BUTTHOLE SURFERS Unleash LIVE AT THE LEATHER FLY Out TODAY

Heralded with the release of singles “Human Cannonball” (“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) and “The Annoying Song” (“We were invited to participate in the first Lollapalooza Festival in 1991. At some point of the tour Gibby got a hold of a toy battery-powered megaphone that pitched his voice up. He was annoying everyone within earshot backstage, speaking through it in a rhythmic manner. I found it hysterical enough to write music to it”) Live At the Leather Fly has been reigniting the Butthole Surfers fanbase. Rebel Noise praised 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 says, “It manages to be ugly and beautiful, hallucinatory and present, accessible and alienating—all the things Butthole Surfers are.” It’s Psychedelic Baby nails it, saying “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.”

Chaotic, confrontational, and unmistakably Butthole Surfers, their live shows hit like a sensory assault—thanks to Jeff Pinkus’ thunderous basslines, King Coffey’s powerhouse drumming, Paul’s scorching, laser beam guitar riffs, and Gibby’s manic, aggressive, and off-the-wall vocals. Their sound is a warped blend of punk and psychedelia—raw, bizarre, and strangely catchy. That grimy, unfiltered scuzz-rock became their signature, launching them from cult status into unexpected brushes with the mainstream.

But they never lost sight of what made them notorious. UK’s The Guardian described their live shows as “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.”

Kicking off with “Graveyard” (from 1987’s Locust Abortion Technician) and its spooky guitar effects on Paul’s piercing playing, which launch you into a sludgefest, slicing holes through the song’s heavy textures, Live At The Leather Fly never lets up. From the Texas-punk stylings of “Gary Floyd” (taken from 1984’s Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac and written for the lead singer of The Dicks) to the discordant cacophony of “Bong Song” (from 1989’s Widowmaker EP), to the fan favorite “P.S.Y.” (from 1991’s piouhgd), the 21 tracks of Live At The Leather Fly are a perfect encapsulation of what made Butthole Surfers important in the first place: Grade A Texas-Sourced punk.