In 1998, when Butthole Surfers followed up their 1996 mainstream breakthrough ‘Electric Larryland’ with their next record entitled ‘After the Astronaut’, the major label they were signed to at the time pulled it from their release schedule at the last minute. Their reasoning? They wanted a more “commercial” record. Had that label known Butthole Surfers’ oeuvre better, they probably shouldn’t have expected another ‘Pepper’ (their #1 Billboard Modern Rock from 1996). Instead, ‘After the Astronaut’ was shelved… until now when ‘Sunset Blvd’. releases that mythic and much-discussed follow-up on June 26, 2026.
“We were pretty stoked to make another album after the success of our previous album and its single ‘Pepper’,” recalls guitarist Paul Leary. “Capitol Records was stoked to get that next record until our relationship soured. After some legal wrangling, Butthole Surfers were released from the major label’s roster and their contract was sold. Hollywood Records bought the album but wanted to make changes to it which was an uncomfortable experience for us,” he notes (the reconfigured and reworked album was eventually released as ‘Weird Revolution’ in 2001). “Now we have the right to release the original recording the way we intended it to be with its original title, ‘After the Astronaut’.”
Reacting to the grunge/alt rock sludge that was populating the airwaves, Leary, drummer King Coffey and vocalist Gibby Haynes pulled away from the style that was surfacing and, instead, submerged their creativity deeper into electronics, industrial beats, acid grooves, and other synthesized sci-fi sounds. “‘After the Astronaut’ was a fun project,” says Coffey. “We were using all the digital toys at our disposal at the time, and it felt much like the creation of ‘Locust Abortion’ (1987). We were playing with new toys, creating things that amused us with the crayons we had, and we weren’t worried about radio airplay. It felt like we were going back to our experimental roots while still navigating the major label ecosystem.”
Kicking off with Haynes’ spoken word intro where he announces “I stand as a messenger of strangeness this evening in order to impress upon or at least to instruct the honorable musicians as to the methods and motives of the truly bizarre reality,” ‘Weird Revolution’ launches into a trippy and psychedelic cacophony of distorted guitar and beat-heavy rhythms that sets the tone for the record. The syncopated vocals of ‘Intelligent Guy’ veers into proto-industrial synth grunge territory, grimy and dirty with a pulsating, mechanized beat.
First single ‘Jet Fighter’ finds the band in a surf-punk mood, exploring lo-fi dadaist psych rock filtered through a thrift store PA system, which originated, as Leary remembers, “when I purchased a 12-string electric guitar and wanted to play it.” It’s the unnatural progression of the anti-mainstream pop song that fit perfectly in the oddball late ‘90s aesthetic. An anti-war protest song that, while originally written decades ago, echoes a sentiment that can be applied today, Gibby sings about Mikey who enlisted in the military and “He got into the cockpit and rose up in the sky / Set his sights on Beirut and he let his missiles fly / Boom, Boom!”
‘After the Astronaut’ tracklist:
01. Weird Revolution
02. Intelligent Guy
03. Jet Fighter
04. Mexico
05. Imbuya
06. Venus
07. The Last Astronaut
08. Yentel
09. Junkie Jenny in Gaytown
10. They Came In
11. I Don’t Have a Problem
12. Turkey and Dressing