Advertisement
Fourteen years of anonymity ground to a halt when -- thanks to their first and only hit single, "Pepper" -- the Butthole Surfers' 1996 album, Electriclarryland, unexpectedly struck a chord with more than 600,000 mass consumers. Now, the hooch has dried up and the hangover has kicked in as Austin's most sardonic trio struggles to break the zero-sales mark with After the Astronaut. |
Still reeling from their Johnny-come-lately success, the Surfers
scurried into the studio with high hopes and fatter wallets in
1997. When they emerged, the czars of satire presented Capitol
Records with what guitarist Paul Leary calls their
"grand masterpiece." "This record is our most pride-worthy effort,
and our most cohesive album to date," says the easy-going Texan. "I
personally think it's a triumph."
And who's to argue with him? Leary, along with bandmates
Gibby Haynes and King Coffey, are
three of the only living humans who have ever heard After the
Astronaut.
That conspicuous silence can be attributed to a savage dispute
between the band's management and label that erupted shortly before
the album's scheduled release date last April. Now the buzz-kill
manager is gone, the grudge is forgotten and the Surfers' eleventh
studio effort is decaying, but the stalemate with Capitol Records
remains.
"I don't blame Capitol for being mad at us because we have been
dicks to them a bit," says Leary, who recently took a year off to
gain new perspective on the music industry. "I just want to do what
we do without letting distractions pollute or diminish our
music."
Despite dead-end negotiations with respect to After the
Astronaut, this millennium may not end tragically for the
Surfers, who are conspiring now to launch their own record label.
Leary says there is only a fifty-percent chance that his rowdy
bunch will break free from Capitol, however the band has already
cleared the way to re-release its entire back catalog
elsewhere.
After emerging victorious from a legal battle with Touch & Go
Records last year, the Surfers gained ownership and control of
their earliest recordings -- some of which were not commercially
available for more than a decade. Now, the slighted rock band wants
a little revenge and a lot of revenue; they're just not sure
exactly how to get it.
"The only thing I know how to do is be a Butthole Surfer," says
Leary, downplaying his role in producing top-selling albums for
Sublime, Supersuckers, Meat Puppets and Stone Temple Pilots.
And with that, the Surfers are returning to what they know best:
the studio. Next month, Leary, Haynes and Coffey will begin work on
a fresh batch of tracks at Willie Nelson's Texas
studio, where they hope to polish off four songs in four weeks. The
new material will likely revisit the Surfers' early eccentricity
and ditch the commercial magnetism of their hit single, "Pepper,"
which Leary calls a "totally unpleasant experience." A release date
remains hypothetical at this time, but Leary says the band hopes to
tour during the summer months -- one way or another.
"You haven't heard the last from the Butthole Surfers," Leary says
with conviction. "We may not be popular and no one may want to hear
us, but, dammit we'll be making records again soon."
ANNI LAYNE (January 20, 1999)