Written by

Megan Gallagher

May 9, 2025 – [New York, NY] – Long hailed as one of rock’s most notoriously named and gleefully disruptive bands, Butthole Surfers have made a career out of defying norms and agitating the status quo. Rising to the impossible task of bottling that chaos, Sunset Blvd Records unleashes the group’s third live album today: Live at the Leather Fly.

Sourced from the depths of the band’s vault, the 21-track collection is cloaked in legend—its origin date and venue still the subject of debate. Fittingly, the mythos lives on. “Back in the ’80s, Gibby [Haynes] used to dream up a club called ‘The Leather Fly,’ with a giant leather fly statue parked out front,” recalls guitarist/vocalist/‘art master’ Paul Leary, nodding to the surreal venue that supposedly hosted this fever-dream performance.

Known for albums that teetered between deranged and danceable, the Butthole Surfers brought that same chaotic magnetism to their stage shows. As Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) puts it in the band’s upcoming documentary (premiered at SxSW), “The Butthole Surfers created this sonic, visual world. You entered it, and it completely absorbed you. I remember being hypnotized—just lost in it.” Famed filmmaker Richard Linklater adds, “There’s a before and after. Walking into a Butthole Surfers show is a life-altering moment. It’s like, ‘holy fuck.’”

Previewed by the release of the singles “Human Cannonball” and “The Annoying Song,” Live at the Leather Fly has been reigniting the fire in longtime Butthole Surfers fans. “The live version is better than the studio version… There’s just something about the energy that a packed house inspires that is hard to replicate in a recording studio,” says guitarist/backing vocalist/art master Paul Leary of “Human Cannonball.” On the origins of “The Annoying Song,” he recalls, “We were invited to play the first Lollapalooza Festival in 1991. At some point on the tour, Gibby got his hands on a toy battery-powered megaphone that pitched his voice up. He was annoying everyone backstage, speaking through it in a rhythmic manner. I found it hysterical enough to write music to it.”

Critics have praised the release as a visceral blast of unfiltered Surfers mayhem. Rebel Noise raved that the album “captures Butthole Surfers at their most raw and chaotic. It’s noisy, bizarre, and challenging—but that’s exactly what has made them so essential for decades.” Screamer Magazine added, “It manages to be ugly and beautiful, hallucinatory and present, accessible and alienating—all the things Butthole Surfers are.” And It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine distilled it best: “It seems less like a document and more like a hallucination: 21 tracks of completely off-the-rails psych-punk, warped through the band’s twisted Texas lens.”

Unhinged, confrontational, and unmistakably Butthole Surfers, their live performances have always been a full-on sensory overload. With Jeff Pinkus laying down thunderous basslines, King Coffey pounding out relentless rhythms, Paul Leary slashing through the noise with scorching, laser-sharp guitar work, and Gibby Haynes delivering manic, unpredictable vocals, their sound fuses punk chaos with warped psychedelia. Raw, bizarre, and weirdly infectious, that grimy, unfiltered scuzz-rock became their trademark—catapulting them from underground legends to unexpected brushes with the mainstream.

And yet, they never lost the edge that made them infamous. As The Guardian once put it:
“Nudity, raging fires, belching smoke, blinding strobes, nightmare-inducing surgical videos, fights and firearms: these are some of the things you may have encountered at a Butthole Surfers show while being pummeled by a squealing cacophony of acid-fried psychedelic noise-rock, as a man tripping wildly in his underpants screams at you through a megaphone.”

Live at the Leather Fly kicks off with “Graveyard” (from 1987’s Locust Abortion Technician), where eerie guitar effects cut through sludgy textures like sonic knives—setting the tone for the mayhem to come. From the raw Texas-punk of “Gary Floyd” (off 1984’s Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac, written for The Dicks’ frontman) to the dissonant swirl of “Bong Song” (1989’s Widowmaker EP) and fan-favorite “P.S.Y.” (1991’s piouhgd), these 21 tracks distill everything that made Butthole Surfers a force of nature: unapologetic, Texas-born punk mayhem, warped into something transcendent.

1. “Graveyard”
2. “Dust Devil”
3. “Gary Floyd”
4. “1401”
5. “Alcohol”
6. “Hey”
7. “Negro Observer”
8. “Human Cannonball“
9. “You Don’t Know Me”
10. “Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales”
11. “Bong Song”
12. “Blindman”
13. “Nee Nee”
14. “Too Parter”
15. “Dancing Fool”
16. “P.S.Y.”
17. “Booze, Tobacco, Dope, Pussy, Cars”
18. “Ghandi”
19. “Edgar”
20. “Fast Song”
21. “The Annoying Song“

Emerging from the gritty depths of the 1980s hardcore scene, Butthole Surfers took shape when Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary first joined forces in college down in San Antonio, Texas—bonded by a shared disdain for anything remotely conventional. From there, they blazed a delirious path through the underground, always operating on the fringe—and thriving in it. With a crew that included allies like Dead Kennedys, Nirvana, and Orbital, and tourmates such as Scratch Acid and Flipper, they carved out a space in the counterculture canon where chaos reigned supreme.

Even during their unexpected brush with the mainstream—yes, that’s them topping the Modern Rock charts with “Pepper”—they stayed defiantly weird. Though they never officially disbanded, their gloriously messy legacy lives on in acts like Gwar, Flaming Lips, Jane’s Addiction, White Zombie, Monster Magnet, Primus, and a whole new generation of genre-warping weirdos.

Butthole Surfers are:
Gibby Haynes (vocals, guitar)
Paul Leary (guitar, vocals, “art master”)
Jeff Pinkus (bass, vocals)
King Coffey (drums)

LIVE AT THE LEATHER FLY was mixed by Paul Leary and mastered by Gene Grimaldi (Johnny Cash, Lady Gaga, Rancid) at Oasis Mastering. Out now via Sunset Blvd. Records, May 9, 2025.