Pepper came out when I was in high school and I remember thinking at the time, "Man, this band is strange!" Little did I know then that THAT was their LEAST strange song!

My first concert was Nirvana, and Butthole surfers opened for them. I think I was 14 years old...kind of blew my mind.

'Debauched' spelled as 'debotched' honestly made my day.

Danny Divito was guest star on Letterman, the night the Surfers played. During his interview he mentioned seeing the band do their sound check/rehearsal. His comment was perfect, "The Butthole Surfers, man those guys are TIGHT!"

"May I see your driver's license and registration?" "Certainly" "Whatcha doin?" "Chewin' chocolate" "Where'd ya get it?" "Doggy dropped it" "Carry on"

Huge props to this band for managing to still be a popular band with "butthole" in their name during a time when Beavis and Butthead were also insanely popular.

The first Surfers album I'd ever heard was Rembrandt Pussyhorse via a cassette a friend sent me in the mail. I lived in a small town in Wisconsin and she lived in Minneapolis. Every few months she'd send me tapes of stuff I'd never heard before...Meat Puppets, Replacements, Husker Du. She was a really cool chick.

I only saw them once, at Lollapalooza '91. During Siouxsie and the Banshee's set, Gibby came out on stage in a dress and fired off a shotgun. Siouxsie seemed to think it was hilarious. In fact I heard they really got along backstage. She also got along with Ice-T. Go figure.

Cherub is one of the best psychedelic tunes ever. Hurdy Gurdy Man is one of the best covers ever.

The Surfers combined LSD, avant-garde, & Punk! In ‘91 they changed my 16 year old life with “ Hairway To Steven “ (A Masterpiece!) Their music showed me anything was possible in music. PLAY LOUD!

I live in Australia, and nearly 30 years ago flew to Toronto, Canada, to visit my cousin and his family who I'd never met before in person. My cousin Arthur was a kool guy and we really got along. A few weeks into my stay, he asked if I wanted to come on a road trip for the weekend to visit the University where he was studying, and I agreed. An hour or two from Toronto, there was a small town whose name slips my mind, where his University was situated. I'd never seen a place like it before or since, in that it was a small town with two large Universities independent of each other. There was a friendly rivalry between them academically and most famously between their Football teams, that culminated after exams at the end of the academic year in an inter-university football game which heralded the end of year post-exams and graduation celebrations that went on day & night over a three day extended weekend. The town had one long & large main street lined with town houses, terraces, and all kinds of accommodations that were rented out exclusively for students to live in, with parties going on in every one. The entire town, it's residential buildings & houses, and all of it's businesses were basically set up to host, house, & service the needs of the students at both campuses. If you lived there, you were either a student, or a resident employed in one of the many businesses providing the products & services for the students, who represented virtually their entire customer base. There were a few hotels & motels that provided some accommodation for visitors, but even most of their customers were persons visiting friends & family studying in the town. The mayhem began as soon as we arrived, with massive quantities of booze & drugs being provided & consumed without moderation or pause right up until we escaped when the celebrations ended, and the town was left to the customary task of dealing with and cleaning up the mess, devastation, & destruction in the aftermath that inevitably follows the insane, non-stop celebrations of thousands of students concentrated into a small area over three days & nights. On the last day, we were still partying full-tilt when we ended up at a hotel room in the early hours of the morning, which some of Arthur's friends had rented for the weekend. At some point, I woke up on a bed, laying face down in a box full of pepperoni pizza, mostly naked and covered entirely from head to toe in purple paint, the primary colour of the Football team of Arthur's university, with three hot babes passed out on top of me, completely naked and also covered in purple paint. I was roused from my coma by the sounds of a Butthole Surfers CD playing, echoing through the carnage from a stereo in the room. After studying the hot chicks slumbering on top of me, groping & fondling their amazingly attractive, if purple, girly bits and hoping to god I made it with at least one if not all of them before I passed out, I reluctantly wriggled out from under them and started stumbling around, putting on my T-shirt & jeans as I found them, strewn about the room. I made my way to the bath room to wash my face in the sink, when I looked down and noticed the sink was purple. As were the taps, shower, bath tub....eventually it was apparent that every inch of the bathroom and everything in it was covered in purple paint that matched my purple reflection in the mirror. Shuffling back out into the main room, groaning like an undead purple Zombie, I opened my eyes fully to take in the scene. Like the bathroom, every inch of the rest of the hotel room including every fitting & appliance in it, even the ceiling (how did they do that?!??!!), was completely purple. There were the bodies of numerous purple victims strewn randomly all over the floor & furniture where they'd passed out, along with huge quantities of empty Beer & Spirit bottles and drug paraphernalia. The purple television was smashed in the centre of the room. I found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in the hands of a purple corpse, which I claimed for myself and lit a smoke. I searched the bodies until I recognised one as my Cousin, and woke him up. As we got our shite together, there was a knock at the door. We answered, and a hotel employee, studying the state of the place over our shoulders, was asking for the person whose name the room was rented in. He informed us that we were liable for the damage that had been done, and that none of us were to leave until payment for said damages had been arranged and the Police had finished dealing with us, as they had been called and were minutes away. We closed the door, tried to open the window overlooking the car park, but found it jammed. So we threw the stereo through it. I remember Hurdy Gurdy Man still eerily emanating from the in-built speakers after it flew through the window in a shower of broken glass, right up until the power lead was eventually disconnected from the stereo mid-air. We cleared away the broken bits of glass in the window frame with a stray shoe on the floor, climbed out from our second story window, and leapt onto the roof of a mini-van parked directly below, interrupting the coital machinations of a stunned couple inside, just in time to see two purple creatures trying to skulk away inconspicuously across the car park. We made our way to Arthur's red 1978 Chevy Camaro, and after a brief scare that we might have left his keys in the room before he thankfully dug them out of a pocket, we got in, started her up, and started rolling out of the car park quietly to make our escape, noticing the patrol car parked at the hotel entrance and one cop trying to communicate with an incoherent purple Zombie from our room. The surreal, slow motion vision of the stereo as it breached the shattered window and soared through the air away from us, carrying the fading sound of the Butthole Surfers with it, stayed with me all the way on the ride back to Toronto, and is still the first thing I recall instantly every time I'm reminded of the band. Good times.

