Teresa Taylor, Butthole Surfers drummer and ‘Slacker’ star, has died at 60
Teresa Taylor, who played drums in Butthole Surfers and played a role in Slacker and featured on the film’s iconic poster, has died of lung disease. She was 60. “She will live in our hearts forever,” Butthole Surfers wrote. “RIP, dear friend.”
Taylor was born November 10, 1962 in Arlington, TX and got her start drumming in high school marching bands in both the Fort Worth and Austin areas. One of her fellow high school band drummers was Jeffrey Coffey and they would serve as Butthole Surfers’ twin drummers — playing as as Teresa Nervosa and King Coffey — for most of the 1980s. She played on classic albums Rembrandt Pussyhorse, Locust Abortion Technician, Hairway to Steven, and more.
Like a lot of fringe-dwelling Austinites, Taylor also ended getting cast in filmmaker Richard Linklater’s debut feature, Slacker. Her role was small but memorable, playing who, where she played a character who claimed to own a Madonna pap smear and was trying to sell it. Taylor ended up as Slacker’s poster girl, too.
Taylor left Butthole Surfers in 1989 after starting to suffer from strobe light seizures, and was subsequently diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and successfully underwent brain surgery for it. She played in Coffey’s band Rubble and rejoined Butthole Surfers for tours in the late 2000s.
In 2021 Taylor announced on Facebook that she had been diagnosed with end-stage lung disease.
Rest in peace, Teresa.