The Flaming Lips at Bonnaroo 2014- photo by Maureen Gatta
It’s 2003 and I’m walking alongside moe.’s Al Schnier to The Flaming Lips’ midnight debut at Bonnaroo. He’s rushing to That Tent in the hope of being chosen to put on an animal costume and dance on the side of the stage during the set. He finds out he’s too late, while I head to the photo pit and set up right in front of Wayne Coyne’s centerstage microphone. Due to the massive crowd and ensuing chaos, I end up in that same spot for the entire show.
Following tracks from the critically-acclaimed “The Soft Bulletin” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” they played “Breathe” and “Us and Them” from Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” for the very first time. The group would release a studio version of their interpretation of the entire classic rock album in 2010 and then perform it that same year at their third Bonnaroo appearance.
It was on this night that the Oklahoma-based psychedelic alt rock musicians’ creative aesthetic blossomed even further because they discovered that music expands beyond the borders of audience tribalism, while a new group of open-minded listeners discovered the glorious mixtures of adventurous sounds and display of eye-popping DIY production that went beyond the festival’s jamband origins.
In an interview with Wayne Coyne at this year’s Bonnaroo, he elaborated on the Flaming Lips’s first appearance on the Farm and how it changed them.
During its 2014 midnight show, the band, once again, created a mind-bending, transfixing universe with a set that incorporated psychedelic workouts and crowd favorites including “Race for the Prize,” “She Don’t Use Jelly,” “Silver Trembling Hands,” “The W.A.N.D.,” “Do You Realize??” and ending with the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” That last song was a tease of the group’s next venture, a recreation of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” due Oct. 28, with song contributions from MGMT, Dr. Dog, Miley Cyrus, Tame Impala and others.
JPG: I saw you in 1992 during the second edition of Lollapalooza. Then, I saw you here at your first Bonnaroo in 2003 right in front in the photo pit because I was stuck. I couldn’t leave…So, I’ve been following you from college rock band to alternative rock band to this. I saw the change in your world because you were playing to a jamband type of crowd that night that completely embraced you.
I think we had misinterpreted what that was as well; that thing in your mind where you think, “Oh, these people like this sort of music then we should be this sort of way.” But, I thought that once we played here I didn’t think that was true at all. I thought, as people, they’re like us, and this idea that people will align their friends with the type of music that they listen to is ridiculous.
Music is like food. If you like it, it’s good to you, and if the next person doesn’t like, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t like it. It should be the most free, the most un-opinionated, the most un-judged thing about you.
Everybody has a reason why they like the music that they like, and I thought that we should have already evolved past that as people, as musicians, as artists. Being at Bonnaroo, I felt like an idiot. I felt like, “No shit. Why do we think that there should be these bands…this bands…?” Bonnaroo helped us, seeing that for real; people just accepting it.
Seeing you in 2003 it was like, “Whoa! The Flaming Lips are here!” and when Sonic Youth and Tortoise played Bonaroo, they had this look on their faces before they hit the first note, kind of “What are we doing here in front of this crowd at this festival?” Then, they got major cheers after the first song and were like, “Wow! These people get it.”
Well, they get it because they love music, and that’s exactly who you want to play for. To me I, occasionally, go to the basketball games, the [Oklahoma] Thunder, and I see exactly the thing that I despise in that, “I love my team and I fuckin’ hate your team.” And music, any time that happens in music, it’s just appalling. Music is supposed to make you more open, more accepting, more forgiving, seeing more things in the world.
When I go to a concert and I see that happening, it’s like (groans) But, most of the time when we have another band play with us, if you get to play with the Flaming Lips, you get to play with this audience that is listening and loving and going, “What is this new stuff?” That’s the way it should be.
This will be your fourth time at Bonnaroo. Is there a different approach or attitude now that you’re a veteran of the festival?
We’re lucky that the more we know about Bonnaroo, the more we can schedule having more fun. (laughs) Some years, just the way things work out, you literally pull in and you play and then you back up and you have to leave. And the fun of Bonnaroo is not just in playing, the fun is being here and being around it. So, we were lucky. Yesterday we got to get in and spend the night here, hang around and be with our friends and see bands and talk to groups and get drunk and stuff. That’s one of the luxuries of being successful and having some say over what happens in your life is you get to have fun.
Did you play festivals before Bonnaroo in ’03 or was that mainly in Europe?
There weren’t that many festivals that you could play. More and more hippie festivals were springing up and people were doing small ones. Bonaroo, I think, is still the biggest one in America. Coachella is big, but I don’t think it’s as big as this. I don’t know. I can’t remember.