"Two sinister looking clowns" aka two clowns

Fun fact- Paul Leary produced Sublime's self titled breakout album. Also I used to sell weed to him.

Back in the day, I saw Les Paul on the Dennis Miller show, & when Miller asked Paul which guitarists he liked, he said "I can't say the name of the band he's in on television, but the guitarist is Paul Leary."

When I was in 7th grade this was around 86, an older girl on the bus took a liking to me and gave me a couple of their cassettes along with some other stuff. Before that I was a Statler Brothers and Bocephus man. That changed my trajectory forever. I still know the girl and still love the Statler brothers.

Saw em 5 times live, always great, Gibby's lyrics hilarious and surreal. Leary's guitar incredibly psychedelics, wrong notes at the right time. Love em !!!

Interesting fact: Gibby was in rehab with Kurt Cobain at Exodus in Los Angeles in early April 1994 prior to Kurt's death. Gibby joked about some other patient who climbed the wall and escaped rehab but just had to walk out the front door. Kurt took this to heart and did the same.

I worked for Rhino records in Claremont. The owner told me a story about the singer coming in for a signing. He told me the guy came in wasted beyond belief and made a mess of the whole signing lol. Said he was uncontrollable. Dude swore to never have any other artist signings after that. He kept his word too. I got a good chuckle out of the story...wish I wouldve seen it go down.

No mention of their first album, which was an absolute classic.

I’m so glad that Dan Mintz has time to make these videos when he’s not busy voicing Tina for Bob’s Burgers.

Butthole Surfers were unique. They were not just another juvenile, ADD, violent, nihilistic neighborhood act. They were strange, intelligent, sobering, and excellent exploratory musicians of sounds and melody mixed with mixed media performances often using crude or out-moded technology of the day. Imo, Butthole Surfers were the preeminent alternative punk-psych band of the 1980's to mid-90's and one of the scariest, most unpredictable live acts during this time.

My favorite band of all time. Unbridled unabashed musical brilliance. Every thing. Start to finish. I remember some one telling me to listen to this great catchy song on FM and I was like wtf do you know who this is. They dont belong on the radio. They belong underground for fanatics like us.

Great video! The word you used is spelled "debauched" just FYI. I used to be a waitress across a parking lot from the Capitol Records building. It was called Nick's Place and it had the best tuna melts in the world. The Surfers used to come in there. Nice dudes.

