ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE
The Kings of Existential Rock Return to the Hangout to Present Pink Floyd's
Dark Side of the Moon
When it comes to brain-searing, synapses-frying rock & roll shows, there are few modern bands who can match the cartoonish psychedelic maelstrom of Oklahoma City's the Flaming Lips. As the minds behind of some of the most visionary art-rock of the past 15 years- starting with 1999's avant-pop masterpiece The Soft Bulletin- the Lips have made a point of turning their live concerts into a symbiotic spectacle of light, sound, and theater that remains unparalleled in contemporary music. Littering their stage with giant balloons, oversized confetti canons and streamer guns, and fans dressed up in a dizzying array of costumes- with everything from space aliens, super heroes, and giant caterpillars making it into the mix- the band have managed to transform their performances into day-glo bacchanalian rave-ups that can only be described as epic in their scope and intensity. Crowning their visual onslaught with a giant LED screen flashing synchronized, high-def cinematic eye-candy behind the band as they run through crescendo after crescendo of aural delight, it is truly a sight to behold.
And whether singing songs about pink robots, the state of world affairs, or the death of a loved one, the group repeatedly go out of their way to bring a sense of levity to what can be an overwhelming physical- and mental- experience. Sublimely juxtaposing the psychological extremes of joyous revelry and existential anxiety with the prismatic pandemonium they unleash on a nightly basis, the band have pulled off an unlikely synthesis in the annals of 21st century art and music. Having tapped into the zeitgeist of hope and fear that seems to permeate our cultural politics, the Flaming Lips seem hellbent on making sure that their fans leave their events with a smile on their face and a new perspective on their place in the universe. And although P.T. Barnum may have laid claim to "The Greatest Show On Earth" years before the band ever existed, a convincing argument could be made that the title rightfully belongs to them, as the band seem to relish the idea of creating a communal freak-out of monumental proportions.
Having recently released the highly anticipated compilation album The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends- a series of wild, one-off collaborations featuring everyone from Yoko Ono, to Ke$ha and Biz Markie, and Jim James from My Morning Jacket- as part of the nationwide Record Store Day celebration, the band are ready to take their three-ring circus back out on the road for a series of summer dates, including a Sunday night closing slot at the Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores. Returning to the festival for the second year in a row to give a rare performance of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon- a thematic touchstone that could be seen as a founding document for much of the band's oeuvre- the group couldn't be happier about making their way back to the sight of one of last year's most dramatic performances.
But they're not the only ones, says festival talent buyer Todd Coder, "We couldn't be more excited about having the Flaming Lips back to the Hangout for a second year. Their show paints perfectly on the canvas of the festival, and to witness their rendition of such a classic work- like Dark Side of the Moon- on the beach is sure to be one of the highlights of this year's special event."
As a preview of the upcoming extravaganza, the AUDIOVORE spoke with lead singer Wayne Coyne about their new album, working with Yoko Ono, the influence of Pink Floyd, and why the Hangout is one of the best festivals anywhere on the planet. This is what he said....
A: You all have put out a rather remarkable series of releases over the past year or so, including a gummy skull with a four-song USB stick embedded in it, a 24-hour long track, and a piece meant to be played simultaneously on twelve smartphones. Where do you get your inspiration for such radical formatting?
WC: Well, part of it is that we just think that it would be cool. I don't think it really requires inspiration. I'm constantly around creative weirdos who think, "Wouldn't it be great, Wayne, if you put some music in a human skull?" I mean, as an idea, I think anybody would think that that's cool. You know, it's like, "Sure, that sounds great!" Luckily I live in a city where there's one of the only people- one of the only professional companies in the whole world- that allows a weirdo like myself to just come in and buy an actual human skull. And I wasn't aware of that until I went to make these. I'd been going by this place- I think they go by the name Skulls Unlimited- and they're a supplier of all these types of bones that are being cleared of all their flesh and everything, so, I think it's just by coincidence. As far as us doing gummy candy and stuff like that, I would be searching and thinking, "I like that too. How can I make this?," and someone would appear- like Eric, this guy who owns a gummy factory- and he would say, "Wayne, I love you guys, let me help you." So a lot of it is serendipitous: I'm trying to get something to work and people come to my aid and help me and that allows things to happen. And I think that's just the spirit of all the collaborations that we've done. It's not just collaborations with the music. Like making the vinyl for this record that came out on Record Store Day. I mean, we did work with this guy's record manufacturing shop in Dallas, and he dedicated two of his machines completely to us, and I had a friend of mine who's an artist in there handmaking each one of the vinyl. And it takes a lot longer than just feeding the machine automatically and it just prints out records. He did each one by hand. And it's a meticulous, time-consuming job, but it's done out of the spirit of doing all of this. And it's done because they love it and it's something very cool.
