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What is your relationship to Oklahoma City at this point? The band
has been based there for more than two decades.
Well, all the young, outsider hipsters from 15 years ago, now we run the
place. So now instead of being this weird, underground band, we're everybody's
favorite band. We were on the cover of the state magazine a few years ago -- and
this is a magazine that's about vacation spots or the senator's wife or
whatever. And all these people read that that said, "You guys are the greatest
thing since Will Rogers!" This idea that people can just drive
by and say, "That's Wayne's house from the Flaming Lips" -- I never would have
thought that would matter to anybody, but I can see that it does.
"There are just things you respond to as a human -- confetti,
balloons, naked women. They just work, and we're letting you know that this is a
show that's designed to connect all of us, right here, right now."
--Wayne Coyne Coming from Oklahoma also literally makes it seem like we came from outer
space. There's this cliché idea of what someone from Oklahoma is like. I never
realized that people had this fixed idea, but the idea that the Flaming Lips
come from Oklahoma is as much in people's minds as the idea that Santa Claus
comes from the North Pole.
I think Oklahoma has done a lot more for me than I've done for it. It gives a
whole sense of me being this futuristic farmer, that I do the work myself -- in
L.A. or New York, I'd look like some nit-picking perfectionist. But instead
there's this sense that I've got dirt under my nails, that the work ethic makes
it feel more authentic. And, you know, I'd rather be compared to Will Rogers
than to Will Smith.
I was talking to film director Jim Jarmusch after your set at
Bonnaroo, and he pointed out that you create this whole magic spectacle out of
balloons and confetti and stuff that could just be cheesy junk in someone else's
hands.
Yeah, when I see other bands do those things, I think, there's a way to do it
and not feel like a Sweet 16 birthday bash. We're not trying to look like some
overly polished, futuristic machine -- you can see how it's all done and that
the magic really comes from all of us. It's all normal stuff, you've seen it a
million times, but I want to see the marvel in it.
There are just things you respond to as a human -- confetti, balloons, naked
women. They just work, and we're letting you know that this is a show that's
designed to connect all of us, right here, right now. People maybe have never
screamed for a song they like, or waved their arms, but they do it because it's
fun. And the show is designed to diminish you and make your coolness
insignificant and let the moment rule us.
Do you consciously set out to break away from that usual
rock-and-roll ideal of coolness?
At some point, that is what makes you cool. You don't go off on your own
because you've seen all the other paths and decide that you like this one best.
You just do what you like to do. This idea of ambition, of not being afraid of
failure, that should be the whole idea of rock and roll. But instead, all these
bands end up sounding the same and looking the same.
At about 34, 35 years old, I just realized I didn't care about looking cool
anymore. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. Now, that's easy to say when
it turns out people like it! But in life, there are always things you want to
do, but you worry about how it would make you look. How many times, when you're
young and you're in love with some girl, you don't do anything about it because
you're afraid of looking stupid? If there's any place where you should say f***
that, it should be art.
The thing I hate most about rock and roll is if it's too calculated, too
cool. I hope kids see me at 47 years old and see me as some old freak. Not
think, I wish that guy was my dad, but think, this is a f****** weirdo, this is
like seeing a polar bear at the zoo.
At Bonnaroo, these kids save up all year for it and come looking for this
whole experience. I take that as a great obligation, and I want to show that
we're not f****** around, that we're giving them our entire life, our entire
devotion and energy, and I hope they remember us when they're 90 years old. I
hate when bands play and it's all about themselves. When the Flaming Lips play,
it's almost exclusively about the audience. We come to be there with them. That
might sound hokey, but f*** it.
Where did the idea for the UFO come from -- and why didn't you just
see if you could rent George Clinton's Mothership?
I first said it almost flippantly, because people would ask how we're going
to top our shows, and I said maybe we should do a spaceship like P-Funk. I never
even knew how they did it or how big it was. And immediately people thought it
would be great. I drew a picture of what it might look like, but I never even
considered that it would be a real thing. But after this was out there,
everywhere I went, kids would say, "Man, I can't wait to see the spaceship. When
are you gonna do that?" And having that deadline was kinda good, it's like the
Olympics or something -- all the pressure and the stress can make something
special happen. But nobody had any real clue how to actually do it.
Then after a show in San Diego, I was talking to some fans, and I noticed
this giant truss hanging down over the stage. I thought, maybe we could do the
UFO like that. So we started to work from there, we got this truss and started
putting lights on it, but it mostly started through this dumb
stream-of-consciousness, "What if?" kind of thing.
It seems that "The Soft Bulletin" album was a real turning point for
the band -- the moment you decided to get more serious about your songs and your
recording and the whole project of the Flaming Lips.
That was a defining moment, for sure. Before that, we were this weird rock
band but we never took it as, this is our life. And with "The Soft Bulletin," we really thought it was going
to be our last record -- I don't really know why -- we just always thought
people were about to be finished with us. But we didn't want that to be
defeatist. More like, let's go out like Ben-Hur, or like Christ on the cross,
and really go all the way. And once you go into that realm, you really don't
ever leave it again.
Once you have that sense of realizing a vision, the satisfaction that comes
from stupid, excessive art, the idea that you can be ambitious and fail -- I
think failure is really the only way you can learn anything. You try something
and you fail and you get smarter, braver, more human. And I think the audience
knew that and felt that. We're just a little weirdo band, but we think we can do
something that speaks to the human condition, and not be pretentious. Maybe if I
was David Bowie it would come off differently, but I'm just Wayne from Oklahoma,
just trying to entertain.
Also we were singing almost exclusively about death, and that because of
death, we understand life. But I don't want to pummel people with my experience;
I want them to be more awe, more wonder of life. That death is beautiful, not
some horrible thing. So between the confetti, the balloons, the puppet on my
hand and the message, we struck this new area that maybe no one else could.
In that context -- this old guy singing about death with a puppet on his hand
-- it was a way for the Flaming Lips to finally communicate this one single,
small idea. And it is a small thing, but it takes all the big things coming
together for people to really think, "I don't know what I just saw, but it was
cool."
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