Fan of the Surfers since high school. The music was strange yes but technically very well done. The haunting guitar of Negro Observer is hard to forget, and the INTENSE crunching assault of Jimi off Hairway to Steven (which was a great remix of Flame Grape from the the Texas Trip LP) still hit me hard to this day. Too many great songs to mention without a text wall.

For those unfamiliar with the surfers, check out these songs. Some of my favorite gems of theirs. 1- I saw an X Ray of a Girl Passing Gas 2- Who Was in my Room Last Night 3- Human Cannonball 4- Hey 5- The Wooden Song 6- Dust Devil 7- Birds 8- Ah Ha 9- Julio Iglesias 10- The Sha Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave Not a top ten. Just good or at least really interesting songs

The story behind the recording of Jesus Built My Hotrod is pure Gibby Haynes. If Uncle Al says you're wasted.....

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!! I remember seeing them open for the DK in Washington, DC. No bass guitar, but a tuba. Two drummers. Gibby sang through a bullhorn into a mike the whole set. It would have been 83-84. Unreal show. I remember climbing up a curtain to a 2nd story opera box & diving into the crowd. Nobody caught me, HAHAHA !!!! Fk, I'm lucky I made it out of that show alive. Sorry, but you've got this old man excited. You hit the nail on the head.

"Psychic, Powerless...another man's sack" is one of the most fabulous Surfer records ever made.

Love "Who Was in My Room Last Night." Reminds me of that Beavis and Butthead episode, "Its Flea! Flea!"

Alternative Tentacles, they put out so much shit that was ahead of it's time, they could be called time travellers.

What’s an awesome yet wonderful juxtaposition is Teresa now uses her past with drugs to help other people get clean. I met her and her girlfriend super early into my sobriety back in 2014 and they’re both incredibly kind people. And Teresa has some of the best stories to tell, lol. Also a totally random fact about Gibby: He used to call into our local alternative station here in Austin fucked up out of his head going on crazy rants. It started a feud between him and the station which they referenced for years. Man, I’d love to find that audio cause I was too young to remember. I just remember them talking about it after the fact.

Winterville, Georgia. Sounded like you said “Wintergreen”, but I’ve lived in Athens essentially my whole life (32 years) and never heard of Wintergreen. Winterville is a small town on the Eastside of Clarke County that chose to remain independent when Athens instituted a unified government to become Athens-Clarke County.

Debauched, not debotched.

Locust Abortion Technician is highly underrated

The albums ''Electric Larryland'' and ''Independant Worm Saloon'' are so good to listen to, I mean every song is good, catchy and original ! I love the Butthole Surfers !!!

Okay, you need to find a copy editor. "Debotched," "Dadism," "drummers house"... Also, that first live photo is of Scratch Acid, not Butthole Surfers.

The Butthole Surfers are simply the Best. Absolutely Legendary. Many, many tried to Duplicate, but Never touched the same level.

They Came In is such a hard song. Get blazed and blast that into your ear holes

Fun fact from Paul on line conversation. I asked him about the samples from 22 going on 23, he said they had just got done with a gig and everyone was passed out at the hotel. He was still up and they had a crappy radio in the room. He turned it on and out came this weird late night talk show. He had a portable recorder and recorded it. The rest is history. One of my fave BHS tracks!!! PLEASE KEEP ON KEEPING ON BHSers!!!!!!

My favorite band ever, to this day best live band I've ever seen

One of my alltime favs, all of their 80's stuff is genius.

If one of these legends would just write a book about the band and stories from their tours. It would be epic.

I saw them in the early 80's in Dallas at the Theater Gallery in Deep Ellum. I remember that they had an autopsy playing on a big screen behind them. I was intrigued and appalled at the same time!

“IMA SURFER!” -Todd Flanders

Electriclarryland is a freaking masterpiece. Every song on that album is great. It's a staple of my catalog.

When I was in high school, a local record store was giving away promo stickers that just said BUTTHOLE on them in fluorescent pink. A friend put one over the "MSG" part of a Chinese restaurant sign which now read "Contains no BUTTHOLE".

got to see these guys live in 96 and still is one of my favorite shows I've ever seen!!

"Debauched". Not "debotched".

I remember being a freshman in high school and my boyfriend at the time was obsessed with Butthole Surfers. All we would do was listen to them and smoke pot in his room. It was 1993

5:38 - great image choice to illustrate the narration :) it's really well written and informative, thanks!

Thanks for the little tidbits. Still waiting on a new album from them!!!

