Webnoize: Is it harder or easier to be musically innovative than it was, say, five years ago?

Coffey: I think its easier to be innovative now. Technology allows us to do so many things that would be impossible by regular human means. Technology is getting more affordable for the masses. I see all kinds of different genres of music colliding and making new genres -- right now is a more interesting time in music than perhaps ever. I was part of the whole punk rock thing when it started, at least on the U.S. side, hardcore -- and that was really fun, that was exciting. And every decent record store was a revelation. But on a "per record" basis, I think there's more exciting stuff coming out right now than probably ever.

Webnoize: What's the status of the Butthole Surfers right now?

Coffey: We're beginning work on a new record. We're shopping for samplers, and (chuckles) I don't know. We'll see. We've made two slick rock records already, in a slick studio, with a producer, which we'd never done before. Now that we've done that two times in a row, okay, we've done it. We're going to go back to what we've done in the past and record ourselves at our house.

Webnoize: "Our" house. Do you guys still live communally?

Coffey: No, we quit doing that. We're all going to have the same kind of systems and work together, and swap and trade information and data. That's the plan. I don't want to talk too much about something that's just conjecture at this point.

Webnoize: But it's now possible for you all to work together on a project, separately.

Coffey: Yeah. Like the rough ideas. I'll come up with rhythms and give that to Paul, who'll throw down guitar lines, and give that to Gibby, who'll throw down vocal lines, and just keep trading -- swapping stuff and building it that way.

Webnoize: Where did you grow up?

Coffey: Fort Worth.

Webnoize: When did you start drumming?

Coffey: Middle school. I was really into the whole punk rock thing. Initially, I wanted to be a bass player -- that seemed like the coolest part of a band but when I began to really look at it, it seemed really difficult (laughs). You know, putting your fingers in all these really defined places just seemed really, really hard.

Webnoize: Have you picked up the bass since then?

Coffey: Yeah, I can play a little bit. Drumming's easy though, you just hit it and it makes noise. It's a lot simpler. It's kind of like the Macintosh of the music world, you just click and there you are.

Webnoize: What bands were you in before the Buttholes?

Coffey: The only other band I was in before that was my first band, called the Hugh Beaumont Experience. We were just a teenage punk rock band trying to be the Sex Pistols and the Germs. We broke up, I moved to Austin, and hooked up with the Buttholes around '82.

Webnoize: With your sister.

Coffey: Right.

Webnoize: Is her book done yet?

Coffey: No she's still working. I -- my memories of the '80's are pretty shoddy, but I know Theresa has a better memory than I do.

Webnoize: Do you paint or sculpt?

Coffey: I paint. I kind of go on tangents -- for some reason I do it in the winter, when all the windows have to be closed, and I start breathing all these paint fumes. I work in oils, and I find myself having to paint every day. It's a form of drug-induced hysteria, breathing all these paint fumes. I kind of calm down once spring comes, I open the doors again and breathe fresh air and become somewhat normal again. Really, Gibby and Paul are far better painters, they're both really good. Gibby does these really great watercolors and Paul does these intense, fucked up oil paintings.

Webnoize: What do you think you guys get out of that that you don't get out of making music?

Coffey: It's all complementary. Whether it's visual or whether it's musical, or writing, verbal, text, I think all these things stimulate the brain. Cooking, I think, is a real creative process. Even how you run your business can be an art project depending on how you approach it.

Webnoize: Sometimes the key to sanity seems to be taking what you have to do and making it creative.

Coffey: Yeah. If it's just drudgery, then really, what's the point? I think Yoko Ono said, years ago, somebody asked her what she found the most satisfying art-wise -- and she's a real interesting artist -- she said something like, "Right now, work, running a business is the most interesting thing that I do." And I kind of relate to that as [the Trance Syndicate label] goes. On one level there's the sheer art aspect of putting out music and graphics art work, but then also the sheer act of running a business. Interacting, coming up with ideas -- it is pretty fun.

Webnoize: What's Trance Syndicate got going on now?

Coffey: We have a brand new EP by Furry Things and a new album by Starfish that'll come out next month. We're about to launch into a series of remix 12-inches where one band takes another band's material and vice versa, and mixes the other band's material. The flipside is the reverse, where the second band does the first. That'll begin in May. We have another label that does non-Texan stuff. Trance is pretty much reserved for Texan material. We're doing a Mountain Goats CD.

Webnoize: What's the other label called?

Coffey: Emperor Jones.

Webnoize: Do you have web sites for both of those labels?

Coffey: No. I mean, we do, but we haven't updated in two years -- it's really pathetic. I think we're going to pull the plug on it. It's so out of date; it's so bad.

[This is a bit of an oversimplification. There seem to be two Trance Syndicate sites, one old and hopelessly out of date, the other newer and only a few months out of date. The newer one has information about the Starfish, Furry Things, and Mountain Goats releases, as well as lots of other valuable info.]

Webnoize: How did you get hooked up with Monsterbit?

