey: I'm really looking forward to the Holiday Inn days. That's the ultimate gig. Maybe those Vegas clubs. We'd just play loud as shit in the lounge.

Leary: What about the gospel group who was making too much noise in that one hotel we were at? Those fucking assholes wouldn't shut up, singing gracefully to the Lord. I told them joyfully to shut the fuck up.

Brutarian: Still, our readers want to know: are there any songs you'd pick as covers?

Haynes: Soft Cell.

Leary: I want to do Glen Campbell's "Dream of the Everyday Housewife".

Brutarian: You should do "Wichita Lineman".

Haynes: Jimmy Webb is a pretty cool writer. (The band breaks into a hip-hop version.) Jimmy Webb was an acid shaman genius. Anyone who wrote both "Wichita Lineman" and "Up Up and Away" is just,.... I just discovered Jimmy Webb. I'm not that musically literate, but I know the real deal when I see it.

Brutarian: Which one of you saw John McLaughlin at his first live gig?

Haynes: That was me. Dr. John, McLaughlin and the Allman Brothers. The show started at 11:30 and was over at 3:30 in the morning in Dallas. And my dad was waiting in the car from midnight until 3:30 ... Didn't get mad, just asked how I enjoyed the show.

Leary: The police escorted me out of my first two shows. Grand Funk Railroad adn Creedence Clearwater Revival. I got to shoot the finger at the pigs. We had my dad drop us off behind the arena so we could jump the fence and get in.

Coffey: My most influential early show was the Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster" tour featuring K.C. & the Sunshine Band and Hot Chocolate. And my dad and I were the only people there wearing blue jeans and sandals. It was really amazing....

Brutarian: I assume you guys are making money now. How are you using it to better your lives?

Leary: That's rich. We're on MTV. You get a hit on the radio and everyone thinks the mailman just starts bringing in the fucking checks. I love that.

Coffey: Well, I like people who are confused. They see Erik Estrada on TV in the video and they're like "Wow, they're making money".

Brutarian: Well, do you make money touring?

Leary: That's another great myth.

Coffey: Horrible year for tours.

Leary: I haven't seen a check for any of this shit.

Coffey: We would have made money if we didn't take out any lights or any musical equipment or any crew or any trucks or vehicles.

Leary: Our next tour is going to be a wax museum. You could smoke a fake joint with your favorite wax rendition of the Butthole Surfers backstage.

Coffey: Wow, that looks just like King Coffey!

Brutarian: So what do you guys plan on doing in the future?

Coffey: I think we'll direct. §