Let’s Talk About Cars ....very underrated and hypnotic.Listening to two people speak French while a great beat is driving it.

Poor Nietzsche. Spent his entire life warning people that without a live god, nihilism is inevitable and tried to make arguments for making meaning away from nihilism. Is upheld by edge lords as a nihilism advocate. smh.

"SWEAT Loaf" not "Sweet Loaf".

I saw the Butthole Surfers at The Mean Fiddler in February '88...an amazing gig! Gibby was smacked in the head by a glass thrown by some arserhole from the balcony, and blood gushed from a cut in his head as he staggered off stage right. A few minutes later he's back on stage with a blood red white towel wrapped round his head and carried on as if nothing had happened! Rock 'n Roll madness at its very best!! It reminded me of Iggy's exploits with The Stooges, I was so glad I'd made the effort to get to that gig! (..and that's another story...) I recorded it all on my Sony Pro Walkman, and it still sound great all these years later!

I went to a concert, on the strength of Rembrandt PussyHorse. I thought they were going to play some songs... they didn't. It started out well enough, but not long after that, Gibby had twisted so many dials on his FX it was no longer possible to understand a thing, which didn't seem to phase the crowd at all, since they seemed to be gesticulating to their own music. The aforementioned strobelights and gorefest films were going on, then the drummer had the brilliant idea to pour lighter fliud into his inverted cybals, light it and proceed to smash the fuck out of them, strafing the low ceiling venue with flames. Fun times... but not for me, i didn't do drugs, at the time, and i had no clue WTF was going on.

Peppermint Place was the shit. Aired for decades on Saturday mornings in the Dallas/Fort-Worth area. If you know, you know.

My favorite band of all time eye never get sick of listening to them . They open my eyes to noise to rock

Loudest show ever. The Boathouse, Norfolk.. Smashing Pumpkins and BHS that weekend. What a great time in music. Great vid.

Hairway to Steven was their best album imo a very close 2nd would be Locust

Psychic...Powerless...Another Man's Sac is genius

Greatest live band I ever saw! Their live shows were something that's hard to describe!

Satan is a waiter in a café down the street. He likes to convince people to try an espresso with chilli.

It wasn’t Fruit Loops, it was a cereal called Kaboom! Had a strange looking clown on the box, right up their alley

0:25 im pretty sure thats a picture of Scratch Acid, not BHS

I was able to see one of their reunion shows in San Francisco with Melvins opening. Gibby kept asking the crowd if anyone had any painkillers "for this muffin-topped rockstar" as he rubbed his belly on stage. Great show.

“Cinnamon & sugar and softly spoken lies, you never know just how you look in other people’s eyes.”

I love "Moving to Florida"

I was really hoping you would discuss Gibby Haynes singing on Ministry's "Jesus Built my Hotrod," and how he was so fucked up during the recording process that he did not really speak, more like grunted and howled through the song. I have tried looking up to see what the original lyrics were and still cannot find it.

My favorite Gibby Haynes story is the time he and Flaming Lips drummer Steven Drozd were smoking crack together in a hotel room. Gibby threw his pipe out the window and said, "Fuck this! I'm done! I'm quitting!" He then asked Steven for his pipe. Steven asked, "Aren't you going to throw it out the window too?" Gibby laughed and then started smoking Steven's pipe.

i grew up listening to these guys back in my teenage years in the 80's. i saw them live a bunch of times too. most memorable was their show at the John Anson Ford theatre in Los Angeles sometime around 1987- 88.

First time I ever tripped was to the "piouhgd" album... When the dogs in my neighborhood start barking to the sirens from the nearby fire department it's all I can do to keep from yelling "brothers and sisters" uncontrollably...

If you ever want to read some great stories about the Butthole Surfers, read "Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground" by Michael Azerrad

This is the best band you have ever featured. The BS were so great live. I used to see them at CITY GARDENS IN TRENTON NJ! WOW the good ole days!

Pinkus is one of my Buddies!!! love em to death!!! he is absolutely the truest of true and nicest person I know!!!! check out his band Honky and his banjo solo act too.

Met Gibby in the beer section of an Apple Tree grocery store lol. He was great

20 year old me istening to Hairway To Steven on acid... still giggling years later as a 43 year old. Fart song!

Debotched???? I had to pause the video to contain my laughter...that's the best one in a long time, thanks.

