Latest / Kyle Meredith With... / Rewind: Wayne Coyne on King’s Mouth, Miley Cyrus and Kesha, and the Dark Side of The Flaming Lips

Transcript

Rewind: Wayne Coyne on King’s Mouth, Miley Cyrus and Kesha, and the Dark Side of The Flaming Lips · Kyle Meredith With...

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1:03
[SPEAKER_03]: as well.
1:03
[SPEAKER_03]: We've had some great guests here.
1:04
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, talk to a lot of the cast from Alien Earth, the new series on FX, including Timothy Olifant, City Chandler, David Rizzdahl, director and showrunner Noah Holly.
1:19
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... we had dvo drop by mark mother's ball in jerry cassale we talked with uh... dj shadow black eyed peas agendita kovsky he's the uh... he's the legendary animator behind dexter's laboratory in samurai jack and star was cloned wars he's back in a new Netflix film
1:37
[SPEAKER_03]: called Fixed.
1:39
[SPEAKER_03]: We talked with Amy Berg, the filmmaker behind the new documentary.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's never over Jeff Buckley.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Just an example of what you get when you subscribe to the Kyle Meredith with podcast.
1:52
[SPEAKER_03]: That's me Kyle Meredith today.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's a special rewind episode where looking back at three of my interviews with my friend Wayne Coin.
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[SPEAKER_03]: The mad scientist you'd get if Willy Wonka ran a psychedelic rock band.
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[SPEAKER_03]: He's a co-founder, front man of the flaming lips, a group that's been turning confetti cannons, hamster balls.
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[SPEAKER_03]: songs about mortality into art rock theaters since the early eighties, uh, Wayne started out as a fry cook at long john silvers before trading hush puppies for a hallucinogens, steering the lips from underground weirdos to Grammy winning weirdos with albums like the soft bulletin and Yoshimi battles the pink robots.
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[SPEAKER_03]: known for his childlike sense of wonder, and his knack for making even a song about death, sound like a sing-along.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Wayne Coins has likely to show up on stage in a space suit as he is to drop an album packed inside a gummy skull.
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[SPEAKER_03]: In short, a true psychedelic ringmaster who made weird go mainstream.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I've been very lucky to have him on my show, plenty, plenty of times.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to focus on three interviews for this rewind episode.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to start back in twenty thirteen, just as the album The Terror arrived.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Wayne and I talked about the band's darker sound for that record, the new stage show that accompanied it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: the balance between artistic obsession and personal life.
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[SPEAKER_03]: He went on to reflect on legacy, the myth of the rock star persona, and why the flaming lips of fans expect an even thrive on change.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So here is part one of this special rewind episode.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Kyle Meredith with Wayne Coin of the Flaming Lips.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Hello, everybody.
3:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello, Kyle.
3:32
[SPEAKER_03]: It is great to have you here.
3:33
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, four cast with twenty-third.
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[SPEAKER_03]: But you should say, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_03]: On the, a mighty Ohio River.
3:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
3:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And the messy Ohio River.
3:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it doesn't usually look like that.
3:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It, you know, it takes a flood to bring in the, uh, to bring in the nastiness, to bring out cleanness.
3:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it looks bad, but I think it's just a bunch of limbs and wood.
3:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not, it's not a horrible, horrible trash.
3:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a good, you don't have the, uh, the legendaryness of like the, uh, the Mississippi, but, you know, we're proud of it.
3:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I thought it was the Mississippi.
4:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's so big.
4:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
4:01
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's a family of ducts right down there.
4:03
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a little babies and stuff.
4:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's not as hazardous as it may look.
4:07
[SPEAKER_04]: They're living fine.
4:08
[SPEAKER_04]: They are.
4:09
[SPEAKER_04]: They're living fine.
4:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
4:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let's get into it.
4:11
[SPEAKER_03]: When you're thirteen here, well, heck, I mean, the whole thing.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I think you guys have one of the amazing careers of consistency.
4:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I see it.
4:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
4:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
4:19
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I don't we should stop.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I know we think about that all the time of life.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know that you don't know that you have to.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, the way things go, you know, the bands take off a second, but it doesn't seem like you guys ever do, and I don't know what, it feels like you almost have to be a mad man to pull off this kind of lifestyle.
4:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, thank you for saying that.
4:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I think, you know, there is something too when you get down, when you talk to artists, and I don't mean necessarily that bands aren't artists, but you know, the way that artists work is a lot, unfortunately,
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[SPEAKER_04]: You know, a lot of it's just like every day you get up and do this thing.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And that's how something you would do anyway.
4:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It is.
5:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It is.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But people think that they're wrong.
5:04
[SPEAKER_04]: They think that you sit around wait for some inspiration and then you go and do it.
5:08
[SPEAKER_04]: But you can't.
5:09
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's foxes in right there.
5:12
[SPEAKER_04]: But you just got to get up and do your thing.
5:15
[SPEAKER_04]: all the time.
5:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I think if you if something happens you're you know it's a luck it's you then you can really roll with it and I and it's part of it is I think I'm just really obsessed you know I'm and because I'm not doing music all the time you've got all the projects all kind of stuff and and and and people in my studio all the time and I'm kind of producing and all that sort of stuff and I love all that so um and the way that we play you know we kind of are always playing but we never
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[SPEAKER_04]: We're never playing like six months in a row.
5:46
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like some groups will go out and they'll play for forever and then they'll take forever off.
5:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't know about five years ago, we stopped doing that.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Just because it became, I mean, Stephen has a couple of kids that are really still pretty little.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And so we decided that we would just treat it like we work down the street at Target or McDonald's or something.
6:09
[SPEAKER_02]: After three decades, you know, of doing that in a mound of hits, I'm not sure you have to.
6:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think for some people it makes a lot of sense because they go out and they play everywhere and then you don't see them for a couple of years.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Or it's just the way you get the machine geared up.
6:23
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of equipment and a lot of guys and a lot of stuff that has to be taken around.
6:29
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think we're just lucky that as we went, we own all the stuff, we have our own big warehouse and I think it's just luck that it's worked out that we're kind of like a family circus.
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[SPEAKER_04]: We go out and do the thing when we want to as opposed to the demand of the touring schedule.