A: I was going to ask you about that. It's a rather unique set of collaborations. How did the album come about? How did you decide on the artists you wanted to work with?
WC: Well, I don't think we really knew going back more than a year ago. We were simply in this mode of releasing something every month. Part of us thought that it would just be kind of boring after three or four months just to get another Flaming Lips song….or two, or three. So, we thought, we'll try and make every other month be with one of our friends, or some group that we've run into, and we would make them into one of these one-off collaboration things. And then, as it went, it eventually became an interesting part of what we were doing. All of these are kind of limited releases. All of the collaborations that we've done have only been released on vinyl, and some of them are only 2,000 copies. So, they would go quite quickly and not very many people would be able to get them, because frankly, they wouldn't make it to very many record stores before people would buy them up. So, I think all along there's been a little bit of a desire to make it more available. And then, as the year started, we thought, "Well, why don't we see if we could do a bigger release on Record Store Day."
And- I have to tell you- this was long before I knew that I was going to work with Bon Iver, or Edward Sharpe, or Ke$ha, or Jim James, or Chris Martin. I mean, there are six or seven that are on this thing that I didn't even know I was going to be doing anything with until the very end of January. I just kept trying and trying. So, there's a lot of it that's just been pure panic over problems of seeing if we can get these people to do this or that. So, I think that's what makes it really great: a lot of this was simply done on the spot. Which can make it good or bad, but sometimes that makes some of the greatest, unique music. And, you know, I wish that wasn't true. I wish that you could just sit in a room and think, and think, and think, and would come up with something better, but sometimes that's just not true. Sometimes things just happen in the spirit, and the energy, and the creativity that's happening right there and it's just wonderful. So, I think part of us knows that that has the potential to happen. And, of course, sometimes nothing happens and it's boring. But I tell you, I think it's something really, really special. We tried to collect what we feel like are some really stellar moments, like, "Here is the best junk that happened when we got together with everybody."
A: What was it like working with Yoko Ono?
WC: Well, Yoko is one of those that most of the stuff we did with her was just simply over e-mails and computers. We worked with Sean- her son- and his group the Plastic Ono Band, but Yoko was in Japan the day we worked with him, so that was a little bit weird because we're working with a real group but Yoko wasn't part of it. But Yoko was involved by us sending her tracks and she would send us tracks back- and she would have a lot of opinions and say-so about what happened- but it wasn't as though we were standing there with her. I mean like with Nick Cave….I know Nick Cave and I've been around him, and when we went to record he was one of those that we really did in a studio with people- like Neon Indian, Lightning Bolt, and Ke$ha….there's quite a few of them. I don't think we could have done this many this quickly if we were trying every time to be standing in the same room at the same time. Some of these people are just too busy. I mean, Chris Martin, and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and Jim James of My Morning Jacket were all three at the Grammys at the same time while I'm texting and talking to them about the music that we're making, so it wasn't as though many of these people were "recording" when I was dealing with them. They were doing other things and we were just doing this happenstance and any way we could get the recording done. But I wasn't really aware of it. I know that everybody's busy, so I just got to work to see what we could do. Luckily, through e-mails and through the computer you can really do tons and tons of great music and have it released in the same month together.
A: You actually got to perform with Yoko a few months ago as part of your annual New Year's Eve extravaganza in Oklahoma City. Seemed like quite an event….
WC: Well…the idea that someone like myself- and here's what you have to remember, I mean, I'm 51 years old, so I grew up with my older brother loving the Beatles and loving Yoko Ono and all that- so to actually be able to be around her and play a show of that magnitude with her was incredible. And there were two shows, so we really had some time together. And we had played shows before with Sean and his group, and he's beautiful as well. Really just wonderful people to be lucky enough to be around. I mean, to know that they are this living connection to John Lennon…it's just amazing. You know, whenever we do a New Year's show- obviously it's a big Flaming Lips extravaganza- but there's always an extra thing that we do. And this past year we did a series of these John Lennon/Beatles songs- songs that we just subconsciously play in our mind all the time anyway- and we did "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," which is a song John wrote at the peak of being in love with Yoko Ono. So, to play that song while Sean and Yoko stand just eight feet away from you watching you play it onstage was a pretty powerful experience.
A: As a band that seems to put a high premium on original music, you guys really seem to enjoy the idea of covering other people's music as well. What is it about the cover song that you all find so appealing?
