Twenty-five years ago, The Flaming Lips burst out of Oklahoma City with deafening noise and ambition to spare. Today, it is one of the most perplexing and productive bands in rock history.
Front man Wayne Coyne (at right, with the broken cross) and multi-instrumentalist Michael Ivins (at left, in the shades) may not have foreseen the future when they first banged heads and guitars in Norman, especially after hooking up with drummer Steven Drozd in 1991. But it's hard to peer into the past and ignore how The Flaming Lips helped evolve music into the new millennium.
Early indies like Oh My Gawd!!! and In a Priest-Driven Ambulance redefined noise and rock, while major-label releases like Hit to the Death in the Future Head, Transmissions From the Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic piled pop, psychedelia and more onto that already loud, weird foundation. By the time the Lips got to sound experiments like Zaireeka, The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, it was merging music and media in refreshing, new ways.
Today, The Flaming Lips still light the way forward, literally: On Saturday, it joins die-hard followers and late adopters in Oklahoma City for the pryomaniac Halloween party March of 1,000 Flaming Skeletons. Halloween happens to be the band's second favorite holiday; its first can be found in the recent screenings of the Flaming Lips' cinematic romp Christmas On Mars. Coyne directed, stars and also built the sets in what he calls The Flaming Lips factory. Most people call it his backyard.
It's that curious mixture of humility and pretension that has marked The Flaming Lips over its long, storied career, which has swelled like a man-size balloon. That's why Coyne can be found inside one at The Flaming Lips' legendary live shows. We caught up by phone with the always amiable and recently injured Coyne, who praised Christmas On Mars, Eraserhead, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii and much more through the haze of his painkillers.
Wired.com: So I heard you injured yourself.
Wayne Coyne: Yeah, it sucks. It happened when we were down in Mexico, and I wish I could tell you that I got in a fight with some Hell's Angels in Guadalajara. But I think I just slept on my neck wrong. I will leave it up to you to spread a lie for me. I think you should go with the brawl. Say that it was between the Hell's Angels and Nine Inch Nails, and I stepped into to break it up.
Wired.com: Are you dosed up?
Wayne Coyne: I'm on quite a few drugs, but nothing too exciting. Just a bunch of muscle relaxers, steroids and some badass painkillers. I haven't tripped out too much yet. I don't like tripping out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tA_TzRbEKo__Wired.com:__ Speaking of tripping out, it's awesome that Christmas on Mars is finally finished.
Wayne Coyne: I'm still working on what I call the afterbirth, which is the marketing of collectible DVDs, 12-inch vinyl and stickers. But we are almost finished with that. I also did Q&As afterwards at the screenings, so to me it doesn't feel different than a show, because Lips fans show up to both.
Wired.com: Listening Post described Christmas On Mars as a mixture of Eraserhead and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Wayne Coyne: That's exactly right; I was even saying that. Of course, not everyone knew about Eraserhead except film weirdos. People must think I love Lynch and Kubrick, which I do, but not for the obvious reasons. There's something uncanny, uncomfortable and unsettling about Eraserhead, which is what I wanted for Christmas On Mars. I wanted a clumsiness to the dialogue and real beauty in the cinematography, and through accidents, lighting and mood, we got there. The sets were elaborately built, lit and shot, so you could walk through and feel like you were in a real space station, just like in Kubrick's 2001. So yes, both of those influences inform the film.
Wired.com: Lynch likes happy accidents and kept some of them in his films and Twin Peaks.
Wayne Coyne: Well, anyone who makes art in this kind of perpetually panicked mode does. Sometimes you just have to say, "Fuck, I don't know what we are doing, let's just go and see what happens." You have to embrace the experience itself, so that things you didn't intend to happen can make your work more authentic. And you have to hope that it works. I imagine it must be like a novelist trying to think about every sentence he writes before he writes it. That happened all the way through this film. We ran into a bunch of happy accidents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLJ_QVfT_wM__Wired.com:__ Like Eraserhead, it seems that Christmas On Mars will probably be a regular on the midnight movie circuit. Any favorites of your own?
