Butthole Surfers is a Noise Rock band formed in San Antonio, Texas in 1981, well known for its disturbing lyrics, heavy synthesizing, and macabre live shows. They also use a lot of Black Comedy in their lyrics.The Surfers began in 1980, when lead man Gibby Haynes met Paul Leary while going to college in Texas, where they became friends due to their shared overall weirdness and interest in strange music. They published a magazine, Strange V.D., with a lot of pictures of strange diseases and illnesses, long before they actually started playing in 1981. They were small names until their album Electriclarryland was released, containing their first big hit, "Pepper", which topped the Billboard Modern Rock charts in 1996. Afterwards, they became featured on many movie soundtracks, such as William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and John Carpenter's Escape From LA.Albums:
Gibby Haynes - lead vocals, guitar, saxophone 1981–present
Paul Leary - guitar, vocals 1981–present
King Coffey - drums 1983–present
Jeff Pinkus - bass 1986–1994, 2008–present
Butthole Surfers Provide Examples Of:
Songs
Black Comedy: A lot. Especially "Pepper" and "Jimi".
Black Sheep Hit: You'd never know by listening to "Pepper" that the band's repertoire is mostly disturbing lyrics, shrill/distorted voices and bordering-on-surreal riffs. The song dropped out of their live sets entirely for a while, but during a 2011 tour, a small portion of it was often played as a medley with "Lady Sniff".
Country Matters: Subverted with their song "Kuntz" — The clip is edited to make it sound like the other word, but it's really just the Thai word for itch.
Cover Version: Of a more interesting version, "Sweat Loaf" is a sort-of cover of Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf", and uses the same guitar riff.
"Kuntz" is a remix/cover of a song by an uncredited Thai artist.
Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" from pioughd.
They've also covered The Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City" for the benefit album M.O.M., Vol. 3: Music for Our Mother Ocean, The 13th Floor Elevators' "Earthquake" for a Roky Erickson tribute album, and the Underdog theme for Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits.
Harsh Vocals: Possibly parodied by "Mark Says Alright", which uses the growls of a pitbull as "vocals".
Recycled Lyrics: Recycled scatting, actually - Much of Gibby Haynes' manic scatting on Ministry's "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" was taken from a Butthole Surfers song called "Watlo". "Watlo" was being played live before "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" was released, but a studio version didn't come out until afterward (it appears on Independent Worm Saloon as "Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales").
Scatting: Used a lot, one notable example being Sweat Loaf.
Step Up to the Microphone: Paul Leary sings "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave," "Something," and "Bar-B-Q Pope", all from the self-titled debut EP. This actually means he sings exactly as many songs as Gibby does on that particular release note The EP had seven songs, one of which featured a guest vocalist, but after that he'd never get a lead vocal on a Butthole Surfers song again.
Surprisingly Gentle Song: "The Wooden Song", a Folk Rock-influenced ballad featuring acoustic guitar, is probably the straightest example they have.
Title Only Chorus: "Kuntz" again, if you consider that to be a chorus.
Ear Ache: The cover for Electriclarryland. Apparently it was potentially squicky enough that the "clean" version of the album substitutes a photo of a groundhog.
New Sound Album: The Weird Revolution had a more electronic sound and added some Rap Rock elements (as did the more experimental Missing Episode album After The Astronaut, which had different versions of many of the same songs). The new direction was hinted at by some of their late-90's soundtrack work - "Whatever (I Had A Dream)" from William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet was a moody trip-hop song, while "Tiny Rubber Band" from the live action Spawn film featured contributions from Moby. A less direct precursor was The Jackofficers, an Acid House-influenced electronic side project of Gibby Haynes and Jeff Pinkus, who put out their only album (Digital Dump) in 1990.
No Pronunciation Guide: piouhgd again. It's supposed to be pronounced "Pee-Owed", as in the euphemism for "pissed off", but the album doesn't let you know that.
No Title: None of the songs on Hairway To Steven had titles, and were instead marked by crudely-drawn sketches. However, the self-released Live AlbumDouble Live featured almost every song from Hairway To Steven, and the tracklisting to that album revealed the "real" song titles - or at least the ones the band used on written setlists. The one Hairway To Steven track that didn't appear on the live album is pretty much universally referred to as "Julio Iglesias" due to its lyrics.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: Apparently some images in the "Hurdy Gurdy Man" video looked too squicky, so they had captions put on them, such as "Belly Button" and "Foamy Apple Juice".
Fight Fur Your Right To Party: Played Straight and Inverted in the music video for "Shame of Life". If you're wondering, the inversion involves men in squirrel costumes and black business suits coming to drag people away and stop the party.
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