The most entertaining chapter of Michael Azerrad's cult book Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991, chronicles Texan punk reprobates the Butthole Surfers. From stories about how the band, led by Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary, moved to Athens, Georgia to stalk R.E.M., to how former President Jimmy Carter picked up his daughter's suitcase that the band had touched with their dicks, it's as much about the band's demented antics and copious drug use as it is their twisted punk.

In the introduction to Life Makes Me Nervous; I Like the Butthole Surfers, a new publication by MoodWar, Sydney writer Max Easton explains that whereas Azzerand's discussion stops when the Surfers signed with a major label and only briefly looks at how their actions were considered "antiethical to the DIY ethos", his zine spends time looking at the band's total willingness to subvert to the point where "even cashing-in was, to them a rebellious act."

The result is an over-arching take on the Surfers' recording career as they developed alongside their contemporaries in the DIY punk movement of the 1980s, and into the shifting ideals of the 90s, where the movement that raised them was co-opted and marketed, surprisingly to their benefit. Easton outlines the band's bent philosophy that eventually placed them so opposed to their peers that suing their indie label was their most defiant statement of all.

Read an extract from Life Makes Me Nervous; I Like the Butthole Surfers and read a short interview with Easton.

Many of the Butthole Surfers punk and hardcore contemporaries were cast as drop-outs, outcasts or low lives, but no band was less desirable than the Butthole Surfers. They lied, cheated, stole, drank and drugged themselves to near death, and don't even have that good a discography to make it worthwhile. But despite being the ultimate fuck-ups (few would go to the dangerous lengths they would to hold onto their vision), they somehow succeeded. In part, this was due to the extraneous factors that people were excited to buy into – the toilet humour, the antics, the complete bizzarity of it all – but a fierce work ethic and a shameless approach to getting what they need got them through.