The Butthole Surfers: Fly in Leather
Their savage punk glory on display in a new doc and live album
It ain’t easy for a band to live up to an outrageous name like Butthole Surfers.
But a bunch of wild-ass Texas hardcore punks did just that in the early 80’s, on stage and in the studio. Fermented by singer Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary, they eventually settled on drummers King Coffey and Teresa Nervosa along with a rotating set of bassists before they wound up with Jeff Pinkus in ’86, which became their ‘classic’ line-up. Along with their hilarious, mind-blowing mix of punk/psych/metal on five albums and five EP’s, the band was peaking as a notorious unhinged live act (which included bullhorns, strobe lights and simulated sex) and also getting some measure of mainstream recognition, leading to a label deal with Capitol in the early 90’s, with Nervosa gone by then.
As they were making their full album debut with Capitol (1993’s Independent Worm Saloon), working with former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, they also made a live recording which included most of the album’s songs, finally now surfacing. After one more studio album with Capitol (1996’s Electriclarryland, which included their only chart hit “Pepper”), the band got dropped by the label, lost Pinkus and was mired in lawsuits, with only one more long-delayed album coming out in 2001 (Weird Revolution). Various reunion tours with Nervosa and Pinkus happened from 2008 to 2016 and since then, there’s been little heard of the band until now.
Director Tom Stern started filming and following the band in the mid-80’s, collaborating with them on various projects, making him the ideal guy who would be crazy enough to finally do a documentary about the band, Butthole Surfers: The Whole Truth and Nothing Butt, which premiered at SXSW this past March. With puppets reenacting their early years, plus footage of their insane shows, the movie’s as wild and funny as you’d hope but also surprisingly moving near the end. Haynes, Leary, Pinkus and Coffey did a hilarious Q&A session after the screening, with old cohorts like producer Mark Kramer (who was their bassist briefly), stage dancer Kathleen Lynch (aka Ta-Da The Shit Lady) and director Richard Linklater (their first projectionist for live shows) in attendance. Sadly, Nervosa died in 2023, but did appear in the film.
Originally, Leary had hoped to put out the live album from the Saloon era to coincide with the movie but film is still being worked on and looking to get released. The album, Live at the Leather Fly, is coming out now though. Here in a two part interview, Leary talks about the band’s history, going the major label route, a literal shit storm before the Fly show, shotgun scares, prairie dog disappointments, saving a drag queen’s life, finally realizing his dream of being ‘normal,’ why a Surfers reunion is a fantasy and his advice for old punks.
How did this live album come about?
I had these two-inch tapes in my storage shed for a very long time. So one day I decided to clear out the shed so I pulled out those tapes and saw that it was a recording from 1991 or something like that. And so I had them transferred to Pro Tools and there it was, a full length show.
How did you gauge what a good Surfers show was?
Well, when nobody ends up in the hospital, that’s probably a good thing. It’s all a big blur at this point. We did so many shows and it was bedlam and mayhem at every show so it all gets to blur together.
Gibby liked to play around with his voice, like with the mic effect that you turned into “The Annoying Song.” That was kind of a staple of the band?
Oh, we were just messing around. (laughs) I always liked effects on my guitars and Gibby always liked effects on his vocals. And he’s had a lot of chances to use it in his performance angle.
Did you notice any type of different reactions from crowds when you were doing the Independent Worm Saloon material since it was kind of different from the earlier material?
By that point, we were playing bigger venues. We did a Lollapalooza tour (1991) and all of a sudden, there were great big audiences and a lot of barricades between us and the audience. (laughs) I tried to ignore the audience as much as I can. It’s easier at a bigger show — I just crossed my eyes and not look at ‘em.
In the movie, the band called it your ‘big dumb rock record,’ but I love that album.
Yeah, that was King who said that, I think. But I agree.
So why did the band decide to make a record like that? Was it because you guys signed to a major label?
Yeah, absolutely. We were ‘independent’ for a long time, on independent labels and what not. And all of a sudden, we looked up one day and we noticed that we were the number one independent touring group in the nation, and that got us a lot of attention from the major labels. There was Columbia and Capitol and a few others. (laughs) The guy who was president at Capitol at the time was Hale Milgrim and he was a real music guy. And he liked the Butthole Surfers and we liked him. And shoot… when you get a chance to sign to Capitol Records… that was just too funny. It was just too cool to be true. The Beatles, the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Grand Funk Railroad and the Butthole Surfers. It just blew my mind, you know? At that point, nothing was real anymore. Next thing I know, we’re smoking joints on the Capitol Records building and then they’re trying to hook us up with all these A-list producers that wanted to produce our record and John Paul Jones’ name came up and he was interested. So yeah, there was no way we were gonna pass up working with JOHN PAUL JONES.
