Butthole Surfers’ Paul Leary admits the band “sold out”
In an exclusive interview with Far Out, Butthole Surfers guitarist and occasional vocalist Paul Leary has admitted that the band “sold out” around the time of their 1996 television debut on The Late Show with David Letterman.
Leary reflected on the iconic band’s career, which stretched from a seat at the head of Texas’ alternative underground scene to relative mainstream success thanks to the boom of grunge music coming out of Seattle in the 1990s.
Leary recalled the band’s initial disbelief at their success, sharing with Far Out, “The whole thing seemed like it wasn’t real, and I was waiting for somebody to pull the plug and say it was all a big joke.”
He went on, “But no, it was amazing, you know? I thought we were going to starve to death and die, and then we ended up making it to a major label and working with John Paul Jones and having a hit song and all that other crap.”
With mainstream success came more opportunities; in 1996, Butthole Surfers appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman after topping the US Modern Rock Chart.
Looking back at that time, Leary explained, “We lost a lot of our original fans who thought we had sold out, and yeah, we did sell out.”
He added, “To me, that was the whole point. The joke was complete at that point. We were the Butthole Surfers, you know? The fact that we sold out. I mean, it doesn’t get any stupider than that.”
Butthole Surfers released their eighth full-length studio album, Weird Revolution, in 2001, and last performed a full concert together at 2017’s Growlers 6 festival.
They’ve now followed up with their ninth studio album, After the Astronaut, which was originally intended for release in 1998.
Discussing the new album, Leary shared with Far Out, “I just wanted to keep the original vibe to it, so not try to recreate it into something different or something new, you know? It’s dated, and that’s fine with me. We’re dated, we’re old men now.”
Far Out gave Butthole Surfer’s new release a three-and-a-half-star review, sharing, “Wielding hip-hop shuffle, sampling psych and teeming electronic gurgle, After the Astronaut points to where the Butthole Surfers could have artistically headed, while also serving as a fitting close to their chaotic waver between the punk underground and pop mainstream.”
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