The Flaming Lips’ set at Reading was a triumph for their distinctly individual sound. Drew found out why they aren’t like Paul McCartney.

Drugs. Quite possibly the subject Wayne Coyne has had to talk about most in the numerous interviews of his almost 13 year long maverick music making career as a Flaming Lip. “People seem to associate the event of your imagination veering away from whatever is ‘normal’ to like..... we must take drugs all the time and record our records on drugs and stuff,” says Wayne, quite clearly ready to remain patient while dismissing any rumours that he and his friends make ‘psychedelic music’. “Any time that you seem to veer into anything that has maybe a couple of melodies going on, people seem to think that’s psychedelic. And, well, sure - if you think that’s what psychedelic is. To me, I’ve always thought of psychedelic as being... you know - kinda Grateful Dead and stuff like that. We just like to do lots of different types of songs - just...” Interesting stuff? “Yeah!”

Having such an unusual moniker sums up their free attitude to the way things should be done, and the trouble with misinterpretation this brings. “People tell me about things that were supposed to have happened but there was really never any story... people think we must have had these bizarre experiences, but we’re just normal guys. We just make up stuff, and at the time we thought it was a pretty stupid name, but we went by it and we thought it was only gonna last a summer and we always thought we’d just think of somethin’ else. We NEVER thought this was the only band we were gonna be in. This is the only thing I’ve ever done and I never figured it would have any appeal. We just like to play weird music - and doesn’t everybody?” Well, Wayne, not really the way you do. It has to be said that few follow the route of the Flaming Lips to make music, which is probably why no-one else sounds quite like them. Wayne explains Lips philosophy in two short sentences, “It should be a limitless sort of thing. You should be able to have all kinds of emotions, all kinds of ideas - why be just limited to what people think rock and roll should be about. It can be a billion things. So we just try to make songs out of whatever comes to our minds. But it’s not like the first thing we think of, we think ‘Oh, that’s a great song’ because we do try to work hard whenever we get ideas and stuff. But so far as subjects we talk or write about - it could be anything.”

And writing about anything and everything for the sake of creating music that they really like is really starting to pay off for this incarnation of the Flaming Lips.. “Everything in the last couple of years has gone past anything we ever expected. I really don’t expect people to like our stuff at all. People get used to knowing what music should sound like and ours, well, just, uh.....”

Well, as Wayne already said, it does what it likes but this isn’t stopping people from coming to their shows and experiencing the near euphoria that accompanies a live Lips set.

“Well, when people get into it, then that’s the best thing in the world that music can do - we’ve never really looked at ourselves as wanting to be ‘big’. I mean, in the UK that’s what being a band is all about. It’s all this, like, success and charts and all - but while that exists in America, there’s this whole other sub-level where people just want to play at their own level and make records and play to a whole different audience. And that’s sorta where we come from - we never wanted to be on the cover of Billboard magazine or to be in Melody Maker.”

If you think about it, though, this limitless approach to the creation of music must make it kind of hard to go write an album of songs. How do four people condense the entire current universe into about forty-five minutes of sonic pleasure? “When we go make a record, we never really like what we do but we dwindle it down to stuff we know we don’t hate. We try to get away from what we hate and stick with the things that end up being on the tape. But it’s not like we go in there clueless - we have songs and ideas and new ways of approaching songs because, after you’ve made six or seven albums, if you keep writing in the same way it would get boring. But we’re guilty like everyone else of doing stuff just to get away from being stuck. People say that guitar is dead but honestly guitar is neither alive nor dead - no instrument ever is - it’s the ideas in your head, it’s what you’re doing. and I try to remember those sorts of things because it’s too easy to be like ‘Ah boy, these guitars - they get boring’ and it’s NOT the guitars, it’s your fuckin’ ideas you know. And that’s really us just trying to get ideas and push concepts of what you can do with music and bands. And if people like it then fine because we don’t look at our own stuff and go ‘Yeah, we’re doing experimental stuff here and we’re weird.’ It’s just what we do and there’s plenty of other bands out there we think are great you know...”

So, theoretically, this is a band that could go on making music for a very long time, “I hope that the idea of a rock band can change to where it isn’t just this vehicle for views and revolution - that sooner or later that it can be just about music and ideas and hopefully, in that way, we can keep thinking of ways to do different things. I’d love to be able to do this as long as I’d like to do it - until I’m ninety or whatever. “

Wayne, however, thinks that this may not always be entirely desirable, “Sometimes I think about people like Paul McCartney. What he does is kinda embarrassing. They still wanna be in the Beatles and it’s sad. It’s just a pity that sometimes people are more interested in the fame and attention than really they are in the music or whatever. Paul McCartney at one time was all about music and ideas and so on - and it’s really sad to need to be in the limelight. I hope we can always make good music and keep being interesting or whatever. But there’s always good things - and I don’t think of records as having to be brand new to be interesting. We listen to old stuff we listen to new stuff. We listen to anything that’s available - last night we listened to Glen Campbell’s greatest hits and Stevie Wonder today... just all kinds of stuff - it’s endless.”