And how was it to work with him?
Oh, it was great! He’s a lot of fun to hang out with and he’s a lot of fun to work with. And as a producer, I learned a lot from him. He came down to Austin and hung out in our rehearsal space and he jammed with us and he came up with ideas for arrangements for this and that. And then we got to the studio in Northern California and he was the first one in the control room and the last one out. He was there for every note that went down and I liked that approach so I try to emulate him in my production work.
Going back to the live album, a lot of material is from the time of that record. Was that because you guys were sick of the early material by then?
Oh yeah, totally! God, you play “Lady Sniff” a hundred times and it starts to get old. “Butthole Surfer,” I mean… two chords.
The band was known for its wild stage antics. Do you remember any of those things from this particular show on the new record?
What I really remember about that show was hanging out back stage. This was in New York City and it was a big old hall — I don’t remember the name of the place. But there was a plumbing issue in the bathroom up above, over the dressing room and it sprung a leak. And the next thing you know, we’re in our dressing room with water, and toilet water and logs and shit. And they’re putting boards down on the floor so we have a way to walk from the dressing room to the stage. That was my big memory of the show. It was like, “Oh my God… please just let this end.”
New York has a lot of stories like that. The bathrooms at the shows in New York are just awful.
Yep, they’re horrible here!
CBGB’s had a terrible bathroom. And then Danceteria had a horrible bathroom. There was just one there — there wasn’t even a backstage bathroom. I remember right before we went on there, I had to just take a dump and oh God… So I went and fought my way into the bathroom, you know, with the crowd, and took a dump and flushed it and it all started coming up. I ran out of there so fast… and just hit the stage and played. And it’s like, “Oh jeez… put me outta my misery, please…”
That’s very Surfers though, you realize.
(sighs, annoyed) Yeah…
Regarding the stage antics, was it tough to keep doing that and keep topping it since you guys did so many wild things at shows over the years?
Well, a lot of that really was Gibby. It was his idea to have a fire cymbal and light the stage on fire every night. And it was Gibby’s idea to blast off a shotgun several times during the show. I don’t know if that ever worn down on him or not. But that shotgun scared the hell out of me a few times.
He didn’t bother to tell you about it beforehand?
No, we knew exactly what was gonna happen. I remember we were playing a show on the Lollapalooza tour and I was playing a guitar solo and closing my eyes, trying to ignore everything. When I finally look down at my feet, there’s Gibby and Siouxsie (Sioux) and they’re wrestling over the shotgun, while it is pointed right at my head. And I jumped like there was a rattlesnake. It was just… I can’t believe it.
Are you planning any other kind of archival Surfers releases?
Well, I got my hands on some other live multi-track recordings and some of them are challenging. I’ve got one from London that I’m working on, and that’s from like ’87 or something like that. I don’t know how much of that is gonna make it to an album. I’m also working on a box set. And also, our last studio album was called Weird Revolution. Even we don’t like that record. It’s not a good record. It started out being on Capitol and it was gonna be called After the Astronaut. And our manager went on dope and our relationship with Capitol got wrecked, so they dropped us and wouldn’t let us do anything for a long time.
Finally, Hollywood Records came to the rescue and bought that album out from them, and they wanted it reworked. They didn’t want the Capitol version — they wanted their own spin on it. So they hired producer Rob Cavallo, who’s an amazing producer. But he was also a very hands off producer. He would show up to the studio for 10 or 15 minutes a week and say “OK, do this and that and I’ll be back next week. I’m going to my daughter’s recital.” And that’s fine — his body of work speaks for itself. He’s a great producer, but that kind of left me being the producer again and I didn’t wanna be telling people what to do. It was NOT a fun experience. And the record is not fun. BUT… we got the old After The Astronaut multi-track tape back. So I remixed that, so that’s gonna be the next record that’s gonna come out after this live album.
So maybe this will come out in late 2025?
I have no idea. I still have to get the artwork together and I’m not sure how that’s gonna go.
This live album that’s coming out was supposed to coincide with the release of our documentary. And the dumbass that I am was thinking, “Oh, the premiere at SXSW — that’s when it’s coming out.” But that didn’t happen with the movie.
So what’s the status of the movie after the SXSW premiere?
