BUTTHOLE SURFERS RELEASE THE TOUR DE FART SINGLE “IMBUYA” | ALBUM AFTER THE ASTRONAUT OUT JUNE 26
SUNSET BLVD. RECORDS
“’Imbuya’ was conceived and produced much like a fart after eating beans,” says guitarist Paul Leary of BUTTHOLE SURFERS about the textured, psych-sludge transgressive single, which was released on April 21. “Imbuya” is the second single from their upcoming album AFTER THE ASTRONAUT (release date: June 26, 2026, via Sunset Blvd).
Never fitting into neat genre boxes, Butthole Surfers’ remarkable ability of mixing psych rock with industrial, punk, and abstract guitar noodlings becomes quite apparent with “Imbuya.” Keeping pace with a rhythmic drum shuffle programming (courtesy of King Coffey), the track showcases Leary’s adept guitar prowess while vocalist Gibby Haynes delivers lyrics worthy of an evangelical sermon. “It’s a truly meaningless song. Kinda our thing,” Leary adds.
“Imbuya” follows the soaring surrealism of initial surf-punk single “Jet Fighter,” which Earmilk quite accurately described as “exactly what you would imagine, and exactly what you never thought you could feel again. Ironic, absurd, melodic, and of course, entirely relevant.”
A mythical “lost’ record, After The Astronaut was originally scheduled to come out on April 7, 1998, but was shelved by Capitol Records for being too abrasive and uncommercial. Expecting a pop follow-up to their #1 Modern Rock Hit “Pepper,” the album was pulled off the release schedule and tossed unceremoniously into the closet. Its tracks were later reconfigured and reworked as the album Weird Revolution in 2001, which the band wasn’t very happy with. “Hollywood Records bought the album but wanted to make changes to it, which was an uncomfortable experience for us,” Leary notes. Instead of allowing that recording to embody its original intent, the band opted to revisit the music as it was designed. “Now we have the right to release the original recording the way we intended it to be with its original title, After The Astronaut.”
The 12-track album is a fascinatingly oblique tour-de-fart. Filled with acid-drenched, industrial-inflected soundscapes peppered with Haynes’ ofttimes stream-of-consciousness vocals, After The Astronaut is exactly what you’d expect from Butthole Surfers but nothing you’d predict. Kicking off with the trippy psychedelic cacophony of “Weird Revolution” into the grimy, proto-industrial synth-grunge of “Intelligent Guy” toward the mesmerizing and hypnotic “Yentel”, it’s an album of textures and abrasion but with solid musicianship to keep it anchored. Sinuous and serpentine, it encircles the melodies in orchestrated musical anarchy, which Stereogum characterized them appropriately as “the biggest freaks on the American underground rock circuit.”
Emerging from the 1980s hardcore scene, Butthole Surfers was formed by Haynes and Leary while in college in San Antonio, Texas. Bonding over a shared distaste for mainstream music, Butthole Surfers traipsed through the music industry, always on the fringes. Championed by Dead Kennedys, Nirvana, and Orbital and compatriots of Scratch Acid, Flipper, and Big Black, they remained a fixture in the music scene’s counterculture. In a moment of mainstream acceptance led by the #1 Modern Rock Hit with “Pepper,” the band always embraced the obtuse and the obstinate. Though the band has never quite broken up, their legacy still inspires other acts, including Gwar, Flaming Lips, Jane’s Addiction, White Zombie, Monster Magnet, Primus, and dozens more.
Butthole Surfers on After The Astronaut is Gibby Haynes (vocals, synths), Paul Leary (lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboards), and King Coffey (drum machines). After the Astronaut was produced by Paul Leary, engineered by Stuart Sullivan (Meat Puppets, Sublime) at Arlyn Recording Studio, mixed by Paul Leary at Preacher Mon Studio, and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Herbie Hancock, Beastie Boys, Nirvana). It will be released on June 26, 2026, via Sunset Blvd. with original art by Paul Leary and Gibby Haynes.
Butthole Surfers
After The Astronaut
(Sunset Blvd.)
Release Date: June 26, 2026
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