Fifteen years of the Butthole Surfers. No longer employ nude dancer. Texans. Until surprising success with Electriclarryland (Capitol/EMI), experienced a slow decade. True worth of 1993's Independent Worm Saloon not revealed until one song was used on a Nintendo commercial. Interim projects vary in quality. Guitarist Paul Leary made noisy record about dogs. Singer Gibby Haynes formed band with Johnny Depp called P, slightly less successful than Dogstar. Drummer King Coffey runs colorful record label Trance Syndicate (home to Bedhead and Roky Erickson) and makes likeable dance records as Drain. Much of Electriclarryland scrapped when band fall out with producer Steve Thompson. Minor controversy develops over cover artwork - cartoon of pencil shoved into ear deemed unsuitable by some U.S. chains, since replaced with happy groundhog. Electriclarryland's success buoyed by modern rock hit, the Beck/"88 Lines About 44 Women" pastiche "Pepper." Album most consistently garish since 1988's Hairway To Steven but a long way from relative heights (or depths) of Rembrandt Pussyhorse.

Interview presented here conducted by journalist under the assumed name of "Jimmy Ricola" (the Swiss candy treat) in local hotel chamber. Four vignettes follow.
 

MOULDY MOMENTS

King Coffey arrives in suite, joining Jimmy Ricola and Gibby Haynes.

King: How's it goin'?

Jimmy: Oh, it's exciting to touch a hand that's touched Roky Erickson.

King: Actually, Roky doesn't want you to touch him too much.

Gibby: Yeah, I was wondering when King touched him.

King: If you see Roky coming, you have to (shoves hands in pockets) how's it goin'?!

Gibby: He goes totally Bob Mould on you if you try to shake his hand.

King: Whut? (Long pause) I'm sorry, continue on.
 

HOUSTON CALLING

Jimmy: In the last three years, did you guys spend a lot of time together?

Gibby: No, we never…

King: But we were just busy working for the Psychic Friends Network. Seriously, I have a lot of friends out there who call me up for advice or I can just psychically have conversations with them.

Jimmy: As long as you're using Dionne Warwick as a medium. And do you think she's an actual psychic? 'Cause if she is, imagine the things she could tell you with those powers.

King: Oh, sure she'd give us the real scoop on Burt Bacharach, Whitney Houston.

Jimmy: Maybe Whitney's one too. Could be a genetic thing. Could be a coven.

Gibby (gravely): She's an attractive woman.

King: She is an attractive woman. It's agreed. Attractive woman! Resolved!
 

FLESH WOUNDS

King: Can I say that one of my favorite words is bubo? It's what the bubonic plague comes from. You get bubos on your body, which are like mumps.

Gibby: That's a symptom of many diseases.

King: Ah, but it's a classic symptom of the bubonic plague. If we were back during plague days I could say to Gibby, 'Gibby, your bubos are looking better today.' And Gibby could say, 'Why, thank you, King. My bubos are looking better.'

Jimmy: 'They're coming down a little, thanks.'

King: I also like the word 'necrotic.'

Jimmy: That's the first word in the flesh-eating disease, right?

Gibby: Well that's a general term for death.

King: I thought it was for rotting flesh. I thought necrotic was dead flesh, rotting flesh. So you just have to hack that sucker off.

Gibby: You've got to be aggressive about the removal of necrotic flesh. You really have to be.

King: One does have to be aggressive about the removal of necrotic flesh.

Gibby: It's true.

King: Girl, you know it's true (big, Krusty-style laugh).

Gibby: You can't let it touch good flesh.
 

WORDS TO LIVE BY

Gibby: Did you know that Nostradamus was pretty successful in the treatment of the plague?

King: Really, he was good with bubos?

Gibby: Like, yeah, he had a cure. It was never documented exactly what it was, but he would've survived in history for his healing expertise.

Jimmy: Was it herbal?

Gibby: It was never documented. But returning to favorite words

King: Leprotic?

Gibby: Well, uh, yeah.

King: Pertaining to leprosy. (Big silence.)

Gibby: I like the Hoi Polloi.

King: The Hoi Polloi is good.

Gibby: There's something else.

King: I don't like cornucopia, but I do like the horn of plenty. That's nice.

Gibby: I do think that cornucopia is up there with hoi polloi. But God there's a word that's the general accepted way-it-is for the greater part of the population.

Jimmy: Proletariat. The unthinking hordes. Bourgeois.

Gibby: I've had a...a...There's been a something shift.

King: Metabolic?

Gibby: No.

King: Quantum. (Gibby gets up to pace the room.)

King: Gibby is a tortured artist.

(Jimmy explains his theory of default melodies - the tune playing in your head when it is otherwise free of thought. Jimmy's example: "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.")

King: Since we were talking about Dionne Warwick, I have to say that the entire Burt Bacharach songbook plays in my head. And that's a nice thing. I'm not sure if you ever saw this in Canada but when I was a kid I was really fascinated by the Martini & Rossi ads of the mid-'70s featuring Burt Bacharach and Angie Dickinson.

Gibby (returning to couch): Was it paradigm?

Originally published in eye Weekly, Oct. 10, 1996.

Postscript: Advance promotional copies of Electriclarryland's follow-up were circulated in the summer of '98 but the album was pulled after the group was dropped by EMI. After releasing the final 10-inch by Bedhead, Trance Syndicate closed up shop. There was also news that their manager demanded that the Butthole Surfers' back catalogue be surrendered by former label Touch and Go, despite the fact that the indie record label provides an extremely favorable royalty rate to artists.