It’s not even quite finished yet. They’re still adding stuff to the documentary. So who knows when that’s really going to hit the theaters. It’s going to be showing at the Alamo Drafthouse franchise and who knows where else. They’re still shopping it around. It’s gonna get released in a good way I’m pretty sure ‘cause the reaction to it has been really good. I think John Paul Jones didn’t do his interview until like yesterday. So they’re still adding stuff to the movie.
It’s nice that they got that in there.
Yeah, it took a long time. It’s like, I wrote to him a few times and didn’t hear from him and decided that he was mad at me or something. So I wrote to him one last time and said “are you mad at me?” and then I heard back and he said “NO, why would you think I’m mad at you?” “Well, great! We’d really love to have you in this documentary.” And he said (in a British accent), “Well, I’m really busy but if you can send it to me, I’ll look at it.” So I sent it to him and like three hours later, he gets back to me and “Oh, I love it. I want to be in it.” So it’s like “great!” So the director, Tom Stern, flew out to London and interviewed him yesterday. So I’m looking forward to seeing him in there.
And they’re trying to get some interview footage of Johnny Depp in there too. He finally did an interview but apparently his lawyer stepped in so I’m having to deal with his god.. damn.. lawyer. (laughs)
An important question about the film. Why didn’t the prairie dog reenactments of the band’s early history happen as the director promised you?
Well, according to Tom, the person who does the prairie dogs all of a sudden became unavailable. And that was real disappointing. He ended up making puppets of the band and it turned out really well, but I was looking forward to prairie dogs and it was kind of the basis for letting Tom Stern do this documentary, because I wanted to see it with prairie dogs. But it all worked out good.
Other than that, was there anything left out of the film that you would have liked to have seen?
Well, that stuff that made it into the film… I was trying to talk him out of cutting out some of the dick shots and they kept accusing me of being a prude. (laughs) And I said “I don’t mind the dick shots but I got family members and this and that, and my wife’s family… Are they really important to the movie?” “Oh yeah! They’re vital — we gotta have those dick shots!”
Are you talking about the stuff from the surgery films that were screened live with the band?
They were just dick shots. Some of them are funny, like there’s some footage of us backstage at our very first show in Rotterdam. Our European record executive came to the show and hung out backstage. And he’s wearing a fucking suit and tie, you know, looking all important. And then somebody did an interview of him talking about the band, with the big old camera and everything, and he’s trying to act all important. And Gibby’s standing behind him and he pulls out his dick and puts it up on his shoulder, and starts rubbing his hair and pouring beer all over him. It was just the worst abuse you could imagine. It’s really funny to watch.
But then there’s a story about us playing in Atlanta with a drag queen running from some punk rockers. And the drag queen runs into our dressing room and the punk rockers start running in and all of a sudden, there’s naked Gibby. He’s standing there and he puts the fear of god into the punk rockers. They slunk away.
And then there’s a close up of a dick and balls, not even from that scene. It was just reenacted. And it’s gotta show the dick swaying back and forth and… OK… (sighs)
When we first see you in the movie, you’re biking around the suburbs with a helmet on and you look like a perfectly normal guy…
That’s me!
Well, that’s what I was gonna ask. You’re just trying to show who you are now?
Yeah, well, I wasn’t trying to show that… It was just that over the course of making the documentary, Tom Stern decided that he wanted to show my motivation for what I wanted to be nowadays and he knew I rode a bike a lot so he wanted footage of me riding a bicycle. So my wife filmed me riding my bicycle and that made it into the movie.
But I always wanted to be normal. It wasn’t my goal in life to be in this outrageous punk rock band. You know, I always wanted to be somewhere fitting in with normal people and getting along with normal people and that was NOT in the cards. But now that I have a career behind me in the rear view mirror and royalty checks coming in the mail, everything’s fine. I can be that normal person in a normal neighborhood, with a lawyer next door. It’s great.
So when the topic of what you’ve done for a living comes up with your neighbors, how does that go?
You know, I tell ‘em “I’m a musician.” And they’ll add, “well, what’s the name of your band?” And then I tell them and they’re like “YOU’RE THAT??” “Yeah, that’s me…”
I went to breakfast with my engineer friend Stuart Sullivan, who worked on Meat Puppets, Sublime and stuff like that. We’re at this diner and the next day he told me that he was talking to a cook in the kitchen and said “the waitress came up to me when I was cooking and said ‘wow, that old man out there has a Butthole Surfers tattoo.’” And he said, “well you know why, don’t you? That’s Paul Leary from the Butthole Surfers.” And she’s like, “why does he look like the old man who works at the hardware store?” (laughs)
Going back to the movie, I was surprised about the emotional parts near the end with your mother dying and Coffey’s partner dying and Gibby’s childhood trauma. When you were watching all of this during the film premiere, what were you thinking?