Coffey: I've known those guys for quite a long time. One of those guys, David, used to play in the Hugh Beaumont Experience. It's curious how our paths have taken the same kind of route. I've known them for a while, and in Austin at least, they've been pioneers as far as creative people exploring the 'net goes. When the idea of doing a Butthole Surfers website came about it seemed really natural to me to work with Monsterbit. That's how I got used to working with them, and they're really cool. As is probably the case with most people on the Web doing design, they're young but they're always working, and are really creative. They've got their damn art degrees under their belt and they know what they're doing technically as well.

Webnoize: How is starting a radio station different from starting a record label?

Coffey: As far as what I'm doing goes, it's a lot easier. I'm not even sure how we came up with the idea for this radio station. I think I was at a friend's computer, and out of curiosity I wanted to look at the Butthole Surfers web page, because to be honest, we don't really do much design work on it, Monsterbit had done it all. There was a thing on the site about an upcoming Butthole Surfers show that was to be broadcast. I was a neophyte then, still real new to the idea of what the Web could do. I was wondering how in the world one could transmit music over the Internet? I talked to Mellie at Monsterbit about it and the whole idea of RealAudio really intrigued me. I thought, well, instead of just clicking on something and downloading a file, is it possible to have something going 24 hours a day? She said, "Sure," and I said, "How about if we make a series of shows and have a virtual radio station?" And she liked the idea.

Webnoize: Describe the program structure.

Coffey: It'll change as the seasons progress. Ideally, it would be nice if we had 100 shows, but right now we have I think 13 up, each program is at least an hour long. We'll keep adding new stuff and probably remove stuff as it becomes dated. I want to try to keep it fresh.

Webnoize: Are you the only jock?

Coffey: Right now. In a few weeks, we're going to have some guest DJ's come in and we'll all kind of co-host it. Have them play stuff -- I don't want to totally inflict my record collection upon people. The idea is to have a kind of pirate radio station.

Webnoize: What's your studio set-up?

Coffey: It's just a really cheap-ass Radio Shack DJ mixer -- cost $100. Then a microphone which cost $30. Then I have two CD players and one turntable hooked up. There you go.

Webnoize: So you record the show before it's broadcast.

Coffey: We record the show to DAT then Monsterbit converts it to a RealAudio file. Then they channel those together into kind of a loop that's just running all the time.

Webnoize: What's right and wrong about radio today?

Coffey: By and large, there's a lot of things right about radio. The non-commercial stations, stuff like college radio stations can be really cool. The problem with radio, I find, is commercial radio where they have a task to accomplish, which is to make money. I guess to make money you have to be conservative. It's just really boring. You hear the same stuff over and over again. That's why I really dig a good college radio station or a really adventurous radio station.

While we can do more checking, we've found out there's maybe hundreds, or at least a bunch of other Web radio stations, or at least web sites, running programming at various times. What's really cool with what we're doing with Brainwash is play a wide variety of music. It's not that hard to set up if you know what you're doing tech-wise, or can just talk to somebody tech-wise, or who has access to a server.

And it's pretty interesting -- I myself get a kick listening to stations like KUSF out in California. Or even commercial stations. There's K104 out in Dallas, which is a black urban station -- we don't get that kind of programming here in town -- and nights, between like 8:00 and 9:00 the DJs really go loose, it's really fun. It's radio at its best, as far as DJ's scratching, people phoning in; its what radio should be or can be. So I can listen to that while I'm at my computer, while I'm answering mail, or doing what-not. Brainwash is our contribution to that -- new records, more or less obscure records that you wouldn't hear elsewhere.

Webnoize: Talk radio is the last commercial radio format where the on-air personality really makes a difference, and with RealAudio you can listen to local talk radio from all over the country and hear what those guys are doing, and hear what people care about.

Coffey: Yeah, it's definitely cool. You can hear all over the world. You can hear stuff in languages you can't even understand. Isn't that great?

Webnoize: The sound quality is so good that, except for issues of portability, it could make shortwave obsolete.

Coffey: Yeah. Part of the reason I'm fascinated with RealAudio is because I was into shortwave for similar reasons. The whole idea of hearing stuff from around the world is pretty neat, but the fidelity of RealAudio is better. There's still room for it to grow; for most people, if you're lucky its going to sound like AM radio unless you have an ISDN link, and it can crap out a lot depending on how busy the various networks are down the line. But still, the technology is there, it works, and it will begin to work better. It's pretty fun...I'm enjoying it.

Webnoize: How does Brainwash programming differ from what you'd normally listen to around the house?

Coffey: It's definitely more random. I try to keep it as eclectic as possible and try not to stay too much in one genre, though I have a definite soft spot for 70s funk and early 80s post-punk and real punk. But I try to keep it real eclectic. I've been lucky enough to listen to a lot of John Peel, through some tapes. He does a real good job of playing a wide variety of music, yet it all kind of makes sense. I'm not as skilled as John Peel, but that's roughly what I'm shooting for -- playing a variety of music I like, and keep it rolling. What I like about Brainwash is that, even though we put it to tape, live to tape is live, and if I make a bunch of fuck-ups in the process...to me that gives it the live feel.