I graduated from the same high school as Gibby, many years afterwards. But a person I knew in school, their mom was friends with his dad, Mr. Peppermint, and used to babysit Gibby. I've never met him but it's an interesting connection. The former guitar player for Blue October also graduated from my high school (also years before me), along with several other famous people.

This whole thing sounds like someone's middle school report where they researched something they know nothing about. The Sabbath cover is SWEAT Loaf. NOT SWEET Loaf. Say it, "SW-EH-T LO-OAF."

YES MY FAVORITE BAND would've never guessed they'd be on here, Go Gibby

I was born in 89 so I didnt see them in the 80s or 90s, but I did see their reunion show in the early 2010s at sonar in Baltimore. All the og members were there. The mosh pit was pure lunacy. Everyone was smiling and laughing, arms around strangers shoulders rather than pushing and shoving....or maybe that was just the 5 hits I ate😉🤯. They were so tight and gibby's mysterious vocal effects box was pure unadulterated psychedelia. What a ride.

I remember seeing these guys play a live show in downtown Dallas back in the early 2000s, and it was f****** amazing

In 1996 the band released their biggest commercial record, with 1996’s Electriclarryland, a 1996 album, for a 1996 crowd, released, in 1996. 1996

I love how the song called “John E Smoke” is about a guy named John W. Smoke Jr.

I think I finally got this song out of my head in 2006. Sometime in 2013, while crossing through the sands of the Sonoran Desert while on the run from the Los Gueros Cartel, my colleague, Dr. Robert C. Chesterfield, and I were near death, searching desperately for any source of water we could find. As morning grew near, the rays of heat began to swelter, and exasperated, I exclaimed, “Here comes the sun!” To which Chesterfield responded, “I don’t mind the sun, sometimes.” Suddenly, as if I had been yanked back in time, my mind began to flash images in my mind: Marky and Sharon, Sharon and Sherice, Mikey and his facial scar, Bobby that racist! Tommy playing piano, later losing his leg in the train accident. All these thoughts. All these long forgotten memories. I knew then why I needed to survive, my reason for living. I narrowed my eyes, my gaze hardened with a steely determination, as I looked toward the cresting sun. I had but one name on my mind: Pepper.

Cortney Love met Kurt at a Nirvana show at the Metro in Chicago,he then took her back to his room in the Day’s Inn at Clark & Diversey.

Thanks! I've been hoping for this long! Next Nick Cave? Great birthday surprise for me! :D

Seen the Butthole Surfers back in 96 and subsequently met both King Coffey, Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary a few hour’s before the show. Some of the kindest rockers I’ve ever met Their show at the now defunct Government in Toronto was as expected a loud drug fuelled psyche experience. Loved every minute of it

greatest band in history i cried over their song " TURD LOVE"

"....and farts".... Cracked me up the way you delivered that line. Also, I saw them maybe around 10 years ago and it was a great show. They still had the weird medical type movie playing behind them and all of the weird noises and sounds coming from the stage with some sort of device they were using at certain times

My very first "real" concert was at Val Du Lakes, Michigan in 1993: Butthole Surfers headlined, while the Flaming Lips and Stone Temple Pilots opened. I still remember the grainy, black and white dental extraction video footage projected behind Butthole Surfers as they played, as well as a wild-eyed Gibby Haynes dousing a cymbal with lighter fluid, igniting it, and frantically bashing the cymbal, causing flames to shoot into the air. Pure magic.

Their live shows are beyond disorientating. Actually really hard to live through!

Buttholes are such an amazing band, they have been part of the soundtrack of my life since 7th grade in 1986 lol since then there hasnt been more than 48 hours without hearing them for me. They keep me sane

Saw them with The Flaming Lips in Austin Texas in the late 80's. The reverb almost made me pass out. The naked chick spinning around on stage was pretty cool.

The word you’re looking for is “debauched”.

I seriously think " Psychic ... Powerless... Another man's sac" is their magnum opus and holds up the he best of The Beatles's work

I saw the Surfers more than any other band. Life changing experiences.... truly

through out the 80's I spent most of my days in Santa Cruz, Ca mostly surfing at the hook, steamers and cowls. The Buttholes were a popular alternative surf rock band then and it was common to see their band name posted on the the local billboards for concerts.

My dad was on the drummer, King Coffey's record label Trance Syndicate lmao. He texted him recently and he's doin alright still living in Austin. (The band was Crust btw)