6:45
[SPEAKER_04]: But that can, I think that sort of schedule sometimes really can defeat groups.
6:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a long, long commitment and it's not always that much fun and people get sick and there's, you know, there's drugs and things involved and so yeah, it can be a struggle.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I think people fans are learning that too.
7:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned something a minute ago, it kind of like the way a you know a fans perception of you guys would be.
7:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's something about that too because they do have these expectations of what you're doing.
7:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And who you are and what all this is and there's got to be a point where I guess it's the performer versus your own person.
7:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean you're the front.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So for me it's all the same.
7:23
[SPEAKER_04]: You know it's not I don't really go up there.
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[SPEAKER_04]: or even sit here with you and think, well, I've got to be this dude, I mean, I'm just, so there's never an act that it ever goes into it.
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[SPEAKER_04]: When you're a creative person on top of it, so I mean, I think if you're lucky, you know, the things that you're doing and the person you are and all that, I mean, they are the same thing and I think that's why
7:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, I mean, I don't want to say it's not a big deal, but I mean, this is just what we did.
7:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess it's the theatrics of the whole rock star, you know?
7:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, and I know what people mean.
7:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I've been around people who, and this is not necessarily a bad thing, but there's an air pretending in the whole thing, you know, or there's image about it, but I don't like to think we are about that anymore.
8:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Bowie comes to mind a little bit on that, you know?
8:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he kind of has that thing, and
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that actually brings up another fine point, you know, once again three decades in you're going to the fourth decade as a flamingo.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think of just beginning.
8:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think most artists, you know, at some point you'll lose that creative streak and you know, and Bowie comes to mind something that doesn't wear as the stones, you know, oh, you want a new song.
8:32
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just going to write, start me up one more time differently.
8:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And you guys have passed that.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think in defense of anybody out there.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I'm sure they're just doing what they like.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And I think everybody's entitled at some point to say, you know.
8:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Dude, hi!
8:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I mean, that's what I'm doing.
8:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not doing it because I think it's making the world a better play, so it's progressing the world of ideas along.
9:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just doing it because I want to.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's, I'm hoping that that's what everybody does.
9:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And especially someone like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, I mean, I hope that they get up when they're seven years old and say, I still like playing music and what does it matter?
9:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I don't think what we're doing is different what they're doing.
9:19
[SPEAKER_04]: They're probably doing what they like.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Same way, say we are, you know.
9:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think we're really lucky that we do have this curiosity about what is out there.
9:28
[SPEAKER_04]: What do we want to do?
9:29
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't have to do the same thing over.
9:31
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think we're lucky that the thing that we've never been mega successful.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And so I can understand where it would be very tempting for
9:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, if someone came up and said, you know, the thing that you do, you do it so well that you can make a million dollars a week doing it.
9:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you change, you might not make a mistake, you know?
9:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And you would probably say, well, gee, you know, I could be a little unsatisfied and make a million dollars.
9:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, I mean, and those aren't things you could judge before it happens.
10:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So for us, we've done things here and there.
10:06
[SPEAKER_04]: where we thought, well, we'll take the money as opposed to doing what we want.
10:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was just so horribly unsatisfying that we wouldn't do it again.
10:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But no one has come up and said, we'll give you a million dollars either.
10:17
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll say, what with a terrorist, a great example, the terror in the brand new record of you guys really changing on a dime whenever you want to.
10:24
[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of started with the record before this, too.
10:27
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know,
10:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I think every review I read, it seems like everyone's kind of crunching on one thing with a tear and saying, it's a dark breakfast.
10:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, yeah.
10:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't understand.
10:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you're the one in it.
10:39
[SPEAKER_04]: You're the one who's living in the record.
10:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You're the one seeing the record.
10:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think.
10:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think we discovered a couple of different ways of recording.
10:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We have this little synthesizer that we got from Sean London.
10:53
[SPEAKER_04]: We're at his studio.
10:54
[SPEAKER_04]: We started playing around with it.
10:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think
10:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Part of it's appeal, this little synthesizer, it's a really old synthesizer, is that you play notes and accompanying the notes or these little tried tone electronic, you know, sort of after effects.
11:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And for musicians, you know, this is, this is, it's beautiful because a lot of times nowadays, it's easy to get pure notes.
11:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything's already in tune, you can just hit things.
11:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And part of your brain,
11:22
[SPEAKER_04]: really loves when the world is in harmony.
11:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
11:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, that's why harmony even exists.
11:27
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, oh, that goes so well with this.
11:29
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the mathematics of summary of the science of summary.
11:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, just, just that you can, when you hear it, you'd like it.
11:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure, right?
11:36
[SPEAKER_04]: But part of what this synthesizer would keep telling us is that
11:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, this is working on one musical level about another musical level.
11:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't working at all, but it really appealed to us.
11:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it was affecting, you know, whatever part of our brain was not wanting perfect harmonies or whatever.
11:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And it would not didn't make us write the songs, but it urged us to write these types of songs that I think we're dealing with that kind of
12:02
[SPEAKER_04]: gray and ambiguity of the way your life really is.
12:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's why people relate to it so much because, I mean, I'm not putting it down, but I'm a beautiful record.
12:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, in the honest sort of way.
12:15
[SPEAKER_04]: We would say that ourselves, it's like, well, thank you.
12:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
12:19
[SPEAKER_04]: We'd say it's like our most depressing, that most triumph of record, I think we've done.
12:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Because it's not,
12:26
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not cartoon-like in its reach.
12:28
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not saying, oh, everything's going to be beautiful forever.
12:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's really saying, yeah, beauty is here and pain is here.
12:37
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't think I don't want people to think that our lives have gotten so dark and so painful.
12:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I think there's an urge to make this kind of music when those sounds happen.
12:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And we hadn't really done music.
12:50
[SPEAKER_04]: We hadn't really embraced
12:54
[SPEAKER_04]: That much of that type of music.
12:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think we wanted to.
12:57
[SPEAKER_04]: We like it.
12:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, there's something about that, too, because when a fan listens to the record, there's a big character study that goes along with that.
13:03
[SPEAKER_03]: This is how we get to know you.
