The Flaming Lips are one of the most celebrated American bands. They are just
about to release a new album called At War With The Mystics. A recent
documentary by Bradley Beesley came out last year. I spoke to Wayne Coyne back in
2000 right after they released what some think their best album, The Soft
Bulletin. They are playing at Noise Pop 14 on Monday, March 27th, 2006.
* * * * * *
SFB: I know that you don't use drugs any more. What do you think about drug
use?
WC: I read this story about Stanley Kubrick when he was talking about his
film 2001. They ask him if it was supposed to be a psychedelic experience. In
1969, people were curious about that. They asked him if he had taken LSD, or that
movie was about an LSD trip. He said "No." The reason he gave was that most
of the people he knew who had taken a lot of LSD had lost their ability to be
self-critical. People take it and think that they're one with the universe. No
matter what I think, it was meant to be. It must have some importance because
I'm one with the universe. I read that and I thought that was true. I
wouldn't want to be in that cosmic state because I would never want to lose being
self-critical. It's good to lose your critical opinion of others but not
yourself. Who wants to be 40 years old and wanting to be like when you were in high
school?
SFB: What do you think of older musicians like Mick Jagger who seems to be
in the papers all the time for his antics?
WC: He's got to be a smart guy. The things that we read about him and the
things that he really does in his real life are drastically different. He loves
the idea of being on VH1's Naughty News where he has some model pregnant. He
calculates that out so we think of him as some perverted old rock star. In real
life he's a smart guy and people around him love him and respect him. I would
never want to speak for someone who has manipulated so much of what we think
of him. It's great. It's what a lot of artist do. They say "I'm going to invent
a character and people will love him, and I can go home and be with myself."
I don't do anything like that. I'm just me. I don't have a persona.
SFB: But with the band gaining popularity, and The Soft Bulletin getting so
much positive response, does that allow you to hang out with Madonna, and a
bunch of models?
WC: No. We used to pursue that stuff more in like 1992, when we first started
being able to hang around with celebrities. It was really exciting the first
time when you're in a room and someone like Perry Farrell walk in, or any of
these people who you think are celebrity type people. By the time we ran into
Madonna, we were playing with The Red Hot Chili Peppers in London. Madonna came
to see them. We were standing on the side of the stage watching the Chili
Peppers waiting for the night to be over. By this time we had seem Flea naked
about five times. We were bored. All of a sudden these bodyguards came up and
there was a woman in there somewhere. I was thinking what the fuck is this? And
then Madonna really sat down right next to me and all the bodyguards stood
around her. I looked and thought "That's Madonna." By then I didn't really care. I
realized that I was past being excited by anything. I mean we were on The
David Letterman show and met Paul McCartney and David Gilmour. By the tenth
person, you go home and say to your brother "Hey, I met Paul McCartney!" And he's
like "Whatever!" It has a value. You see people at the ATM in New York, and
they say "Hey, I saw you on Letterman last night, you guys must be famous?" Well,
famous for you anyway.
SFB: Has The Soft Bulletin been the most successful album you did?
WC: No. "She Don't Use Jelly" and Transmission has still sold more. But as
this year goes on, I'm sure that The Soft Bulletin will do better. When we were
doing it, we thought that it would be the end of us. It was so elaborate and
"out there." It's more of a work of art than anything we have done. We isolated
ourselves and said "Let's make music the way we want to do it." With our past
records we would occasionally look out and see what the market was doing
commercially. With The Soft Bulletin, we figured whatever happens happens. It was
liberating in some ways but at the end of the day you think "What are we going
to do now?" We did a show at SxSW around the time of the release and we
didn't know what the reaction was going to be. But even during the show we knew
that people were going to accept it. It usually takes us so long to do records.
Three of four songs would go out and we would here feedback. First they would
feel shock. But then a week later they would say "But now I love it." They were
shocked but they didn't know what that shock was in the beginning. At SxSW we
felt the same thing. The shock happened and then we escaped out of town. But
this time, all this other stuff happened, like it was named record of the year
in NME and it was on the top ten list for a hundred magazines. We have become
so thick skinned over the years. You're used to people hating what you do,
that you become numb to it. The thick skin that protects you from the bad stuff
also deflects the good stuff as well. People come up to me and say "Well, you
and Brian Wilson..." Whether the work is good and important, that's for other
people to decide. When artists starts deciding what they're doing is
important, they start sounding like idiots, like Billy Corgan or something.
SFB: What is the connection with Mercury Rev? The Soft Bulletin and Mercury
Rev's Deserter's Songs were recorded at the same time with the same producer.
Was that an influence?
WC: Totally. Me and Jonathan have a lot of similar things we're trying to do.
I think that honestly when we were doing these records, Jonathan was thinking
"I'm completely going into outer space and doing my own thing," and going
that way, and probably thinking "I'm going into outer space and do shit nobody's
ever done before." We probably thought that we were going into different and
opposite directions. When we get there we look around and go "Damn, what are
you doing here?" We are so much alike. Every time we think we're alone,
eventually we turn around and we are doing similar things. It make sense since we were
in the studio at the same time with Dave Fridmann. There were times when we
were pulling our gear out at ten o'clock one night, and Mercury Rev would be
there in the morning the next day. Dave Fridmann would be there one session to
the next. Whatever miraculous things we would stumble upon, whoever came in
next would benefit from it. Most of it was technical stuff, because ideas for one
band rarely work for another. How to get these sounds and these songs to
combine with these ideas. We would come into the studio and Dave would say
"Fellas, you know that thing we were trying to do and couldn't do? I found a way to
do it." That was the process of making those records. But idea-wise, you can't
translate that over from one band to another. Some bands try to do what was on
their last record, and those are their own ideas, and they fail. You never
know whether an influence is going to be a good or a bad thing. We have so many
ideas of what we want to do, that we pursue them, and we sort them out later.