So, we begin to see quite another way in which the Flaming Lips have reached the point of having so many things happen in their music - it’s not just because they’re prepared to let anything happen but because there is so much to draw from, so much that can happen. They’re all prepared to listen to any type of music that they consider good - be it pop, jazz, classical, or full noise-out. But that isn’t to say that they listen to anything, just that they could always try to listen to anything. Probably in case they miss something good. They have something of a rich repertoire of covers, in addition to their own songs - ranging from the traditional (‘Sun Arise’), through the obscure (The Moles’ ‘What’s The News Mary Jane?’) and the freaky (Syd Barrett’s ‘Brain Damage’), to the household popular classics (Burt Bacharach’s ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’). This said, Wayne would like to think that his music is relatively independent of his musical influences, and that it’s more the sum of everything he encounters in life. However, he is prepared to accept that there is bound to be some reflection of the music that they love in their work, “There is a fine line, I think, between what you’re listening to not necessarily influencing you in what you’re making. But you listen to what you like and you wanna make music that you like - so it’s hard not to crossover the two.”

Something else that anyone who has listened to a few Flaming Lips records may have noticed is the wordplay and almost philosophical nature of the songs. You only have to take a look at the song titles for evidence of both: ‘Evil Will Prevail’; ‘Everyone Wants To Live Forever’; ‘Chrome Plated Suicide’; ‘Love Yer Brain’. And on the subject of his prolific use, in both songs and titles, of the number a million, Wayne laughs and admits, “I do like a million.... I do. Yeah, it’s a great word, and I like words a lot. And that’s a great one for sure.”

An obvious exploration of Wayne’s own peculiar brand of philosophising is in the song ‘Evil Will Prevail’ (from the latest album ‘Clouds Taste Metallic’). So take it away Wayne.. On the subject of whether evil really will prevail your five minutes starts now, “Well you know, that’s a weird sentiment in that song because it really does in a way. And that song is sort of written in a code for all the nice people in the world - you know what I mean? ‘Cos if someone came up to you and said, ‘I thought about goin’ up to this old lady in the street, walkin pathetically slow in front of me, and slapping her. Saying like ‘get the fuck out of the way’.’ But you don’t do it. In your mind there’s always things you can do with an immediate response - you could kill somebody there, push somebody out of the way, or be mean to people - and it does get you what you want, right away. Like you could steal things and stuff like that. So, knowing the easy way is there, then its much harder to be a kind, patient person. And I think that’s the struggle - so if you don’t know what evil is, then it’s easy to be tempted.. you know? And the true evils of the world are just so damn effective.” Like if you want something, then it’s usually the easiest way.... “Yeah, if you want something just go get a gun and take it, especially in America now - like on the block where I live. There’s gangs and shit and I see it all. But I don’t blame people for thinkin’ of those ways - it really does have the desired effect but it I think this is the struggle So, I don’t really know what ‘Evil Will Prevail’ is saying - I don’t know if the song says that to do evil is wrong or to try to like people is right.”

What Wayne is explaining is pretty much that he writes a lot of his songs by posing questions - the sort of things people think about every day, and then he puts together his thoughts, hidden in a little word play and says, ‘There you go....’

So, what about Wayne himself? What’s his own personal take on the way to live? “When people say, ‘So, are you into peace and love?’, I’m like, ‘Well, I’m into peace and love as opposed to fuckin’ hatred and war - who wouldn’t be?’ I’m not into peace and love exclusively - I’m into all kinds of things but it’s good to have people who love you, take care of you and to be nice to people.”

This way of thinking and being is one that Wayne really does live, and this shows in the way he relates to his fans, “I just think it’s great that our audience is a lot like us, unlike a lot of bands who go out and play and come back sayin, ‘Our audience is a bunch of idiots,’ and they really hate playing for them. We run into people afterwards who are really interested in music and stuff as opposed to (Wayne drops into his squeaky airhead voice) ‘Oh, we saw you guys on MTV.’” Perhaps the final summing up of this wonderful attitude to a musical life comes in Wayne’s assertion that being able to hang out at other people’s shows, watching the bands he loves from the side of the stages, is actually by far the best thing about being in a band for a living, “All those things that people think are so important - like the charts. Well, I don’t know how people can give a shit about that. Most of these bands suck - I hate that when people envy stuff like chart success. I don’t care - I think these bands, their music ideas are fuckin’ stupid. I don’t need them at all. So, anyone who is a fan of our music - the applause goes to them for keepin us alive and keeping the whole idea of what’s goin on - so that we don’t have to settle for this same old shit every day. We can work on some different shit and maybe people will support it and stuff. We’re livin’ proof of that - people will support something different once in a while. It’s great bein’ a Flaming Lip because of it.”

The Flaming Lips were talking to Drew, in 1996.