|
Butthole Surfers is an American alternative rock band formed by Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary in San Antonio, Texas in 1981. The band has had numerous personnel changes, but its core lineup of Haynes, Leary, and drummer King Coffey has been consistent since 1983. Teresa Nervosa served as second drummer from 1983 to 1985, 1986 to 1989, and 2009. The band has also employed a variety of bass players, most notably Bill Jolly and Jeff Pinkus.
Rooted in the 1980s hardcore punk scene, Butthole Surfers quickly became known for their chaotic and disturbing live shows, black comedy, a sound that incorporates elements of psychedelia, noise, punk rock and, later, electronica, as well as their use of sound manipulation and tape editing. The Buttholes have a well-reported appetite for recreational drugs, an evident influence on their sound.
Although they were respected by their peers and attracted a devoted fan base, Butthole Surfers had little commercial success until 1996’s Electriclarryland. The album contained the hit single “Pepper” which climbed to number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart that year.
Butthole Surfers formed at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas during the late 1970s, when students Gibson “Gibby” Haynes, and Paul Leary Walthall (later just Paul Leary) met for the first time. Though it was their overall strangeness and shared taste in non-mainstream music that caused them to become friends, both appeared to be headed for very conventional careers. Haynes, as captain of Trinity's basketball team, as well as the school's "Accountant of the Year", soon graduated to a position with a respected Texas accounting firm, while Leary remained in college working on his MBA degree.
In 1981, Haynes and Leary published the magazine Strange V.D., which featured photos of abnormal medical ailments, coupled with fictitious, humorous explanations for the diseases. After being caught with one of these pictures at work, Haynes left the accounting firm and moved to Southern California. Leary, at the time one semester shy of his degree, dropped out of college and followed Haynes. After a brief period spent selling homemade clothes and linens emblazoned with Lee Harvey Oswald's image, the pair returned to San Antonio, and launched the band that would eventually become the Butthole Surfers.
The band did not begin as the Butthole Surfers, although they did have a song of that title, possibly an early version of 1984's "Butthole Surfer". This changed at their first paid concert, when an announcer forgot what the band was called and used the song title for the group’s name. They decided to keep the moniker, and have largely been billed as such ever since. Prior to that, the Surfers performed under a different name at every live show. Early aliases included the Dick Clark Five, Nine cm Worm Makes Own Food, the Vodka Family Winstons, and many others.
The name has long been a source of trouble for the band. Many clubs, newspapers, radio, and TV stations refuse to print or mention their full name, and instead opted to use "B.H. Surfers", or other abbreviations.
|
