The Butthole Surfers may not be willing to reunite despite those six-figure offers, but they do have a Tom Stern-directed documentary in the works.
The first trailer for The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt has now been released, and features both archival live footage of the band and new interviews with the likes of late drummer Teresa Taylor, Dave Grohl, Flea, Thurston Moore, Henry Rollins, Ice-T, Eric Andre and the late Steve Albini, who — spoiler alert — closes out the trailer by saying, "I regret being involved with them because I don't want to be associated with people that awful."
Stern first collaborated with Butthole Surfers on a live performance video of "Cherub" from Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac, the punks' first album for Touch and Go Records. He had the following to say about the doc:
I started documenting the Butthole Surfers in 1986 at CBGB's as a film student when I checked out a camera from NYU, and I have been collaborating with them ever since on various projects, like the short Entering Texas, the feature film Freaked, and the recent video for Paul Leary, "Do You Like to Eat a Cow."
This movie, produced with the full collaboration of the band, will be the culmination of my close relationship with the Butthole Surfers — a comprehensive look at this groundbreaking band and its continuing impact on culture at large. It's a story I'm uniquely capable of telling because of the trust the band and I have built over the years.
Through exhaustive interviews, archival footage, cutting-edge animation and graphics, surreal reenactments, and more, we will make a film in the anarchic spirit of the band. It will be irreverent and funny, but also sincere and heartfelt at times as we get these post-punk rock legends to look back on their strange and extraordinary lives.
This won't be a hagiography. We will present the hole truth and nothing butt, warts and all: Sex, drugs, rock and roll, the beautiful, the ugly, and the weird.
A release date for The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt is still pending, but you can check out the trailer below.