Axl Rose! Cat Stevens! Songs to sing at funerals! As a Twentieth-anniversary boxset expands the technicolour universe of THE FLAMING LIPS’ Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, WAYNE COYNE reveals the actual story of how his band of freaks inherited the Earth. “We simply embraced all of it, and did it our method,” learns Sam Richards, within the newest problem of Uncut journal – in UK retailers from Thursday, October 13 and available for purchase from our on-line retailer.
When Wayne Coyne solutions our FaceTime name, he’s simply leaving his native ironmongery shop. Presumably he’s a valued buyer – down the years, Coyne has personally constructed lots of The Flaming Lips’ fantasy environments, from the 10-foot-tall chrome head set up that impressed King’s Mouth to the makeshift movie units round Oklahoma Metropolis the place he filmed Christmas On Mars. “We don’t have a manufacturing firm,” Coyne grins, nonetheless self-sufficient in spite of everything these years. “It’s simply us weirdos, you realize?”
At 61, his artistic spark stays undimmed. Having simply painted a complete new sequence of covers for the upcoming deluxe reissue of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots – Uncut’s Album Of The Yr in 2002 – he reveals that he’s additionally midway by means of making a 300-page graphic novel telling the story of the album. The Lips have been touring laborious all summer season and the follow-up to 2020’s American Head can be starting to occupy his ideas. On prime of all of it, Coyne is now the daddy of two boys, Bloom (aged three) and Rex (six months). “I’m the luckiest dude who’s ever been alive, it’s simply superb,” he says. The truth is, the entire household are about to drive to a competition that the Lips are headlining in Arkansas. “We take them all over the place as a lot as we will, that’s simply our life.”
Coyne didn’t have any hesitations about introducing his youngsters to the Lips’ travelling circus. “It’s not a nasty factor to be round,” he insists. “I see cool individuals which might be laughing and having a good time and utilizing their enthusiasm and their power. We’ve got an incredible crew and everyone within the group is enjoyable. You realize, [playing live] shouldn’t must be some severe, demanding factor the place you need to take so many medication to get by means of it. It’s fucking music, it’s superb!”
And in a method, The Flaming Lips’ stage present, with its large bubbles and inflatable unicorns, has change into one thing of a psychedelic soft-play zone. “I can see that in case you’re three, you could possibly prefer it. And in case you’re the proper of 30-year-old you’d prefer it, and in case you’re the proper of 90-year-old you’d prefer it, so it’s nice.” The identical might be stated of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots itself, a multi-hued Twenty first- century quasi-concept traditional. It accommodates hummable anthems, common sentiments and vaudeville songwriting tips, but in addition makes room for trip-hop instrumentals and a Japanese experimental musician screaming. Twenty years on, it feels just like the second the Lips grew to become a part of the cultural firmament, permitting them to go on and do just about something and all the pieces they wished.
It even bagged the band a Grammy – though as Coyne reminds us, they didn’t really win the award for Yoshimi… as a complete, however for its blissed-out closing monitor, “Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon”, which triumphed within the Finest Rock Instrumental class. “We solely went to the Grammys as a result of it’s absurd to take a seat there with Tony Bennett and Slash,” he laughs. “However as soon as we gained, all that modifications. Immediately, you’re not the weirdo within the room – you’re simply within the room. Which is nice. I imply, you don’t actually need to simply be doing the identical factor, 12 months after 12 months after 12 months. We’ve been round an extended, very long time. However fortunately, each 5 or 6 years, it’s a bit little bit of a brand new world.”
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