Well, first, I was surprised that Gibby opened up about his childhood trauma. That’s not something… he can easily present to the world. So I was really pretty proud of him for doing that. And you know, I didn’t even know about what happened to him. And suddenly, a lot of things started to make sense.
But yeah, I don’t know what it was like where you were sitting but I could see people around me starting to cry. That was the part of the film I was most worried about ‘cause the film is funny and entertaining and then it gets to the dark part. It’s like… oh.. (groaning). I don’t know how much I like to see dark things when I watch movies. I like to be… laughing and all that kind of stuff.
But what made it so interesting was that it was so unexpected that you would find such moving, touching moments in a movie about the Surfers.
Yeah… well, people grow old and then they die. Like, five people interviewed for that movie died even before the movie came out.
At the screening, it seemed like there were a lot of old fans and friends of the band there, cheering on stuff they saw on the screen. Did you know anything about that?
Yeah, I was really happy to hear that. I don’t know about who was there though. I was really nervous, going into there that day. I was like, “are people gonna show up and are they gonna be stone quiet and hate the thing?” You know, not all rock documentaries come out good. I participated in a Sublime documentary about 8-10 years ago and they spent a ton of money making that thing and it never came out. It went to the Tribeca Film festival and it got BAD reviews. So I was just like, “Oh my God, we’re gonna get BAD reviews and it’s all gonna be for nothing…” So it was kind of a relief to hear the audience respond the way that they did.
Yeah, I got to hang out with a billionaire who invented the COVID vaccine (Moderna co-founder Derrick Rossi) and that was fun. It turns out that he’s a really cool dude.
He was one of the film’s producers?
Yeah, he was the main money man. He participated in the production of it and was a positive force in the making of the movie. I was really happy to have him on board.
When you and the rest of the band came out for the Q&A after the screening, you and Gibby hugged and even the director said, “did anyone get that on film?” Was that kind of a reconciliation between you two?
(laughs) Yeah… I don’t know how much we really need to reconcile. We’ve always been tight. There was a time when Gibby drifted away and he was part of the Hollywood scene and he was doing heroin and coke all of that stuff, which thank God I did not participate in. But… we’ve always been brothers. I’m not surprised that we hugged. And we still talk regularly.
Near the end of the film, we see you, Gibby, Coffey and Pinkus recording a version of Donovan’s “Atlantis.” Was that brought about because of the film and will that be released soon?
I imagine it IS gonna be released. It may be part of the box set coming out. But that was actually a lot of fun, to get into a studio and actually have a positive studio experience to remember as our last time in the studio together. As opposed to the Hollywood Records studio session which was NOT FUN AT ALL.
The director wanted to have us have a reunion in the studio so he’d have something to film and add to it. I don’t remember whose idea it was to “Atlantis” but it seemed good enough for me. It spared us the burden of having us to write a song. (laughs)
You guys had also covered “Hurdy Gurdy Man” years before that. You seem to have a real thing for Donovan.
I can remember when “Hurdy Gurdy Man” came out in the 60’s. I think I was in Christian Summer Camp at the time when I first heard it and I was just BLOWN away by it. The weird vocals with the tremolo effect and that nasty, nasty freaking guitar lick. And I just loved it and I always loved it and… I kind of wish I WAS Donovan in a way. But yeah… he’s a hero figure.
What kind of damage would you like to do to anyone who bothers you about when the Surfers are going to have a reunion?
Oh, I just say no. It’s not gonna happen. I love my bandmates dearly. We had a really good time. But we said everything we wanted to say with our live shows. I’m an old man now. And I look at AC/DC and the Rolling Stones, videos of them playing now and it’s just like.. oh fuck… Those old men up there — I don’t wanna be one of those.
I made a discovery. When I was younger, I used to dread being a washed up rock star. Then when it happened, it dawned on me that being a washed up rock star is WAY better than being a rock star. The checks are bigger and I have a lot more free time to do whatever I wanna do. And hang out at home and be with my wife and all that kind of stuff.
Any advice for punks transitioning into old age?
if you’re a punk rocker and you’re getting old… that might be beyond help. (laughs) I mean, punk rock was a whole lotta fun but it’s a young man’s game. It’s not for 67 year old men. I don’t know what to say other than… I like the attitude and everything. “Should have gone to law school” is what I’d say!
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