BUTTHOLE SURFERS Unleash LIVE AT THE LEATHER FLY Out TODAY via Sunset Blvd.

MAY 9, 2025 [New York, NY] – Widely considered one of the most infamously named bands in rock music, BUTTHOLE SURFERS built their legacy on defying convention and getting under the skin of the uptight. Rising to the challenge of capturing that madness, Sunset Blvd. has dropped the band’s third live record, LIVE AT THE LEATHER FLY, today. Pulled from deep within the band’s archives, this 21-track set is shrouded in mystery—its time and place of recording still hotly debated. But as always, the band leaned into the weird. “Back in the ’80s, Gibby Haynes (vocalist/guitarist) used to imagine a club called ‘The Leather Fly’—with a giant stuffed leather fly hanging out front,” recalls Paul Leary (guitar/vocals/‘art master’), reflecting on the bizarre dream venue where this surreal performance supposedly took place.

Known for albums as chaotic as they were catchy, Butthole Surfers brought that same unhinged energy to their live shows. Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist Flea even says in their SxSW-premiered documentary (trailer), “The Butthole Surfers have created this, like, sonic, visual world. You went into it, and it was just completely absorbing. I remember just being hypnotized and lost in it.” Director Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise, Dazed and Confused, Boyhood) adds, “There is kind of a before and after. When you wander into a Butthole Surfers show, that is a changing point in your life. It’s like, ‘holy fuck!’”

Butthole Surfers by Kirk R Tuck (hi-res)

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.

LIVE AT THE LEATHER FLY track listing (hi-res)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“

Born out of the 1980s hardcore scene, Butthole Surfers began when Gibby and Paul teamed up in college down in San Antonio, Texas—united by a mutual hatred of anything remotely mainstream. From there, they zigzagged through the music world like a fever dream, always on the fringes and loving it. With fans and allies like Dead Kennedys, Nirvana, and Orbital—and running mates like Scratch Acid and Flipper—they cemented their place in the counterculture hall of fame. Even when they briefly flirted with the mainstream (yep, they hit #1 on the Modern Rock charts with “Pepper”), they never stopped being proudly weird. The band never officially called it quits, and their messy, glorious influence still echoes today in bands like Gwar, Flaming Lips, Jane’s Addiction, White Zombie, Monster Magnet, Primus, and countless others.

Butthole Surfers is Gibby Haynes (vocals, guitar), Paul Leary (guitar, vocals, “art master”), Jeff Pinkus (bass, vocals), and 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. It is released today, May 9. 2025 via Sunset Blvd.