WC: Well, I think that it's a great compliment. I don't necessarily think the things I create are all that good, but occasionally something really special happens, and I'm an obsessive, creative freak. I'm not proud of that, I just know that it's in my nature to do things, so I think a by-product of that is that we do make a lot of original music. I don't know if it's always good music, but it's original. But I love, love, love music, and any group that's been together as long as the Flaming Lips have been together- almost 30 years next year- you have the luxury of exploring not just your own music….but….we have a lot of time to consider, "How is this other music made?" and "What did they do?," because we're curious…. we're interested. And when you get to meet someone like a Yoko Ono, or be around someone like a Sean Lennon, you just talk to them about how things are done and how they did the work. That's just the nature of curiosity. I don't think you could love music as much as we do and not almost be compelled to play this music that you love if you're able to. I mean, I'm not a very good musician, so I can't always play other people's music. But someone like Steven [Drozd], he can play any music ever. He can play Igor Stravinsky. He can play Miles Davis. He's that calibre of musician where he can play anything. So, I think we're really lucky to have this combination of one of the great living masters of music, and then you've got me who's just the fucking weirdo and I'm lucky that I get to play any type of music that I can dream of….
A: Is there an art to the cover song?
WC: Well, I don't know. The way we do it, we take the creation of the song very serious, because we know how all the lucky accidents- and how many little things- happen that are not always your intention. There's what you're trying to do, but then if you're lucky- the way we do music- we accept everything that happens to our music as we're making it, because we think it makes it better. We think it makes it more human and makes it…special. We don't really want to have to think of everything before it happens. I mean, I think this would also be true when you talk to people that write novels. You know, they have an idea of what they're going to say, but of course they don't have the words before they say it, they just start going. And sometimes a whole chapter gets written before they even know what's going on. Painting is like this. All things are like this. You kind of know what you're doing, but if you're lucky, you kind of get into a sleepwalker's state of mind and you're going into it and creating and you're not actually doing it consciously. It's happening and you're letting it happen. So, to me, when I hear other people's music I always try and think, "We can't change that bit of it." You know, there's times when we know we can change the dynamic, or we can change the drama, or some of the big sounds and make them different. But then there are other times where there would be things that we would not change. And it depends on the song.
And, you know, when we would talk about doing something like a Beatles song, most people living today never saw the Beatles play. I almost never run into someone who saw the Beatles play. But a big portion of the their catalog is stuff that they never even played live because they stopped being a live group pretty early on. So when we would do something like cover a song like "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," we would do it as much like the record as you can. That's not to say that I can sing like John Lennon or we can play exactly like Ringo Starr, but we would play it like what you think would happen. We'd play it with some dynamic- and with emotion and feeling and all that- but we wouldn't think that we'd want to change it. The only thing that we changed about it is like when we played "She's So Heavy" in concert we made it 15 minutes long. I mean, on the record it's only like six minutes, but we always got the feeling that they played it, and played it, and played it, because you really do get kind of possessed with this riff. You kind of get hypnotized by it. It's not easy to stop once you're into it because it's kind of energizing you every time you go through it. So we kind of felt like that was us taking some liberties and saying, "We think it could last 15 minutes and still be a really intense experience."
A: Speaking of cover songs…you all will be returning to the Hangout Festival for the second year in a row to give a rare performance of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. How big of a touchstone is Floyd in terms of your music? Do you see a lineage between them and the Flaming Lips?
WC: Well yeah, I mean, there's a whole slew of groups who wouldn't even know to exist if it wasn't for a group like Pink Floyd. Even with their popular music- and we're playing Dark Side of the Moon, which is arguably their most popular music- it's really the idea of Pink Floyd. Even starting with Syd Barrett, it was very punk rock and art-oriented and anybody who's interested in experimental art would love a group like Pink Floyd. I don't know why you wouldn't. For us, a lot of the reasons we started as a group were based in this punk rock idea of doing music. But not just doing punk rock. Because we love punk rock, but more than we love punk rock, we love the idea of punk rock: meaning you could just make any music you wanted to and you didn't really have to be a very good musician. I mean, currently I play with some of the greatest living musicians there are, but I myself come from this idea that I just like this voice in music and I'm not really sure how to make it. And Pink Floyd evolved into a very sophisticated musical group, but I think at their core anything can happen. You know, like, "Let's accept any kind of art. Let's make our music any way that we want." There's anarchy, and there's love, and there's all these things that make it remarkable. So, yeah. But I know a lot of groups that we talk to- even if their music doesn't sound like Pink Floyd- love Pink Floyd, because it's all about everything. You know, it's not just music, it's a performance….it's a show. It's evoking so many things.
A: There seems to be some common narrative themes running throughout both….life and death, darkness and light, madness.