SFB: Are there any current influences? Are there any records that you are
listening to now?
WC: I listen to everything now. I bring about fifty CDs when I go on tour.
After a week I'm sick of those. I listen to everything from classical to jazz,
from old to new, to techno to folk rock, to everything. I don't have any area
where I won't go anymore. Influences are weird. There are things that I hear
that are definitely exciting. My biggest influences are my own experience and
things which have impact on me which I can put into something that becomes
poetic or lyrical. Instead of talking to you right now, I hope that I can put some
words and sounds together that moves you.
SFB: What do you think about bands who use a lot of techno gear and computers
versus bands who play all the instruments live? I ask because you use backing
tapes and you seem to be more like the techno bands.
WC: There's people who stand on the side of if there aren't real musicians
playing it, it sucks, and other people who think that real musicians are
old-fashioned. I just sit in the middle and I think that I have no stance either way.
If it's good, let's have it. People want to restrict you because they have
this idea how music should be presented. I'm sure that the greasers in the late
1950s were bummed out when they stopped having the sock hops every Saturday
night. Evolution moves on. It's fine to gravitate towards things that you like.
Those things don't have any intrinsic meaning. People give meaning to a long
haired guy playing an E chord. To me it's no big deal. It's what they do.
People have asked me "Is the guitar dead?" And I say an instrument is never dead or
alive, the people playing them are. People who have too much time analyzing
their record collections are the only people who think of these things. We have
notice with our live shows that they don't even notice that we're doing
something weird. They just think that this is a great show.
SFB: Do you like these new shows more than the shows you did ten years ago
when there were more people in the band? Not having to play guitar allows you to
be more of a showman.
WC: I'm a horrible singer. And I'm even worse when I have to play the guitar.
To me, I like it much better now. I don't know how people can do both. They
are talented and should be applauded. I'm not one of them. I'm more
entertaining and focused when I don't have to play the guitar, because I'm not a very
good guitar player either. There's something in my voice that people like. They
let me sing. People can come to see us and I could play guitar all night and
they would go "Man, I didn't come to see this." At the end of the day, they came
to here we sing, in the context of the band. When I saw Brian Wilson play
about two years ago in the Midwest. He had fifteen musicians up there and they
played wonderfully but it didn't matter till he sang. Even though he couldn't
sing very well, it was him and those songs that mattered. I'm saying that not
comparing myself to him. Some nights my voice is gone and I'll apologize. And
they love it more because I'm trying to do things that I am not capable of
doing. In some ways it doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there.
I am a lousy singer but I have experienced moments where it can move people.
SFB: We were just over at the Virgin Megastore and I was looking at the new Q
Magazine. In this month's issue they had an article about "The 100 Crazy Acts
by Rock Stars." Number 30 was the Zaireeka album. It was beat out by John
Lennon and Yoko One nude picture, Jim Morrison's poetry, and I think Ginger Spice
becoming a UN Ambassador among other things.
WC: That's regrettable, definitely. When we started Zaireeka, people were
going "You got to be kidding?" I don't see it as being anything special. We had
an idea for a record we wanted to pursue. We were able to do it, not because we
wanted applause or attention, but because we knew it could be done and I
wanted to push the possibilities of what listening could be like. So much of the
responsibility goes on what you do making the record and everybody listens to
them the same way. And I just wanted to force the hand both ways. That we make
it differently but you have to listen to it differently as well. It is an area
where new things can be done.
SFB: Did the sales of boomboxes go up after you released Zaireeka because
people wanted to listen to it?
WC: Even as we were experimenting with the boomboxes, we discovered ways of
doing it easier. People would go to their friends who worked at high-fi stores
and they would put them all in. I thought that the audience that got it, were
the people who did get it. People who were much like ourselves, people who
were in bands, or involved in music. Those are the people who are pushing the
evolution one more step. It's rarely that the casual listener who really
contributes in any way. It's usually people who were digging and digging and trying to
find something. It's rare for an idiot who wakes up without giving it any
thought and says "I've invented the greatest thing ever!" Those who try harder
usually find it. And we do try hard and I do go consciously into the unknown and
unexpected.
SFB: Like Nietzsche, can you see an upcoming age of Supermen? And that man is
a historical trope that can be surpassed?
WC: Unlike Nietzsche, who wanted the world to improve, I think it's already
great. I don't have any complaints. I don't do art to make the world a better
place. I do art cause I like it. The world is already as good as it could be.
It doesn't need to be saved or improved.
SFB: What about your hypothesis about love being a chemical related to the
Big Bang? Have you done any further testing?
WC: I have no way to do any testing. I feel that it's a theory that may
proved right or ludicrous. It's a great concept. It occurred to me that we are made
of same sort of things, and the most powerful thing that draws us to each
other is that aspect of love. People will die or kill over love. It's a powerful
things that animals or plants don't have as much. There's something about it
has to be part of the universe. It's a vague observation. I'm not trying to
predict the future. As far as songs go, what a great thing to sing about? The
universal revelation that love is what connects the universe anyway.
SFB: They're trying to re-create the Big Bang. They were talking about
possibly creating a black hole.
WC: I don't know what people like Stephen Hawkings envision with all that
mathematical jargon about how the universe folds in on itself. Some of that stuff
is so abstract I can tell how it's going to have any impact on me. I
sometimes wonder how much science and reality can explain each other or itself. That's
the great thing about art and ideas: some of them are based in science, but a
lot of them defy science. There's no formula by how you get to things in art.
That's why it appeals to me I guess. You don't have to have any knowledge of
the elements to come up with something amazing.
An interview with The Flaming Lips
By Alexander Laurence
