Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes is now multiple decades removed from the height of his public lunacy.
He and his band earned a cult following for antics including firing a 12-gauge pump shotgun over the crowd mid-set at Lollapalooza 1991, engaging in what appeared to be on-stage sex at Danceteria in 1986 and otherwise putting on reliably deranged shows, all while managing to have a major Billboard top hit.
Today, Haynes is pushing 70 and mostly sober, living with his wife and high school-aged son in Red Hook. But his freak flag still flies.
In recent years, he's published a young adult novel about a supernatural dog and was the subject of the documentary “The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt” by director Tom Stern. The Butthole Surfers' lost 1998 album “After The Astronaut” is set to be released next month. Haynes is also playing Williamsburg mainstay Union Pool every Wednesday this August with a yet-unnamed band.
“We’re probably gonna announce the name right before the set, and then stop the first song midway and change our band name and do that every song so that we will be two different band names,” he explained in a recent phone interview. “Theoretically, then, we might play under 22 band names with an 11-song set.”
This vague plan has deeply stressed out the booking agent, who is anxious to lock in information for promotional materials, Haynes said. When pressed, Haynes offered him a temporary name for the band: the Dope-Headed Stranger. This was inspired by a missing-tooth selfie Haynes took of his bloody mouth, which he sent to the agent when pushed for an image to be used on a flyer.
“I [was] playing catch with my son, and — he’s gotten a little better at baseball and basketball — but his little fastball tailed off and it came off my glove and knocked my front tooth out,” Haynes said. “So I’ve got this cool look nowadays.”
He said the booking agent is not enthused about the rather gory image, and Haynes' wife “hates it."
Haynes' wife is the reason the Texas native and enduring symbol of the state’s outlaw insanity moved to New York.
“I stayed here months at a time back in the ‘80s, when we weren’t traveling,” he said. Then he moved here permanently, “to hang out with my girlfriend when she was at the tail end of law school.”
This was around 2003, so “it wasn’t right after 9/11” but parts of Manhattan “still smelled like burning circuits,” he recalled. For the most part, he’s been here ever since.
Does Haynes miss Texas?
“Not really,” he said.
Why not?
“I don’t know," he added. "I don’t miss every place I’ve ever been.”
Haynes' folks are gone, so he doesn’t go back for Christmas anymore. His sister is still there, but he can’t stand her politics.
Does that mean that New York has captured his heart?
“They got better Chinese food here,” he responded, dryly.
Then he got excited: Once, a Village Voice food critic took him to a hole-in-the-wall Szechuan spot somewhere in deep Brooklyn, near Bay Ridge, and they ordered a beef dish that “had probably four heaping tablespoons of cumin on it. And oh my God, it’s so good. I had no idea eating that much cumin would, like, not kill you. It’s amazing.”
I asked for other city favorites. He described what I’m almost certain is Astoria Seafood, as well as a speakeasy in the back of a Financial District deli. Once he went whale watching on a boat that left from just south of the old Fulton Fish Market, near Battery Park, which he recommends.
Haynes also spoke highly of Kokie’s, the long-shuttered Williamsburg coke bar.
“I just couldn’t believe something existed that openly in a heavily policed city,” he said. “It wasn’t one of my hangouts. But that was a weird one.”
The Circle Line’s cruises also used to host a bizarrely flagrant drug scene, he recalled.
From there, the conversation meandered to arson, San Antonio’s metal scene and the history of asbestos.
It also touched on a few other relevant tidbits about his relationship to New York, or at least physical reality: He likes writing his son Satchel’s name in wet cement, something he couldn’t really do in Texas, there not being as many sidewalks there. He loved all the peep shows in Times Square back in the day. Traveling sucks because he’s 6’5”, meaning “every time I go to Japan, I come back with a scab on top of my head.”
Ultimately, Haynes made clear that he lacks much geographic passion or loyalty despite calling New York home for more than 20 years.
“I wouldn’t mind leaving,” he said. “I kinda wanna move to Los Angeles.”
Not that he thinks Los Angeles is so great, either.
“I’m more into people,” he said. “And being in a touring band in America, I've got friends everywhere.”