WC: Well, yeah. I think that's basically the nature of that type of artist. You know, when you're so insecure- and I'm not paralyzed by insecurity- but when you think about your place in the world and in existence, usually the things that you sing about are the horrible, uncontrollable things that you can't do anything about. So, for me, I'm rarely writing about things that are silly and fun- like having sex and stuff like that- because I kind of do that all the time anyway [laughs]. So the things I can't control are, you know, going insane and death in my family. Things that are like, "Oh my god, I can't do anything about that," those are the things I sing about. So, I just think that's the nature of that kind of artist. Most artists I know do the exact same thing. The things they can control they're not worried about that much. I'm not going to sing about always having a good time. I'm singing about, "Oh my god, what's going to happen? I'm scared. I don't know what's going to happen to my family or my mind." I have questions about the nature of existence and the nature of reality that I can't just sit there and forget about. I think that's what everybody does. Well, not everybody. A lot of people sing about sex and things- you know, these "great" moments- but, I guess to me, I don't feel an urge to sing- or think- about those things, because- the way the mechanism in my mind works- I'm usually thinking about things that drive me crazy. Like, "I don't know what to do," or things about insanity and death, or depression and isolation….those sorts of things. I mean, we get tied up with sex and desire and all that, but I'm not really singing about "I need to go fuck this gal"….[laughs]. I should though.
A: You all radically reinterpreted the album when you released it as a record a couple of years ago, but have also done some more straight ahead versions of some of the songs in concert. What can fans expect from your performance in Gulf Shores?
WC: Well, you're exactly right. When we went to go record Dark Side of the Moon you have to remember it was all very spur of the moment. We were really just doing it as an extra bonus thing that you could get when you bought one of our previous records on iTunes. So, we didn't really feel like we were constricted to playing something like Pink Floyd. I mean, we knew we were doing Dark Side of the Moon, but- some of the songs- I think you can hear them and still not really be sure what it is and then you figure out, "Oh, that's a Pink Floyd song." But, when we go play in front of people we want them to know this is this Pink Floyd song. I think most of it now we play pretty straightforward. I don't mean straightforward like we don't allow there to be any tension or drama, but we play what you would recognize as those songs to the best of our abilities. I mean, I don't want to be playing "Money"- a song that everybody knows- and people not know that we're playing it. You know, I've been to shows where groups do that and I don't like it. I mean, if it's a song that I know, I want to have the song roll over me as it's being played and have it triggering my memory and my experience all at the same time. So, we're aware of that. The songs that we really tripped out on the record we change to be more like something recognizable as a Pink Floyd song, just with us doing it. Then we add in these layers within the performance of The Wizard of Oz. We put in probably- I don't know- five or six references to that as well, because we're a part of that stoner folklore of putting on the movie while playing the record and sort of marveling at all the little coincidences that happen between the lyrics and the movie. And we love those sorts of things. It's all very visual, and it's all very drug-oriented, and it's all very fun to do. You know, there's a lot of really great music within The Wizard of Oz that talks about loneliness, and your place in the world and all that, so there's a lot of great connections to a lot of the great music out there. So, I think that it's a very Flaming Lips world to think that we could do music like The Wizard of Oz and we could also do music like Pink Floyd. I think it's what the Flaming Lips are all about any way.
A: Finally, as someone who has played music festivals all over the world, I was wondering what you thought about the Hangout. How does it stack up in terms of other venues/spaces you've played? As a band who loves to provide an unforgettable experience for their audience, it seems like the perfect setting for you all. Are you excited to come back?
WC: Well, I can't speak for what it's like when we're not there, but when we were at the Hangout last year, it was just the perfect moment. You know, I kind of got the feeling that everybody was waiting for this thing to happen. And when we came onstage and started playing- as cornball as it sounds- it was like, "Dude, now the party is here." And you just don't always get that feeling like, alright, when you think about all the things that are happening in the world, you think, "We're in one of the fucking coolest places in the world you could be at right now." In the whole world. And with everything that exists out there this is one of the places you should be right now. And that was the feeling we got last year, like, "Fuck. That's cool." And that's not necessarily just because of the festival. It's the people, it's the time, it's the weather, it's the drugs. It's a lot of things coming together and we're lucky enough to say, "We're gonna play this music where we all have this great couple of hours together." And then of course you go swimming and you've got the beach and it's summertime. And you know, not all festivals are lucky enough to get all those elements and that energy. These are things that are corny to talk about, but there has to be a little bit of a vibe of people communing with each other. That that happens. That there is an element of love, and energy, and care, and all these things that can sound a little bit cosmic when you speak about them, but really I think they're quite true.
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