Trivia / The Residents

• Black Sheep Hit: "Kaw-Liga", a dance/house-style cover of a Hank Williams song with the bass line of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" was a minor club hit in France and Ibiza. One could say that they don't really have a consistent style to be at odds with, but it's a lot more poppy than what they usually do.
• Bury Your Art: For decades, the band refused to officially release their pre-Santa Dog demo tapes out of embarrassment towards them, with only snippets and select songs getting released. By the 2010s, they softened their stance enough to give The Warner Bros. Album and Baby Sex official releases as part of their pREServed rerelease campaign. However, they remain steadfast in refusing to release Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger, with the former only receiving a truncated release and the latter explicitly ruled out from being released.
• Creator Backlash: The band is known to hold their early demo tapes in low regard due to their amateurish nature and lack of resemblence to their later work. For this reason, The Warner Brothers Album and Baby Sex were not officially released to the public in full for decades, Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor was only ever released in a severely truncated form on an outtakes compilation, and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger has never been considered for an official release.
  • The band's live rehearsal album Assorted Secrets was only given a release out of desperation to recoup the costs of the Mole Show tour, and only received a limited print run. In case there was any doubt of their distaste of the album, a limited rerelease had album art depicting a Resident covering his eyeball in shame with one hand and the camera with the other, along with blurbs stating "The One That Won't Go Away!", "They Hate It!!!", "You Shouldn't Listen To This...", and "Don't play this for your friends...".
• Creator Breakdown:
  • The band has stated that the initial shelving of Not Available was not only done as an artistic statement, but also due to the material representing a time of severe turmoil and interpersonal conflict within the group. While the exact circumstances of the recording have never been fully elaborated, Hardy Fox stated on his blog that his depression over their debut album's failure and his realization that he was gay were contributing factors to his mindset at the time of writing and recording.
  • The somber tone and lyrics of Demons Dance Alone were a byproduct of the band's feelings of grief following the September 11, 2001 attacks, which occured in the middle of a tour in Europe.
• Creator Couple: Hardy was married to Nessie Lessons, a session vocalist for the group during the early eighties. He then dated (and eventually married) voice actor Steven Kloman, who voice-acted in projects throughout the 1990s.
• Development Hell: There was a lot of turmoil between the band and personnel during the production of Eskimo, to the point where amidst all the release delays, their label put out Not Available just for the sake of having something out.
• Died During Production: Snakefinger was their first pick of guest musician for God in Three Persons, before Richard Marriott, but he had a fatal heart attack before they could even record his parts. The earliest versions of the Cube-E tour, planned before he died, were also meant to feature him.
  • Jim Ludtke (Freak Show, Bad Day on the Midway, Icky Flix) was working or scheduled on projects for the Residents right up until he died (also of a heart attack) in 2005. Known projects include the Freak Show DVD and a video for The Commercial DVD. The incomplete footage from the former was included as-is in a 2006 reissue, as well as the Theory of Obscurity DVD. The latter's place was taken up by a tribute to Ludtke's work.
• Everyone Went to School Together: The founding lineup of the band met as students of Louisiana Tech, where they founded the "anti-fraternity" Delta Nu before leaving to California.
• Executive Meddling: The "Disfigured Night" show was hosted by Marlboro, who ordered Randy not to appear as Mr. Skull for fear of associating their product with death.
  • The promotional campaign for God in Three Persons ran afoul of this — Rykodisc only wanted to put out the album proper, rather than the soundtrack (they did relent) or the related non-album singles (which Torso put out instead).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The Big Bubble did surprisingly well in Japan, to the point where their Japanese distributor arranged for the group to perform in Tokyo, covering all expenses.
• He Also Did: These days, the band Cromagnon's line-up is pretty easy to look up, but back in the day it was rumored that a few of them were founding members of the Residents. Also, they were briefly rumored to have been The Beatles.
  • The lead singer featured in an educational rap song in the 1990s, under the name Seymour Hodges. He played the role of a creepy stranger.