Wayne Coyne: Well, I was born in 1961, so by the mid-'70s, I was thinking that the world was made exactly for me. I didn't care much for Rocky Horror; as an experience, it didn't influence me that much. But other midnight movies sure did, including Pink Floyd's Live at Pompeii (embedded at right). It was the second film of a double-feature that also included A Boy and His Dog, and we smoked pot the whole way through. And remember, this was Oklahoma City in the 1970s. I didn't even know Pink Floyd had this movie, because back then you couldn't see a movie just because you wanted to. There was no Tivo or Netflix, so if it didn't play in the theater or on television, you didn't see it. We stumbled upon Live at Pompeii by accident, and we walked out of the theater in the middle of the night with our minds totally blown. When I think of midnight movies, I don't think of Rocky Horror. I think of a more personal freakout.
Wired.com: So you're spearheading another March of 1,000 Flaming Skeletons on Saturday in Oklahoma City. Will your injury complicate things?
Wayne Coyne: I don't think so. When my adrenalin kicks in, I can do almost anything. But when the show is over, I feel like I'm dying. During a recent show in Mexico, I was swinging this light around, but by the end I couldn't lift my arm. I didn't realize before this how much playing guitar actually required the use of your shoulder.
Wired.com: Are you excited about the March? It's taking off.
Wayne Coyne: Yeah, we did it last year as an experiment in public performance-art bullshit, in conjunction with Oklahoma City, which was trying to do something for the community. Previous to this, Halloween was always balked at by the religious people around here, always played down. When we were thinking about the parade a few years ago, the city was like, "You'll be the biggest attraction in it, right?" So we said, well, damn, OK. So I proposed the March, the fire marshal and everyone else got involved, and it went off last year without any trouble. Meaning, no one got burned alive.
Wired.com: That's as good a measure of success as any.
Wayne Coyne: It can be a big worry when you have that many people and fire in one place. You never know what is going to happen,
but it all seemed to work. Five or six years down the line, we'll have built it up to around 10,000 people. We'll ask everybody to get in and grab a torch. And not kill anybody.
Wired.com: Sounds like quite the revelry.
Wayne Coyne: It's also a somber event. I talk to people at the March who have had a death in the family and look at this as way to memorialize it. That can sound pretentious, but it is powerful. Plus, it's a wicked theme. It is truly awesome when you see it at work, quite powerful. And we've got four giant sound systems pumping out thousands of watts from an iPod. But when you think about it too much, it really is ridiculous, like a lot of art with dorks in suits. I am aware of that.
Wired.com: Perhaps, but The Flaming Lips' merge of music and media has inspired more than a few bands. Autolux told me you were the reason they decided to design their own lighting rigs.
this audio or video is no longer availableWayne Coyne: Well, that's a great compliment coming from Autolux. Music is a big part of what we do, but some people join bands for the art. It's about presenting yourself in any form that you can; we take that as a given. Of course, we have movies, parades and candy bars, because that's what we loved when we were growing up. The Beatles and Pink Floyd didn't just make records, they stood for something. And all bands should do that, whether they are inspired by The Flaming Lips or New Kids on the Block. You have to have ideas and pictures; it's never just about the music and it never has been. All art needs a bigger picture.
Wired.com: Speaking of, what's next for The Flaming Lips?
Wayne Coyne: We'll probably be doing Christmas On Mars until January, so in March we'll start recording our latest batch of songs. That means by next June or July we should have another Flaming Lips album out. Our last one came out in 2006. Time goes by too fast.
Wired.com: I wish it would speed up, especially the election. I'm looking forward to it being over.
Wayne Coyne: I can't see a world where McCain and Palin are in charge of furthering along the stupid ideas of Bush. I hope beyond hope that Obama can win this thing, and we can really stop complaining about how stupid the government is and start doing something about it. A lot of people sit on the sidelines and say there's nothing they can do it about it, and I don't agree. I have a senator here in Oklahoma that I am trying to get into Washington, and he could win even if Obama doesn't. So I like to remind people that you should also worry about your own corner of the world. Those things are always important. That said, I hope Obama can win, so we can stop the retardation that is overtaking us.
Photos: Flaming Lips @ MySpace
See Also:
- 2001 Meets Eraserhead in Flaming Lips' Martian Musical
- Wayne Coyne to Lead "March of the Thousand Flaming Skeletons" at Halloween Parade
- David Lynch's Weird, Wired World
- David Lynch Interview, Uncut
- Video: David Lynch Thinks IPhone Is Unsuitable for Movies
- Twin Piqued: Lynch's TV Legend Makes Musical Comeback
- Pink Floyd's "Echoes" = 2001's Space Baby?
- Happy Birthday, Stanley Kubrick!
- Rock's Toughest Trio Autolux Gets Lost in Transit