13:04
[SPEAKER_02]: This is how we get to know you.
13:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, exactly.
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And when it's, you know, whether it's the lyrics or autobiographical and every day.
13:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
13:10
[SPEAKER_03]: There becomes that line where you're saying, this is how much we want to let out there before it just becomes gossip.
13:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I don't think of it like that.
13:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I'm sure if I was Beyonce or someone like that, there could be a lot more of that going on.
13:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't think of it like that.
13:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the best thing I can do is just to be completely me as be honest or whatever that is.
13:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, you're coming up with a song or going up with lyrics and you don't really know what the fuck you're gonna say.
13:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, there is no, you don't sit there and know everything you're gonna do and write it down.
13:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You just will say something that we say that it comes, you know, it sort of scorch out of your subconscious or whatever.
13:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But on the other side of that, these things score it out of you and you still get a chance to choose whether you're going to keep it or dismiss it.
13:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's a really great line on the record.
13:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And I say great, because I just sort of think of it.
14:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It just sort of happened where it says we don't control the controls.
14:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And part of that is, I believe it's true for my life that there's an element of what I do is that I feel like I should control it.
14:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Because if I control it,
14:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It'll go this way and it'll go that way.
14:19
[SPEAKER_04]: But then I also know that if I control it, it becomes virtually the same thing every time because I'm not really aware of all the nuances of what I do.
14:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't always, I don't want to have control because there's no surprises left.
14:32
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no, there's no new path, you know.
14:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's a clagmar, you know.
14:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Like all artists, I'm probably a dictator at heart and I want to rule the world.
14:44
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's your art.
14:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it starts out that way, but then I think sometimes our most beautiful stuff that we do is that we see things in the world and make it our art.
14:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's probably more true for what we want now.
14:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I think in the beginning when you have no control,
15:02
[SPEAKER_04]: you think you want it all.
15:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And then when you like the way our life works now, when you can control it all, you don't really want to.
15:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Kyle, what am I going to do?
15:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right?
15:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, it is a great new act for the flaming lips.
15:17
[SPEAKER_03]: It's even almost like imnesia because you know, like we recognize the face, it kind of sounds the same.
15:23
[SPEAKER_02]: but there's nothing else about a sense of real and for a fan listening to you guys.
15:28
[SPEAKER_02]: That's important.
15:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's something new to feed on.
15:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think for our fans.
15:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't say for all groups.
15:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I think some groups, if they went too radical, would probably lose every night.
15:38
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think our fans, most of them are artists themselves.
15:42
[SPEAKER_04]: They're people who are in bands themselves.
15:44
[SPEAKER_04]: They're making music.
15:45
[SPEAKER_04]: They're involved in some thing about art and music.
15:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I think, because I think what it says to them is like,
15:52
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, maybe someday you're going to want to change.
15:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And you want to see that there's examples of people out there that said, they did it.
15:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I can do it.
16:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And yes, it's scary and you don't really know if it's going to work.
16:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I still don't know if what we're doing now.
16:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Worked sure if it doesn't work to be written about in the uh, the rocket.
16:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.
16:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
16:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Michael Jackson's Graham in the mirror every lyric coming into this.
16:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.
16:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Wayne, it has been so awesome.
16:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.
16:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
16:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
16:18
[SPEAKER_03]: For sure.
16:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
16:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
16:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
16:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Everywhere this whole thing goes, we're going to be on board.
16:21
[SPEAKER_03]: So.
16:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, perfect.
16:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, thank you.
16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's hope.
16:26
[SPEAKER_04]: It worked out that the river didn't rise up.
16:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Watch this away.
16:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll be right back right after this.
16:32
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, welcome back.
16:33
[SPEAKER_03]: It's Kyle, man, at the special rewind to episode three of my interviews with Wayne Cohen and the flaming lips.
16:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Now we're going to, uh, it's just a year after that, uh, that previous interview, uh, in twenty fourteen, uh, when we got backstage at the hangout music festival, uh, right after the tear,
16:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And the release of with a little help from my friends, we got to talk about celebrity collaborations with Miley Cyrus and Kesha using social media to demystify the band's process and what it meant to digest pop stars through the flaming lips psychedelic features
17:10
[SPEAKER_03]: As well as their cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, working with Sean Linnon, how the project benefited Oklahoma City Animal Charity, all that, part two of this special rewind episode.
17:21
[SPEAKER_03]: It's Kyle Meredith with Wayne Coin of the Flaming Lips.
17:24
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, good to see you again.
17:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You are kind of like the busiest man in rock who's not promoting an apple, and that seems to always happen for you.
17:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Do doesn't
17:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I guess, you know, I'm promoting albums now.
17:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we put out a lot of stuff.
17:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think it's still true for some big acts where you put out a record and then you tour the world for five years and then you get together and you put out another one.
17:49
[SPEAKER_04]: But really, even starting a couple years ago, we just weren't, it wasn't that we didn't even really want to do that anymore.
17:55
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, for us it just got to be a little bit
17:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess boring, you know, and whatever we wanted to do more in that time, we would just start to do it.
18:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And it got to be more manageable for us, anyway, to just put them out when we felt like as opposed to getting in line in the slot, doing the campaign.
18:17
[SPEAKER_04]: We were with a big major label and all that.
18:21
[SPEAKER_04]: That's part of the things that we didn't like about.
18:24
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, being on Warner Bros.
18:25
[SPEAKER_04]: all the time, is this giant machine and takes, you know, six months just to get anything going, you know?
18:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think, um, little by little, I think the way that we work our contract and stuff like that, I think really suits us now that we do.
18:38
[SPEAKER_03]: We do a lot of stuff.
18:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's fun to watch.
18:41
[SPEAKER_03]: It's fun to listen about.
18:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you ever, because the stuff you do is an all-the-normal stuff, you have to worry that the story is bigger than the music?
18:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's a lot to write about with you.
18:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
18:53
[SPEAKER_04]: No, not really.
18:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, to me, I mean, music without all this other stuff sometimes, it doesn't, it doesn't have, you know, it alone doesn't have the personality and all this stuff that, you know, I mean, there's a lot of groups that all hear their music.
19:09
[SPEAKER_04]: and not really get it until you see them or you read something about them or they're involved in something.