  • Hardy Fox had a solo career, though it switched names a lot — a good chunk of the work he did under these names was on the band's behalf.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Several of their earliest known recordings were constantly distributed, in bootlegs and later online, for decades prior to their official release.
• Missing Episode: A studio album was produced for the Cube-E tour, but never released.
  • Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor, a pre-demo home tape was only ever released in a severely truncated form on Leftovers Again?! The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger, from around the same time, has never been considered for an official release.
• Money, Dear Boy: Immediately following the Mole Show disaster, the Corporation was desperate to recuperate the group's losses however it could. This included releasing the band's rehearsal tapes as Assorted Secrets, and encouraging them to reconnect with Renaldo & The Loaf to complete Title in Limbo.
  • Following controversy over the band's announcement of an NFT promotion in 2022, the Cryptic Corporation issued a statement defending the decision, stating that the cancellation of tour dates from the COVID-19 Pandemic strained the band's finances and that the promotion was undertaken to help recoup the costs of their Duck Stab! Alive! special.
• No Budget: The 13th Anniversary Show, by design. Still reeling from the impact of the Mole Show, the band did not want to take the same kind of massive risk a second time in a row. So when their Japanese distributor made them a very generous offer to play a few dates, they took a far more conventional approach, with simpler costumes, inflatable props, and work lights in lieu of stage lighting.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The entire source material for I am a Resident!
• Opinion Myopia: The Wormwood tour, based on an album which dealt in the Darker and Edgier stories of The Bible, was accused of panning it. This got it a lot of backlash — perfectly well-selling shows would get cancelled out of nowhere, objects would get thrown at the performers, Nolan Cook even had to leave a show in Athens, Greece after taking a rock to the eyeball-mask.
• The Pete Best: Around for the very earliest years of the group, Roland Sheehan was a key contributing factor to the sound and direction of their first recordings (predating even the demos the group sent to Hal Halverstadt). He stopped working with them in 1970, the year before they met Snakefinger.
• Reality Subtext: The Big Bubble has this in spades; it was the first album of all-new, original material since the Mole Show tour, which nearly ended the band, caused Ralph Records to collapse, drove away two members, alienated two of the Cryptic Corporation heads (one of whom was bankrolling their massive studio), and ended their business relationship with Graeme Whifler. Not only does this account for the pared-down sound, but it also explains titles like "Sorry", "Go Where You Wanna Go", and "Fear For the Future", as well as "Cry For the Fire"'s deeply mournful tone.
  • "Shorty's Lament," written right after Jay Clem left the Corporation, is a bit more obvious, with its existential questions, disaster metaphors (complete with crashing noises), and explicit namechecks of Jay and Uncle Willie.
• Reclusive Artist: Taken to its Logical Extreme — the band is said to rarely even get their own mail.
• Saved from Development Hell: A live performance of God in Three Persons was considered shortly after the album's release but ultimately abandoned in favor of the Cube-E tour. It would be left on the back burner until 2019, when a successful crowdfunding campaign finally allowed a string of live performances adapting the album at the Museum of Modern Art in 2020.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The American Composers Series was supposed to last ten volumes. And an additional three were planned out: The Trouble with Harrys (Harry Partch and Harry Nilsson), Bob and the Blob (Bob Dylan and Barry White), and Sons of the South (Buddy Holly and Sun Ra), the latter of which even yielded a few recordings. Other musicians included Captain Beefheart, Smokey Robinson, Charles Ives, Stevie Wonder, Moondog, Scott Joplin, Ray Charles, and Brian Wilson. But, alas, the concept was buried under a mountain of legal fees two albums in. This continues to present day, as Cherry Red's projected boxset of the material has repeatedly been held back over legal disputes.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Not Available is named such because the band completed the album in 1974, with the intent that it would not be released until they forgot about it.
