The Flaming Lips |
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Fri. November 15.2002 3:35 PM EST |
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Flaming Lips: Beck-backing Pink Robots Kill Audience!Oklahoma mad scientists explain the power of imagination. by Gil Kaufman |
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The Flaming Lips (VH1.com) |
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The Flaming Lips don’t heed no steenkin’ rules. If they did, they might not have released a four-disc set meant to be played simultaneously, or created a parking garage symphony that used 40 car stereos, or harbored dreams of building a stage that
Right now they're both the opening act and backing band for Beck's current tour. But fear not. Wayne Coyne, Michael Ivins and Steven Drozd are still crazy after all these years, gleefully frying brains with a live show that combines huge disco balls, confetti, two dozen fans in plushy animal costumes, smoke machines and films of Japanese schoolgirls spraying each other with automatic weapons. Still the most unlikely band on a major label ("We expect every album to fail ... that’s what albums do" Coyne says), the Lips are having a ball. Despite a brush with vehicular death during our conversation, Coyne waxes rhapsodic on wading into the big time music biz machine, not doing drugs to feed your head and drawing up plans for the ultimate killer live show. VH1: Whose idea was it to go out with Beck? Wayne Coyne: It was Beck’s idea. We’ve tried to get him to reveal to us why he thought it would be a good idea, or if he still thinks it’s a good idea [laughs]. I think he thought to make it simpler he’d just call people who were already a band who can probably play his material and see if they’d do it. He figured I’d be up for it because I seek out the weird and unique moments for our career. VH1: What were those first rehearsals like? Was there a period of adjustment? Coyne: We didn’t really know him. If I saw him at a festival we’d say, “Hey.” I know he’s a fan of ours and he knows I’m a fan of his. Initially, we thought maybe he’d come to Oklahoma. But little by little, we started to see how [there’s a] very Hollywood music-business [scene] oriented around him. You get a rehearsal space and next to you is one of those scary metal bands that dress up in silver-and-red make-up. Nice fellas, but very big-time music biz. Kelly Osbourne was having auditions in the space next door. Everyone is driven up in limousines and is accompanied by a big entourage that will kiss their ass. VH1: How do you guys fit into that? Coyne: It goes exactly against the idea of what we’re about, not because we think that stuff is repulsive, but because that stuff is repulsive. It’s just people showing up to rehearse music; it’s not a meeting of the United Nations! That’s just not how normal people live. We just laugh at it some days. VH1: Can you think of any other artists you’d like to do this with? Coyne: We could do this type of thing with Björk and play her music. Maybe David Bowie. We’ve thought about it a lot, which is why we were up for it when Beck called. We did it with Richard Davies in 1995, us behind a singer/songwriter, much like this tour. VH1: You’ve said The Soft Bulletin was getting away from space lasers and monsters to find a more human side of things. On Yoshimi you’re back singing about robots and lasers. Why? Coyne: Excluding all that fantastical imagery from stories is just another trap you fall into. I don’t pick and choose where it will go. To come up with something as silly as Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots ... that imagery is just irresistible. VH1: Is it a concept record or not? Coyne: When I think of concept record, I think of going in with a story and making songs that will tell that story. We’ve never done that. I’ve done many records where it could go either way. What you call it and the cover and lyrics are a powerful aspect of what you’re trying to communicate to the audience. I knew that if I had a song or two on the record called Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and titled it that and put that cover on there, it would feel like all these things are telling a story. VH1: Is Yoshimi based on Yoshimi Yokota, the drummer with the Japanese band the Boredoms? Coyne: That’s how it started out. I had some crazy screaming she’d done over one of our songs. It sounded like she was fighting or having sex with this horrible machine. I thought of the title and people thought that could sound either menacing or sexual. I thought, ‘That’ll work.’ VH1: You’ve just released two compilations of old material - Finally, The Punk Rockers are Taking Acid and the two-disc The Day They Shot a Hole in the Jesus Egg. Did listening to your first five albums inspire a reappraisal of your career? Coyne: I don’t think I ever listened to it in one bulk. It’s too much abrasive amateurism to sit through at one time! When I hear the first couple of albums I’m just rolling on the ground, thinking, “I can’t believe these guys. I can’t believe how much enthusiasm they have and how little skill. But they seem to win out in the end through sheer will.” VH1: Did anything surprise you about them? Coyne: Sometimes I am shocked at the variety. You can hear us being into druggy psychedelia, then it gets to be more Sonic Youth/Butthole Surfers-oriented. That’s what saved us. We were never impressed enough with what we’d done to say, ‘We should make 20 records like that.’ VH1: People assume you take a lot of drugs. Why are wild imaginations always tied to chemical excess? Coyne: People think it’s a superhuman quality to have that much imagination. They’d rather accept that it’s the drugs you take – whether its Keith Richards and heroin or Syd Barrett and LSD - rather than determination and hard work. People are elated when they find out that someone who runs the 100-yard dash in eight seconds flat is using steroids. And in a way, we loved the idea of being drug-damaged weirdoes. In the early days, even though we weren’t really on drugs, we would show up looking like drug addicts. We wouldn’t eat much, we’d smell bad and we’d play this horrible racket. Why else would we be doing it? VH1: So you really weren’t on drugs as often as it seemed? Coyne: No. We were around a lot of people who took drugs all the time, but Michael and I never really did. We’ve experimented here and there, but nothing close to what most people would consider drug taking. Steven was a heroin addict for six or seven years, though. VH1: So the Lips’ secret really is just a cracked imagination? Coyne: I don’t even think I have a cracked imagination. Thinking of absurd things is what imagination is for. The other side of imagination is doing what you think about. A lot of people think of things; I just happen to do them. VH1: What’s one stunt you’ve always wanted to pull but couldn’t because it was too expensive or dangerous? Coyne: We talk nightly about having a stage, where – as we’re playing a big Barry Manilow-type ending to one of our songs – the stage will roll out and crush the audience! Of course we could never do it because we’d destroy our audience every night. It’s too far out, isn’t it? I’m still thinking about it, though. VH1: What TV shows fueled your passion for science fiction? Coyne: You can see the combination of The Wizard of Oz, 2001 and The Twilight Zone in the way we do things. When I was really young, there was no cable or videos so you saw what was on TV and, luckily, The Wizard of Oz came on every year around Easter. I probably saw it eight or nine times, so I got to know it pretty well. When 2001 came out it was a big deal, with people going to see it every week and taking drugs. I remember the summer when they landed on the moon, the year before that Robert Kennedy was killed. The Beatles were making great records. There were great moments when I was eight or nine that I’m always trying to get back to in a subconscious way. It’s the things that influenced you when you don’t know you’re being influenced. |
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