19:14
[SPEAKER_04]: You see a little bit more into what they're about.
19:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I think all that is wonderful.
19:18
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the most
19:23
[SPEAKER_04]: What would we say public groups out there ever would be a group like the Beatles, you know, and I would say for my own taste, you know, the more that I knew about them the more I loved them.
19:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And you really, you know, you really understood what their music was about and their heart was about and all that.
19:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I never fear that, but I'm not really trying to do that.
19:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, sometimes I just think to talk about music is really kind of, you know, it's just not.
19:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just kind of dumb.
19:52
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't tell me where it comes from.
19:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's like, you know, when you're going to talk about notes and amplifiers and chords, you know it and recording studios, I mean, really in a sense, that's not really what music is.
20:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Music is this
20:04
[SPEAKER_03]: life and this is something you get to listen to that tells you something about the life so yeah I mean I would say I live a lot of I live a lot of life yeah it's a good lifestyle yeah it's great yeah there's one thing you've been doing that is really interesting I won't call it downtime it's not a downtime you wrote the April Fool's note about celebrity
20:27
[SPEAKER_03]: April first note.
20:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you call April for fulls, but April first note about celebrity.
20:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You really kind of positioned yourself with celebrity this whole time.
20:35
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really interesting.
20:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, contradiction is not the right word.
20:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
20:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
20:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I mean, the way they presented it was sure.
20:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
20:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
20:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, maybe.
20:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean,
20:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we're talking about some comedy in all of that.
20:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, but I mean, some of comedy now is so close.
20:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
20:52
[SPEAKER_04]: When you're in it, you can see it really is so close that it is almost true at the same time.
20:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't know.
21:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I know the power of these silly things like Twitter and Instagram and anybody can go on there and if they want to make a story out of it, they can.
21:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we have to call you up or be a publicist or anything now.
21:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'd like that.
21:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was probably three or four years ago at least.
21:19
[SPEAKER_04]: When I noticed that people were doing that in the newspapers and the little free entertainment things around Oklahoma City, they wouldn't really do an interview with Lady Gaga.
21:28
[SPEAKER_04]: But they could write articles about her all day because it's all right there.
21:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's on her Twitter and Instagram, so it must be true.
21:34
[SPEAKER_04]: But I thought that was great.
21:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you could just start to say, I think this is interesting today.
21:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm doing this.
21:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're interested, you can see what I'm doing.
21:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I think with a group like the flaming lips, I think seeing how we do it, and seeing what we started to do, and then three big sliders, here's what it ended up being.
21:51
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're an artist, especially a young artist wondering, how do you do stuff?
21:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it'd be wonderful to follow us, to have that whole thing.
21:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I started to do this, but then that didn't work out, and it's great to be able to change your mind.
22:04
[SPEAKER_04]: You're not a fool if the idea didn't work out.
22:08
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what all are.
22:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think it's good that we have more of a two-way conversation with the artists that artists are as accessible?
22:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's an essence, a bit of mystery going.
22:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, Beatles, Zeppelin, they all had the mystery.
22:20
[SPEAKER_03]: People, they had the mystery.
22:21
[SPEAKER_03]: You could imagine beyond their human, you know.
22:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I suppose, but I don't know, you know, but I mean, someone can tweet at you and you can answer back.
22:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And they've had a conversation, right?
22:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean,
22:35
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I mean, for me, like if I really love an artist, I mean, I want to know as much as I can about them, you know, and you want to know what they did.
22:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think it's interesting to know what they did on these days.
22:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, when those big books came out finally,
22:50
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, probably in like when was it the early nineties that sort of documented every day that the Beatles were in the studio right right.
22:57
[SPEAKER_04]: These were revelations people, you know, and you really got to see it.
23:01
[SPEAKER_04]: They did this in the morning and then that night they they finished strawberry fields forever.
23:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just amazing.
23:07
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, so I don't I don't think that at all.
23:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think
23:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm putting it out there because I feel this is the life that our fans have given.
23:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't waste.
23:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't throw it away and I just say, look, this is what I get to do every day.
23:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm going for it.
23:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to bring that back up.
23:26
[SPEAKER_03]: The two names that I said I'm going to go with, Miley and Keshe.
23:29
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah.
23:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you're doing something really interesting.
23:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe unintentionally here about taking the stars that make pop, musicians that make pop.
23:39
[SPEAKER_03]: filtering through the system of the flaming lips and when they come out, they're different.
23:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Kesha, you know, she had a very public moment where she kind of derailed for a second, got herself back up on her feet.
23:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
23:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Miley, you know, if you weren't a fan of a music, now you guys are working with her, that's positive that you could be a fan of you.
23:55
[SPEAKER_03]: What I'm seeing is there's this moment where the flaming lips are eating pop stars, digesting though, crapping them back out into something psychedelic and way more interesting than before.
24:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's a great compliment.
24:06
[SPEAKER_04]: But I mean, it's mostly on there.
24:08
[SPEAKER_04]: They're the ones doing it.
24:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I could never call up cash if she didn't want me to call her and say, hey, we should do this.
24:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, they're the ones that are saying, you come into use.
24:21
[SPEAKER_03]: You become their spirit animal.
24:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, I mean, but those two more than really some others that I've worked with there.
24:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, they're absolutely wonderful.
24:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Fearless badass.
24:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'm really curious to see how this Miley stuff comes out because this could be completely different for her.
24:38
[SPEAKER_03]: This could be a shocker or fan base.
24:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think so.
24:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I've seen them and I
24:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the same thing I would tell Kesha.
24:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, they love you.
24:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Music is just what they're hearing, you know?
24:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And this idea that it's got to be a certain way.
24:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, no, they love you.
24:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you do it and you put yourself into it and you love it, you don't love it too.
24:59
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and not try to be like, well, like, got to be number one.
25:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like you're already number one in their hearts.
25:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you really do this through love, and I think real
25:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's what you real artists want to do.
25:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, if you don't get to evolve through your art and through your music, you'll just go insane.
25:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, if you don't have the desire to evolve, you'll try to do whatever you think is going to work.
25:22
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you have a desire to evolve, like my, like Kesha, you don't want to do the same music you did last year.
25:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Even if it's the biggest record in the world, you are already moving on the same way
25:34
[SPEAKER_04]: The Beatles or Radiohead or any of these groups.
25:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like you're you're living in your music.
25:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It isn't just something you do So you have money at the end of the day and I see that in them.
25:43
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not I mean, it's not they're not doing it as a career movie.
25:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure doing it because it's like I love this and
25:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's one.
25:54
[SPEAKER_03]: We mentioned the Beatles a couple times too, and that's what I want to end because you're doing with VR.
25:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And so Beatles album.
26:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So we've done these, you know, we have enjoyed it.
26:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And I have my own studio, and a lot of bands come through, and a lot of my friends, and sometimes, you know,
26:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I sort of put it to them, like you can record here, do what you want, but you gotta give me a song, and we've done, right?
26:14
[SPEAKER_04]: We did one of my favorite records, a record by King Crimson, and one of the Crimson King.
26:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Just a little record that we do with our friends.
26:21
[SPEAKER_04]: We had done the Stone Roses, first record, we all get together, and people do different songs.
26:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And I had planned on doing Sergeant Pepper's really about three years ago.
26:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Which means a perfect record for you guys to do.
26:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I, well, I think that you can inject into it, that I kind of imagined.
26:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah.
26:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
26:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, so we had planned on doing it anyway.
26:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And then over the New Year's Eve shows that we were doing two nights.
26:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And we decided the second night that we would do a kind of Lenin Beetles set.
26:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you were there both nights, you'd see us do our flaming upset.
26:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And then that second night you'd see the extended set.
26:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And we kind of accidentally work up this really fantastic version of Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
27:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And it had got out there on YouTube and people had seen it a bunch of the David Leibmann people were doing.
27:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this was all just coincidence.
27:12
[SPEAKER_04]: We really not considered that the Beatles were doing this fifty-year thing, or anything.
27:16
[SPEAKER_04]: We were just doing it because obviously we love John Leibmann and the Beatles or whatever.
27:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think I had gotten out there, and they asked us to do the Lucy and the Sky Song on the David Letterman show, and we are Sean Lennon to do it with us and he jumped on.
27:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So it is just an incredible moment right there.
27:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Look what I get.
27:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you kidding?
27:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
27:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So he's doing such good stuff right now.
27:38
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
27:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and then we totally been with him through all these things that he's really trying to do.
27:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's sort of just by coincidence, it became the flaming-ups doing loose-hina sky retirement.
27:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And when it came time to do stuff with Milo, we had a couple of tracks of our own that she was working on, we're working on songs together.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: and she was curious about what aren't you doing this sergeant happens recognize like yes I'll be on it so we had the track already ready and that's why it was easy to say because we did four or five things all in one short day and we did that track and we did the day in the life track with her and
28:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean people don't realize I mean she is so she's so into what she's doing these things are like one take right you know we would we would be there as long as we thought we needed to be but she she just sings the song and it's like yeah, so for you guys then what you know is it just for fun is like this is something fun?
28:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you trying to get something new out of those albums or you know
28:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You can listen to the way that they record and we do our own recordings and we've got producers and help us and stuff.
28:48
[SPEAKER_04]: To be a lot of it's an issue by us doing it.
28:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean any artist, any musician, if you delve into that stuff and you're really going, what are they doing there?
28:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean it's phenomenal.
29:01
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a simplicity that people think, oh, it's just this and that.
29:04
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's a magic to it that isn't so obvious.
29:08
[SPEAKER_03]: It can't pull it off, but it makes you better musician in the end.
29:10
[SPEAKER_04]: well it makes you go oh my god they didn't just do the simple thing they did this and they did that and it's quirky there's mistakes they don't always sing on key they don't always stop you know it's all these things that people take for granted it's being like well these people know what they're doing it's like
29:25
[SPEAKER_04]: They didn't know what they were doing, and they went for it.
29:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what I love about it.
29:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Every time we delve into music, you see these little, you learn something about it's great.
29:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And that music is so, it's so wonderful anyway.
29:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you could not run into someone who loves music, isn't going to love that.
29:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And now you're a part of that album's history in a way.
29:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's in a stretch, but you know, it's like, maybe even sister Wikipedia page, but now you're a part of that album's history.
29:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I love it.
29:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean,
29:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And part of the idea of being attached to Miley Cyrus and my morning jacket and these other groups is that I want, especially I saw stuff that people know so much about the Beatles, that these weirdo groups do it, it'll get more attention.
30:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And part of this is the charity thing we're doing in Oklahoma City this volunteer organization helps all these homeless animals, dogs and cats in Oklahoma City.
30:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, they're cool, cool people.
30:22
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all volunteers, and they help low-income families with their vet bills, which, you know, that's one of the big dilemmas.
30:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like you just don't have three thousand dollars to go get you.
30:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't do that, right?
30:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
30:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I know that if we do this Beatles music, a lot of people will probably think we're stepping on sacred ground.
30:44
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think it'll be interesting to people.
30:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know if we get these artists doing it,
30:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can say absolutely, it's done out of love.
30:51
[SPEAKER_04]: No one is doing it.
30:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Everybody's doing it for free volunteering all their time, all their effort.
30:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So it isn't.
30:57
[SPEAKER_04]: No one's doing this to become more famous or to make money.
31:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And secretly all the money is going to go to this little plate.
31:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I wanted to be a secret anymore.
31:05
[SPEAKER_04]: But I wanted to be in Oklahoma City because I wanted to seem like there was a lot of things that are out there that are trying in a sense to change the world.
31:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's great.
31:13
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a difficult thing.
31:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But I know with just a little bit of concentrated effort.
31:17
[SPEAKER_04]: this thing in Oklahoma City five years from now won't be there and we can say hey man Wayne's friends did that they helped us do that yeah it's awesome yeah it's fantastic thank you so much for giving the time for sure yeah and I can't wait to see what's next I know well me neither and we'll be right back right after this
31:35
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, welcome back.
31:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Kyle Meredith, now the third in this trilogy of this rewind special episode, taking us to twenty-nineteen when the band had just released Kingsmouth.
31:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Music and songs is an album born out of an art installation, a children's book, and finally a full-blown concept record narrated by Mick Jones of The Clash.
31:58
[SPEAKER_03]: and Wayne and I got to talk about how the project lined up with him becoming a father, writing songs that could live in both whimsical and darker places and how listeners perceptions, like seeing Trump in the title giant baby, often reshaped the band's work.
32:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Part three, Kyle Meredith with Wayne Coin of the Flaming Lips.
32:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello, Kyle.
32:19
[SPEAKER_03]: It was great seeing you all again here in Louisville at the Bourbon and Beyond Festival.
32:23
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always such a great show that you put on and that was another fantastic set.
32:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
32:27
[SPEAKER_05]: That was great.
32:28
[SPEAKER_05]: It was.
32:29
[SPEAKER_05]: You never know what those things are going to be like.
32:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's it's outrageous that it's that many people on that part of a day.
32:36
[SPEAKER_05]: It's and it's still Friday afternoon.
32:38
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it wasn't the weekend yet, you know, like, oh my gosh, and, you know, we've played quite a few of these things where they're
32:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't think they're giving away.
32:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe they're not giving it away anymore.
32:47
[SPEAKER_05]: We used to play things right there.
32:49
[SPEAKER_05]: They're giving away a lot of food during the day and it's like, oh my gosh, but I'm pretty, pretty fantastic festival.
32:55
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, for Louisville, I mean, I sometimes I think Louisville people would think Louisville is just a little spot somewhere and it's a great, great, giant festival.
33:05
[SPEAKER_05]: That's amazing.
33:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And we've we've had a few around here.
33:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I know you guys have played four castle in the past.
33:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's there's a nice history there.
33:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're always appreciative.
33:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well, thank you.
33:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I also want to compliment you on the latest record with King's mouth music and songs, which have been listing to you know, we're playing giant baby around here as one of the mini tracks that kind of diving into, but I thought we'd kind of get into this record a bit as well because this is not
33:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess what you'd call a typical album.
33:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, even the narration itself makes something different, but there is a concept here, right?
33:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think, you know, you saying that is exactly the reason why it would start to appeal to us to be like, oh, well, let's make an actual narrative to the record.
33:47
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, oftentimes with our records, we, you know, we know the secret narrative or the concept or the
33:55
[SPEAKER_05]: you know, the subliminal story that's going on, which I think a lot of artists do, and then you just make songs that kind of are fun to listen to, and people can sing along too, but you know, you know, the real story behind them or something.
34:08
[SPEAKER_05]: But with this record, I think, you know, it started as that, the art installation, which was really quite a long time ago now, two thousand, fourteen, two thousand, fifteen.
34:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, you know, this, it started to already exist.
34:21
[SPEAKER_05]: as a creation.
34:23
[SPEAKER_05]: And then the curator at the very first art museum that we were installing it in, you know, he encouraged me to come up with a little bit of a story.
34:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Just so, you know, in a sense that the way the installation works is like six or seven people can get inside of it.
34:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And at that time, it was about a ten-minute program.
34:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And so there would be people waiting outside to get in, you know, say, if you had a hundred people waiting, you know, if you'd want there to be something else to do while you're waiting to get inside of this thing, you know,
34:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And he encouraged me to do these drawings and paintings, collage sort of things, that are part of the album even now, that image that's on the cover, is part of that.
34:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And to come up with a little bit of a narrative or a story.
35:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And all this, you know, just sort of happened.
35:04
[SPEAKER_05]: We didn't think about it too much, which is probably why it's endearing at all.
35:09
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, sometimes you overthink things.
35:11
[SPEAKER_05]: uh... we're lucky that this kind of happened and so three or four years down the line you know we're making songs that kind of just go with this narrative that we made up you know back in two thousand fourteen two thousand fifteen and it felt very much like we're just making songs to go with a story that somebody else has already put in place you know so even though it was us that put it in place it felt long ago enough that it was already established and
35:37
[SPEAKER_05]: and then we felt like well we're just making songs for that and so I think that really helped us not get distracted and beer off the track and then of course when Mick Jones came on board and did that great narration which for me is such a great flavor to the album I think that just you know that really sealed it as like oh Matt now we know exactly what we're doing once we had him we you know we really pushed right ahead to finish it all up it was it really changed them you know made it all seem more perfect
36:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Because it would seem like when you've got three different factions like that, a book which would also come part of it, the installation that you're talking about and then the record itself.
36:16
[SPEAKER_03]: It would seem like a lot of times there would be a challenge to make sure the songs could stand on their own out of concept.
36:22
[SPEAKER_03]: But I guess that's, I don't get that from you.
36:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It almost kind of linked together.
36:25
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you call it when you deconstruct something to build it first?
36:30
[SPEAKER_05]: I would say the same thing, you know, going into it.
36:33
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, it is funny how music doesn't really need music and songs and stuff like that.
36:39
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't really need your help.
36:41
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, we always think, oh, we need to make it simple.
36:43
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to make it this.
36:44
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to make it that.
36:45
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I think if a group of critics got together and analyzed the song Happy Birthday.
36:51
[SPEAKER_05]: They probably would say, you know, it's too simple.
36:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Never gonna work.
36:54
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, who's gonna sing this dumb thing?
36:57
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, and it's just, you know, that's just the nature of
37:00
[SPEAKER_05]: of music it's just mysterious and it's just kind of there's things about it that you like that once you begin to think about them you can't think why you like it it's like it's like eating your favorite food it's not something you can think about you know you like it first and then you find a reason why you like it or dislike it or whatever later
37:19
[SPEAKER_05]: And music is really doing the same thing.
37:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, you know, all along the way, I've always liked even like the Beatles, Yellow Submarine.
37:27
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's somewhere along the way.
37:28
[SPEAKER_05]: It's implied that it's not the story.
37:30
[SPEAKER_05]: And here's a little piece of the story.
37:32
[SPEAKER_05]: But I never thought of it very much as being connected or not connected.
37:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I just liked the song and didn't really think that much about what it was connected to or the rest of the story.
37:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I was thought, well, this is the song, you know.