• Troubled Production:
  • The European leg of the Mole Show tour in 1983. It was their first tour, and the band hadn't realized that large touring productions are highly subject to Finagle's Law. The band traveled in two buses, one for the crew and one for the band themselves. The road crew was hostile to both the band and Penn Jillette, who was the emcee of the show. The backdrops could only fit in a 747, which added to the cost. Jillette also became seriously ill during the band's stop in Madrid. The band ended up so deep in debt that their gear was impounded just before they were due for another show back in the States — they had to borrow equipment from friends and contacts to play. The experience caused the band to abandon plans to complete the rest of "The Mole Trilogy", save for The Big Bubble, and swear off touring entirely for a while.
  • Vileness Fats was supposed to be the Big Damn Movie for the Residents' synthesizer era, but ended up being unreleased. The sets were built in German Expressionism style, but filming space was so small that each set was dismantled before building another. Videotape was used since the band thought it was the medium of the future and on the cheap, since they didn't have to pay for film development. Production was slow as the Residents had day jobs to fund the film. When production stopped, the film had 14 hours of footage, with less than two thirds of the script finished, and the video looking outdated. Footage from the film was used in Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? the "Vileness Fats Concentrate" from Icky Flix, and the 2022 film Triple Trouble.
  • While Triple Trouble would be successfully finished, it would suffer some serious roadblocks along the way. Initially announced as Double Header, the film would have roughly half an hour of footage shot in 2017, only for production to slow to a crawl due to difficulties with securing funding for the film. To make matters worse, the 2019 death of actress Gerri Lawlor and the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic both rendered the film unfeasible to complete in its original state. Rather than scrap the film, the band drastically retooled the film into Triple Trouble, with a rewritten plot set after the envisioned plot for Double Header and the 2017 footage repurposed into flashbacks. This new vision for the film would complete principal photography in only ten days and see release in 2022 to coincide with the band's return to touring.
  • The star actor for "Hello Skinny" left before the wrap, meaning Graeme Whifler and the band had to rush to complete the video. The final scenes were intended for another video, which was too incomplete to salvage for the same reason. Ditto for multiple others which were planned, but never even got off the ground.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Much of the band's trademark look consists of second-choices and compromises from more impractical ideas. At various points, the group entertained portraying itself as Ambiguously Human by making it unclear how they got around, and wearing massive silver spheres on their heads instead of the iconic eyeball, among other ideas. Even the lead singer's black skull began as a quick replacement for a bandmate's ruined eyeball mask.
  • Cryptic Corporation co-founder John Kennedy (no relation) bought an old cinema in San Francisco to help him bankroll the band and Ralph Records, as well as get the group back into film after Vileness Fats fell through. However, the neighborhood petitioned against letting him open it, presuming he would be screening gay pornography.
  • Hardy Fox was drafted in 1968, but failed the physical after being diagnosed with epilepsy. Multiple sources dispute the veracity of his diagnosis, with even Homer Flynn suggesting he'd gotten the idea of faking petit mal seizures from John Kennedy (who actually did have them).
  • An official licensed Mark of the Mole game was in development for the Atari 2600 around 1983, but it was never finished, with only a playable demo being released. Interestingly it was sort of a proto Rhythm Game featuring the Mole characters, where the player would have to hit the right note to complete melodies from the album.
  • Fingerprince was going to have one side cut with two spiral grooves, meaning that the listener would hear two different records depending on where they dropped the needle. They dropped this idea after finding out that Monty Python did it already.
  • There were plans for a stage opera based on Eskimo that was ultimately scrapped. A demo track for the proposed opera as well as set designs give a glimpse of what the opera could have been like.
  • A fourth CD-ROM titled I Murdered Mommy! was planned and had a soundtrack composed before being cancelled due to the interactive CD-ROM fad dying out and the publishing company going defunct.
  • At one point, the band were in serious negotiations to develop a TV series adaptation of Bad Day on the Midway with none other than David Lynch on board. Unfortunately, the plans fell through when Lynch became preoccupied with The Straight Story and the band decided that Lynch was the only filmmaker who could have done the material justice.
• Write What You Know: The career-spanning motif of carnivals, circuses and sideshow performers (conjoined twins in particular) owes to a bandmate's personal experience visiting a local carnival as a child.
  • "The Dying Oilman" comes in part from Hardy's childhood in a Longview oil field.

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