After four decades of creating music, The Flaming Lips have done almost everything a band could possibly do.
From their origins in the Oklahoma punk scene in the early ’80s through to their big breakthrough successes with The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, they’ve created both critical and commercial success with an almost infinite range of creativity.
So what can lead singer Wayne Coyne really tell us that can’t also be proved by the sheer range of their discography, morphing easily between punk, grunge, psychedelia, neo-psyche, and so much more?
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As someone who lurks amongst the perennially popular psych scene in Naarm/Melbourne, it is hard not to ask about how that term has influenced Wayne and the band, or if they even think of themselves in those terms.
“I don’t really consider ourselves like that. If I like somebody’s sound, I don’t think about genre at all. For example, I really like King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard but I don’t think of them as psychedelic. But if people lump us in with them, that is amazing! If people think of us also similar to Pink Floyd or something similar then that is also great. If people like your songs it doesn’t matter what ‘scene’ it is. My answer to your question would be: I hope so!”
Psych and pop have defined so much of their recent history, yet The Flaming Lips, by virtue of being around for so long, encountering the ups and downs of recent history, personal tragedies and the rollercoaster of the music industry itself, have always found ways to curb expectations of their sound.
Despite the fun and glamour of much of their discography (even after a brief era with Miley Cyrus), other albums such as The Terror have unveiled new aspects of their personalities and sound.
“Our best, most powerful music really is about the plight of the individual – that sort of unbearable humanistic sadness. There is nothing else that helps with that better than music. What we are doing when we are making that type of music is making it for ourselves.”
If you are a long-time lover of their music, you can feel that sadness linger either lyrically or sonically throughout most of their work in the early to mid-2000s. Even as they reached career-defining peaks of musical versatility, Wayne makes it clear that he knew exactly when The Flaming Lips knew that they had made it.
“Everything we ever wanted happened in the first 10 minutes of us playing. We had no mountain to climb; we never thought one day we would be on Beavis and Butthead…or win a Grammy. Everything that has ever happened to us is all extra.”
Even if The Flaming Lips are defined by a myriad of sounds and musical influences, their branding as a band who defy expectations, who exist on the border between popular and music that lies on the periphery, can be more difficult than it used to be. Even with their successes, they still find their detractors.
“People say ‘Why don’t you make music that would make you rich?’ Who would know how to do that? Instead, you just make music that you love. It is hard enough to do that anyway. The way that I would describe it is that The Flaming Lips is very similar to The Beatles, who can do Yesterday and Revolution 9 – except most of our songs are Revolution 9.”
Wayne still speaks fondly of his roots in the punk scene of the early ’80s, being the first to see those now legendary scenes and developing alongside them. “Most of the freaky bands would go through Oklahoma City, where I am from. Shows were done in rented halls for $30 and we would be the ones that would bring the PA and the microphones because we were the only ones that rehearsed with them.
“We got to be part of this whole insane underground punk scene and watch the groups that were travelling around at the time, seeing Meat Puppets, Husker Du, Black Flag, The Minutemen… They would then crash at our place.
“It was amazing to see how artists could live their lives that way – live your life as a creative person and people would just accept it. That was life-changing. When we became The Flaming Lips, being part of that scene. We knew that this was our life.”
To get tickets to see The Flaming Lips on their upcoming Australia tour, head here.