37:46
[SPEAKER_05]: And so the things that have mixed genres of narration on them, I mean, I sort of feel like his voice can just tone of it in this gentle, eccentric warbling that he speaks with.
37:58
[SPEAKER_05]: To me, I just sort of feel like it's just another great sounding instrument that's in our music.
38:03
[SPEAKER_05]: yeah he is telling a story and yeah he does make sense but you could also listen to it almost abstractly you know if you didn't speak English or something and like it just for the tone or that it is so you know I don't really I try not to get in the way too much of what the music is capable of and not overthink it you know
38:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll say as a side note a bit coincidentally here, but happy birthday the song itself written by two sisters right here in Louisville.
38:29
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, no.
38:30
[SPEAKER_03]: They're actually and they're buried here too.
38:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it was they ran and a school and orphanage school and then they wrote the song here just about a half a mile from where I'm sitting.
38:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh my gosh, are they celebrated for this song?
38:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, is that is that the notable thing that's like on their tombstones or something like that?
38:48
[SPEAKER_03]: You would think it'd be celebrated more because that's more or less like the most famous song in the world.
38:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, arguably, but more or less.
38:56
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not celebrated as much as they should be.
38:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean,
38:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I mean, I speak about it all the time as like, you know, people do often times delve into like songwriting and how, you know, what it is and how complicated it is and how, how brainy it is and all this sort of stuff.
39:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, yeah, I guess maybe, but, you know, I point out happy birthday is one of the greatest, the greatest songs ever written, most useful songs ever written.
39:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And useful is a good thing for a song to be.
39:24
[SPEAKER_05]: We run into that a lot when people talk about our song do you realize being used at like weddings and the births of their children and and funerals and things like that.
39:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, I think it's a great great thing that the songs can be of use, you know, it's not just, oh, it's not just
39:39
[SPEAKER_05]: what the flaming lips want it to be.
39:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It goes out there in the world and it can be people can use it for these things.
39:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think that's a great, great thing.
39:46
[SPEAKER_05]: That's amazing.
39:48
[SPEAKER_05]: As soon as we get done, I'll Google this song, Happy Birthday, and I'll find out a little bit more about it.
39:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And please do.
39:54
[SPEAKER_03]: You've said a couple things that makes an easy segment here, too, because you've also become a new dad and congratulations on that.
40:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this whole thing.
40:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, so the, it traces back obviously long before the birth of your child, but now it, you know, with this album being maybe the finished product of the whole thing, it seems kind of custom builds for that world of, of, you know, childhood stories.
40:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And, and especially in those trippier sixties or nearly seventies type of children's books that kind of went out there.
40:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And I did wonder, did that play into any of the actual album of the music?
40:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think in the very beginning of making it, we did have, you know, an agenda of making it like a children's book, meaning like if kids wanted to go to this King's mouth installation, you know, because they really do love it.
40:45
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, and I didn't want it to be put off by parents that are thinking, oh, this is just too weird or too, you know, that's got some adult themes in it.
40:54
[SPEAKER_05]: which we've done that in the past, you know, oftentimes the flaming that's music sounds like it could be children's music and then it's got, you know, all kinds of curse words in it and all kinds of stuff where it's like, well, it's made for like adult kids, you know, to where as I think we were making a great effort to say this could, you could play this for your ten-year-old or eight-year-old and feel like it's working or you know, you wouldn't feel too uncomfortable about it.
41:20
[SPEAKER_05]: So that was part of the agenda even when it went in
41:23
[SPEAKER_05]: to this very first installation, you know, that was part of it too.
41:27
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like we wanted it to be families could come in everybody could like it and it wouldn't be awkward for anybody.
41:32
[SPEAKER_05]: So that stayed true to the album and the music and the lyrics and all that.
41:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I agree with you you know this the timing of this album coming out our little boy was born right at the beginning of June and this album really came out kind of all around that same time and it looks very much like a great coincidence which you know it really mostly is but I think yeah you know as as the last year was going along yeah there's just must have been something you know that was
42:03
[SPEAKER_05]: a change that was occurring in me or something like that where you have a desire to do something like this and and stay with it.
42:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean you know oftentimes you know musicians and artists you know what what you'd be the desire you begin with can change it under times and
42:17
[SPEAKER_05]: not be what it ends up being or whatever and I think with this as we were finishing it and as as we knew we were going to have a baby all that kind of helped focus it to be like yes it's this type of record and I was glad that the two were sort of brought into the world kind of at the same time because let us talk about a lot of you know different
42:35
[SPEAKER_05]: aspects of being an artist and being a musician and making records and being a father and all those things that I've really never had to talk about before or had the opportunity to talk about before.
42:46
[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, I think it's all great.
42:47
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all it's all still mystifying and wonderful for me.
42:52
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not to say that there aren't any, I guess, darker aspects that go along with this, too, because maybe similar to do you realize that if I understand it right, a song like
43:01
[SPEAKER_03]: mother universe, you know, it talks about a death during a childbirth and I thought, oh, you know, and here you are about to become a father and I wonder if there's any connection there.
43:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, right.
43:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I think any kind of, you know, active imagination can often go to the worst things possible and you can't get away from them.
43:19
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think music helps you in that way.
43:22
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like, it songs really can confront, you know, unspeakable things with a sort of set of beauty and love that lets you embrace these ideas.
43:32
[SPEAKER_05]: without having to think about them on your own.
43:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think, David and I, you know, the writers mostly of the Fleming of the Music, I think we've become more comfortable with singing about things like that and knowing that it's in a song, you know, and the subject and the lyrics, they're sort of
43:52
[SPEAKER_05]: within this coloring and this atmosphere of care and love and understanding that I think helps us save those things because they're all things that are kind of their deep within Stephen and I mean Stephen Stephen lost his mother I think he was just ten or eleven years old you know and that's a pretty devastating time for a young sensitive person who's going to go on to be an artist and a musician to have something like that happen to him
44:18
[SPEAKER_05]: and you don't often know how much of that you can put into your music or how much is already there and you don't realize it or whatever and sometimes when we're doing something like this where it is sort of about the good bits of that but also you know the fat bits of stuff like that we just go with the flow and I don't always know how it is going to affect the listener in that way but I know you know parts of the way Stephen and I
44:44
[SPEAKER_05]: have lived or have grown up or whatever, you know, it's really very normal, you know, and a lot of times the things that we're thinking about are a normal kind of sadness that most people eventually growing up are going to have and confront and have
44:59
[SPEAKER_05]: want to deal with or whatever so i think that's part of the great you know acceptance and beauty of doing music like this is you sort of feel like yeah it's it's mine it's the way i feel about it but i feel like it's not that far away from the way you would feel about it too you know we're all sharing these experiences in that way
45:16
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think the flaming it's have a good emotional attack at songs and I so sometimes I feel like yeah, we all think about that.
45:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that can work and not feel ironic or not feel like a joke or not feel like something silly.
45:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And perception is a big thing about how a listener takes it.
45:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I will even go back, you know, I mentioned we're playing giant baby when I first looked at that title.
45:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Nine times out of ten, if another artist wrote that right now, it's okay, that's the Trump song.
45:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess time and space means a lot to how we're going to be what our perception of those songs are going to be.
45:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I would agree, and people have asked me, you know, honestly, like, is this in some way talking about Donald Trump?
45:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And I would say, first even I absolutely not, you know, I mean,
45:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I think if we were younger and we were in our twenties or maybe a teenager or something like Billie Eilish, you know, we would be inserting that stuff into our music because I don't know, when you're younger a year or two years or four years of a presidency is a major, major piece of your life.
46:16
[SPEAKER_05]: But for us, you know, we started to make this music before, I mean, Donald Trump's been around a long time, but before he was president for sure.
46:24
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll continue to talk about it and listen to it long after he's gone.
46:29
[SPEAKER_05]: And I really have never thought in those ways that we would use flamingips music in some way to be a secret, you know, combatant that's going to do this.
46:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't really feel that way.
46:40
[SPEAKER_05]: I feel like, you know, if the listener wants to tie that into it, of course, they can.
46:44
[SPEAKER_05]: But I would never, I'd never really sing about something like that.
46:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I would just go out and try to change it and then just write a song about, you know,
46:53
[SPEAKER_05]: about change I would never write a song about about someone like Donald Trump and and leave it as a secret or something you know I mean we actually have Donald Trump in a lyric from two thousand in six in the song called free radical we were using his his name and his image and kind of what he represented in the culture as kind of a put down and yet I mean here we are it now it's become a kind of reality and
47:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we weren't really protesting about him even then.
47:21
[SPEAKER_05]: We were protesting about what, you know, in a sense, what he represented even then.
47:25
[SPEAKER_05]: But I don't think it's his fault.
47:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I think some of it is that that sort of selfish, you know, egotistical personality.
47:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I think he appeals to a certain American out there.
47:37
[SPEAKER_05]: It's always the way it works.
47:38
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's not really the person.
47:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It's kind of that they represent a character that's already, you know, a personality type that's already in the culture and suddenly they're
47:47
[SPEAKER_05]: they're representing them and speaking for them.
47:49
[SPEAKER_05]: And so I don't always really just blame them.
47:52
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, he has to be voted on.
47:53
[SPEAKER_05]: People have to show up at his rallies and people have to stick up for him.
47:56
[SPEAKER_05]: And so it's, you know, it's a funny thing.
47:58
[SPEAKER_05]: But I'd say, for us, no.
47:59
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, we're not inserting Donald Trump into that.
48:02
[SPEAKER_05]: But I could see where that title giant baby would think, oh, I think I know what they're talking about.
48:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, it's, to us, it's really just a funny, it's just a funny title to use those two words together.
48:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, and even in the lyrics, we sing about that sort of thing.
48:17
[SPEAKER_05]: He is giant, but he's a baby.
48:19
[SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, it's more that we just think it's absurd.
48:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't want to leave it on that.
48:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And we got to wrap up here.
48:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I will ask I know there's some rumors already circulating that you're talking about the record maybe even another record coming out next year is that is that in the works or we still thinking further down the road.
48:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, we always have a lot of things going on.
48:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, in November, we've got this long-awaited, deflaming lips playing with the Denver Symphony Orchestra at the live at the Red Rock Championship or there.
48:46
[SPEAKER_05]: That's finally coming out, though it was recorded in
48:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And we have a couple of albums that we've recorded with some other people.
48:54
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a group, a duo of guitar player in a drummer called Deep Valley.
49:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And these two girls came out about two years ago now.
49:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And we started working on some music.
49:05
[SPEAKER_05]: And that record is going to come out.
49:06
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's kind of the flaming lips and deep valley.
49:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Not positive what we're going to call it.
49:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that record comes out.
49:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And then I think by next summer we have another flaming lips album.
49:16
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's really shaping up to be a great, great, really somewhat upon some great, great, unique songs and stuff.
49:22
[SPEAKER_05]: So I think that's going to be, we're still working on that.
49:24
[SPEAKER_05]: So working on that through October, November, we should, we should know pretty soon if we'll be able to finish it in time.
49:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so, but always a lot of things going on.
49:32
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that's just the way our life is.
49:34
[SPEAKER_05]: We're always recording, we're always writing songs, always making things up, and always being involved with other musicians and artists.
49:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just the greatest life you could ever think of.
49:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And you make it so fun for the fans too.
49:46
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always so fun to be a fan of the flaming lips.
49:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And I appreciate that.
49:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate that every single time.
49:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, Kyle, that's a great thing to say.
49:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Dang, thank you.
49:55
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a cool, cool thing.
49:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Wayne, it's always a pleasure to talk to you.
49:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for taking the time today and have some fun out there on the tour.
50:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll be looking forward to catching the next date.
50:05
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, we'll cool.
50:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'll look up this happy birthday song.
50:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for enlightening me.
50:09
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, bye.
50:10
[SPEAKER_03]: There you have it.
50:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Special rewind episode, flaming lips, wing coin, my thanks as always.
50:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks to you for checking out the episode.
50:18
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50:22
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50:39
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50:42
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50:46
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50:53
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51:02
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51:13
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51:15
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51:19
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51:21
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51:25
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51:27
[SPEAKER_03]: That does it for another edition.
51:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Kyle Meredith.
51:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll see you next time.
51:45
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51:49
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