I don’t think we were a very good festival band back then. We would always acclimate our show to what we felt like was its maximum thing. And I think because we were able to play more festivals, even in Europe, you felt like, “Well, let’s do more stuff.” Being exposed to that bigger audience let us do bigger things. I think that’s why even now we can play on, it’s not the main stage but one of the big stages, and really have a great big crazy show ‘cause we’ve been allowed to do it.
Which is far different than when I saw you on the Lollapalooza Second Stage in ’92. I think you had a bubble machine…
We did! At Lollapalooza we did…
And I remember you covered A Flock of Seagulls’ “Space Age Love Song.” It was so perfect.
Yeah. We always tried to do things. We’d use smoke machines and projectors and strobe lights and stuff but when you got to play outside during the day you’re like, “What are we gonna do now?”
I remember Jesus and Mary Chain played Lollapalooza and used a smoke machine and lights during the day. Yeah, they were in the pavilion but it was a waste. It was like, “Guys, come on…”
I know. I don’t think they handled it very well. I try to have the philosophy that’s like do these things as if this is what you wanted to do and you just find a way to make it work. Instead of being like, “Well, we don’t want to do it this way.” That’s never gonna work. That’s never gonna work in your life. The way you approach these things is the way your life is.
We’re lucky. We’ve been able to do things for a long time. We’ve been lucky that it gets to change, and we aren’t always the ones that make the change. Things just change and you have to change along with it ‘cause I think it would be very boring to be that same band that we were in 1983 when we started out. I want to evolve. I want to change. I want to do different things. I want to be a different person. I think our music and our audience allows that.
As far as the Flaming Lips are concerned, it’s great that you still have held on to your DIY approach as far as putting together your stage setup…
Yeah but I see that with people all the time that you wouldn’t think. That’s why I love Miley Cyrus. She’s the same way. When she’s on her thing, she’s the one doing it. When she says, “Let’s see if we can get the Flaming Lips here to play,” she’s the one doing it. When you’re around her and Damien Hirst…there are all these people that you think, “Oh, someone’s doing it…” They’re doing it. That’s why I love it so much. I get to do my thing. Of course, I want to do it. I’m the one who wants to have it be my way. And when I’m around people that are like that it’s a…yeah, it’s great.
Now, when you’re recording, it’s your recording studio because you’ve kept a consistently busy schedule…?
Well, [producer] Dave Fridmann has his studio in New York that he’s had since the mid-‘ 90s and I have my own studio. But, mostly we’ll do a bunch of stuff , almost everything goes through him in the end and gets this other hue, this other dimension, and he’s really the master. We create a lot but then we get there and there’s a lot of sifting through and all that. So, it’s a good combination.
It’s always one of the best things of having your own studio because you can always put down and work on ideas without waiting.
Yeah, well, it’s just the way you live. That way you’re not waiting to go do something. You’re just doing it, and usually if you have one idea that leads to two or three. And if you’re just doing them, by just doing the ideas, you run into three or four more. And then that attracts other people and you get more help and you get more enthusiasm.
Previous to going in the studio, the technology wasn’t there either. It took a lot to have a big Pro Tools set up. I think, just in the right time, we were able to get this big space made. We were able to get a Pro Tools rig that didn’t need so much attention. Our producer’s thing, he’s got technicians and he’s a master…
My studio is like my house. Anywhere you go, you can draw pictures. You can make music. There’s a bunch of junk lying around, but it’s all there. You can just start to create something whereas his studio, anything you do it’s by the master. Everything is pristine. Everything works. Everything is happening, and that’s why it sounds so crazy because he’s making sure everything that you do is already great.
We wouldn’t live that way. It’d be like every day you’d have to go and make sure that the cable up in the ceiling to the speakers is…he’s like that.
But that’s what it is. It’s different people with different intensities of what they like about music and recording and all that. If I loved what he did, I wouldn’t love what I do. I’m glad he’s obsessed with what he’s doing and I’m obsessed with what I’m doing and we get together. I could do my thing and he gets to do his thing and it makes this bigger, better, richer thing.
You’re credited with helping to pick two unknown bands – Royal Teeth and Black Pistol Fire – to play this year’s Bonnaroo…
I did but I’m not really sure I was the final gauge. I mean, I wasn’t really concerned about how it all happened. I was glad to help the people when they asked me. So, I think I’ve run into a couple of bands that thought I picked them, and I said, “I’m not sure if I did but if I did, good.” So, it was a couple that got filtered from a bigger group into a couple smaller groups. I don’t think I was in the final group but I was close to the final…
