Butthole Surfers are an American rock band formed in San Antonio, Texas, by singer Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary in 1981.

[9] 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 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 Butthole Surfers.

[11] Haynes and Leary played their debut show at a San Antonio night club, The Bonham Exchange, in 1981; at that time, they had not yet settled on the band name "Butthole Surfers".

[10][11] During a brief concert at the Tool and Die club in San Francisco, Dead Kennedys frontman and Alternative Tentacles overseer Jello Biafra witnessed their performance and became a fervent fan.

Terry Tolkin, a friend and their East Coast booking agent, signed the band to Corey Rusk's then-nascent Touch and Go Records in Detroit.

While in San Francisco at the end of the tour, and without a place to live, the band collectively decided to move to Winterville (a small town outside Athens, Georgia), where they admittedly made a hobby of stalking members of R.E.M.

[29][30] Smart quit after falling in love with a friend of the band, and Trevor Malcolm, a young Canadian musician recommended by Touch and Go, replaced him on bass.

Once Alternative Tentacles finally declined, the group went back into Kramer's Noise New York studio to record two new tracks to replace "To Parter" and "Tornadoes", which were originally intended for Rembrandt... before appearing on the Cream Corn... EP's B-side.

[38] Harnessing aspects of punk, heavy metal, and psychedelia, its unique sound produced a number of grinding, slower-paced songs, arguably making it an early precursor of grunge.

[18][40] The band traveled widely in support of the album over the next year, including a very successful tour of Europe (helped in part by the influence of new UK distributor Blast First).

[47] Around this time, Haynes collaborated with Ministry, contributing vocals on their 1991 single "Jesus Built My Hotrod", which was later included on 1992's Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs.

[10] In 1995, the band contributed a cover of the Underdog theme song to be included on the tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall for MCA.

[53] Later that year, Haynes's side project, P, issued an eponymous LP on Capitol, while Coffey's Trance Syndicate label released the first Butthole Surfers compilation album.

[7][8][57] Their songs started appearing on the soundtracks of major Hollywood movies, including Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.[51] Despite improved sales with their second Capitol album, the group's relationship with the label was increasingly troubled.

[58] Despite the outcome, several of Butthole Surfers' peers in the alternative music community, including Fugazi and Minor Threat lead singer Ian MacKaye, criticized them for having pursued the lawsuit.

[52] With the case resolved, the band reissued Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac, Rembrandt Pussyhorse (with the Cream Corn... EP), Locust Abortion Technician, and Hairway to Steven on their Latino Buggerveil label.

The band reunited with Jeff Pinkus and Teresa Nervosa for a tour of the East Coast and Europe in Summer 2008 with the Paul Green School of Rock All Stars.

The group's appearance at All Tomorrow's Parties led to a dispute with ATP founder and organizer Barry Hogan, who told a reporter for the Village Voice that Butthole Surfers (along with Killing Joke and The Black Lips) would never play the festival again.

A report in The New York Times suggested that, even though Butthole Surfers had not released an album of new material since 2001, the "songs are practically incidental to the spectacle" after seeing them perform along with psychedelic band Lumerians in Brooklyn.

"[48] In March 2019, the band released a visual history coffee table book, Butthole Surfers: What Does Regret Mean?, with author Aaron Tanner.

As a result, they began to attract a wide range of curiosity seekers within a few years of their debut, in addition to traditional fans of punk rock who had supported them from the beginning.

Strobe lights, smoke machines, and even Gibby Haynes' burning cymbal are still part of the presentation, but the chaotic spontaneity of their 1980s performances is no longer on display.

[74] Lead vocalist and saxophonist Haynes (who sometimes sang through a bullhorn), guitarist Paul Leary, dual drummers Coffey and Nervosa (the latter briefly replaced by Cabbage), and whichever bassist happened to be filling in at the time, had a visual aspect.

Other attire included flasher-style trench coats over his nakedness, ridiculously home-styled wigs and cross-dressing; often employing a skirt made of an American flag and a large '60s torpedo-style stuffed bra.

As previously mentioned he would sing through almost anything that would alter his voice, including toilet paper rolls and megaphones early on, which eventually evolved into "Gibby's kit", a.k.a.

At another particularly wild concert in 1986, Haynes and Lynch, by now completely bald, reportedly engaged in sexual intercourse while on stage, as Leary used a screwdriver to vandalize the club's speakers.

[78] Butthole Surfers began to take the collection of visual equipment seriously following Coffey's recruitment in 1983, when he added a clear plastic drum fitted with a strobe light to their show.

Shortly afterwards, the band purchased what was reported as several thousand dollars worth of stolen strobe lights at a bargain rate, and their visual equipment soon took up more space than their instruments.

Combined with the increasing number of strobe lights, the effect created a visually disorienting atmosphere, which occasionally caused epileptic seizures in audience members.