Webnoize: What other music do you love?

Coffey: I've made my own rule where I have to play one vintage punk rock song from the state of Texas every hour. Bands like the Dicks, Really Red, the Big Boys, Legionaire's Disease, all these wonderful bands which most people have never heard of -- they're played every hour. We're playing a bunch of actually really famous soul stuff, whether it's the Gap Band or the Bar-Kays or more like one-hit wonder stuff. We're playing a bunch of new stuff: obscure stuff from New Zealand or some weird noise that's out there. These days I'm listening to a lot more techno and jungle-oriented stuff, that kind of genre.

Webnoize: Are you into Texas barbecue?

Coffey: I know that if I lived in an earlier time of life I'd be shot for saying that I don't like barbecue. For a vegetarian, it's too fucking greasy for me to swallow.

Webnoize: So you're a vegetarian.

Coffey: Yeah, I've been since high school. I think it was one of those punk rock kind of things: [feigning the passion of youth] Fuck the system, man! I'm not gonna eat a cow -- it's all part of oppression, man. I've kind of chilled since then.

Webnoize: Did you really once cook a guy named Jerry Jr. in a barbecue pit?

Coffey: (laughing) Yeah, that was for a short film we made for something. That was what my character was asked to do, so yeah. We cooked him and ate him.

Webnoize: What was the band's deal with Nintendo?

Coffey: Money. Nintendo was trying to be rad-for-the-kids, and they wanted a punk rock band and they used "Who Was In My Room Last Night." So they flew us out there so we could mime "Who Was In My Room Last Night" while they paid a mosh pit to mosh. What I found really amusing was that, according to the rules of commercials, everybody in the mosh pit had to be a member of the Screen Actors Guild. So they were dressing everybody in punk rock gear and checking their union status. [laughs]

Webnoize: Are you married or committed to someone?

Coffey: Yes I am, I am committed.

Webnoize: Do you have any children?

Coffey: No. I have two dogs and two cats.

Webnoize: Of course. Sometimes you can hear them when listening to Brainwash.

Coffey: Actually yeah! They bark in the background during the show. For better or worse, the microphone is real directional, but a lot of times I'm trying to speak and the phone is ringing, so the machine is going off, and I live under a flight path, the dogs are barking, so all that kind of works its way into my trying to announce what we just heard.

Webnoize: Do you have any allergies?

Coffey: Yeah, I'm allergic to fucking everything. I'm not a Boy in a Plastic Bubble, but you know, anything that's airborn, it's in central Texas. Fortunately, I spend an ungodly amount of money on medication.

Webnoize: It seems like for anyone with a lot of allergies, cats and dogs are the first thing on that list.

Coffey: Yeah. But cats and dogs are better than people and I'd rather have cats and dogs around and sneeze a little bit.

Webnoize: What's your favorite cereal?

Coffey: [without hesitation] Hey, King VitaMan.

Webnoize: Is that still around?

Coffey: Unfortunately, it got taken off the market just two years ago. I've got a stock in the garage. As a kid I was really taken by the surreal imagery of it. I remember as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons and watching this guy who had a crown of spoons, in this park, inviting children in. [sings] King Vita-Man! Have breakfast with the King! And all these children are running to this guy with the crown of spoons.

Webnoize: That's nuts.

Coffey: Isn't it? Totally L.S.D.

Webnoize: Describe your worst drug experience.

Coffey: It's so routine, humdrum. The first time I ever took acid, we took some purple microdot -- I was at my best friend's parents' place, who were out for the evening. It was in the summer and it was really hot. It turned out to be a really bad trip because the guy I was tripping with, who claimed to be an expert, wasn't that experienced either, and it was really strong acid. We got paranoid that there were helicopters flying overhead that were out to get us. And then it got dark and we were trying to be real quiet so the helicopters couldn't get to us. It was a very weird thing. Finally there was this point where, you know, we discover each other. We each thought we were alone in this dark room then finally we found each other. And we went to turn on the light but the light bulb exploded as we turned it on, so of course, that was really psychedelic.

Webnoize: The light bulb really did explode then?

Coffey: Well, it popped, you know, the light burned out.

Webnoize: That's an unfortunate coincidence. The one day you decide to take acid...

Coffey: That was kind of exciting, but after we'd calmed down a bit we put on this dub record -- African Head Charge -- I think it was, and it had The Sound, as we called it. It had this one, like electronic zoom, and we fell in love with the sound and kept playing that side of the record over and over and over again waiting for that sound to occur. It started off terrible but then got to be really great. After that I was doing stuff like everybody has done, you know, go to natural history museums and look at stuff on acid. I lived in Fort Worth and it was really fucking boring. By and large, my days of that are over, but I had a good time doing it. Of course, we've all had the really bad experience of looking at yourself in the mirror on acid, that's really bad.

Webnoize: What are you going to be doing in ten years?

Coffey: Hopefully I'll be a gardener somewhere, planting lupines and making the world a nicer place. Fuck me, I have no idea.