Wayne Coyne
The Flaming Lips’ ringleader, 59, on fatherhood and the dark side of LSD
America is a major theme on your new album. Are you feeling optimistic about this country?
You hate to say anything positive about the pandemic. We’ve all lost our jobs because we can’t go out and play concerts. But I feel optimistic that it’s allowed people to take a break from the onslaught of all the cool things that can occupy your attention. I don’t think the Black Lives Matter movement would have had as much power if there were all these other things going on. I was very glad that there were no concerts and no sporting events — nothing else in the way.
You had your first child last year. How has fatherhood affected the way you see your life and your music?
It’s allowed me to know what’s important and what isn’t. I’m almost 60 years old, so I feel like I’ve had a good, long time. I’ve been doing music and art since my early twenties, and it’s like, man, what a great bunch of luck I’ve had that I’ve gotten to spend my life doing that.
Finally having our little boy was sort of like....It will probably sound horrible to some people, but music and art is not first in my life — and maybe it never was. There’s nothing worth sacrificing for your music and art.
How do you hope the world has changed by the time your son is your age?
The world is a wonderful, beautiful, insane place. Surely there’s a lot of injustice and pain, but I don’t think of it as a great punisher that’s here to teach us horrible things. So I hope it’s as challenging and cool as it is now when he gets to be older.
What’s the most indulgent purchase you have ever made?
[My wife] Katy and I took a trip to Hawaii. Man, that just sounds bad. That’s like rockstar [behavior]. And now we have a brand-new white Volvo family car; that’s an indulgence.
Your indulgent purchases are a family vacation and a safe car?
[ Laughs] There you go. See, coming from you, it sounds pretty good.
Drugs — from Quaaludes to weed to LSD — come up often on your new album. How do you view them at this point?
[My bandmate] Steven
Drozd and I both had these older brothers that we vicariously lived through. We saw the way we wanted to live; we saw the way not to live. We both have a little bit of survivor’s guilt about that.
So we’re not singing about drugs as if it’s a hippie, cosmic, mind-opening, beautiful thing. When I’m singing “Mother, I’ve Taken LSD,”
I’m singing about my oldest brother on the porch telling my mother that he had taken LSD. When your older brother says he takes LSD, you just think, “Oh, my
God. He’s so fucking crazy.” And then part of you says, “He is crazy — and he’s cool. He is like a god, because he can do things that I can’t do.”
But when I took LSD, it didn’t open up the world. It made me think of how horrible it is and how painful it is and how unfair it is.
When you were a teenager working at Long John Silver’s, you were held at gunpoint during a robbery. How did that experience change you?
Until then, I didn’t realize I was alive. My brothers and all of our friends were running around doing the craziest shit ever. Then I’m laying on the floor, thinking “This is how I’m going to die.” And when you don’t die, it’s the greatest gift you can ever be given. It shows you how petty all the little things that you’re worried about are. Those do eventually creep back on you. But I was free for a good six months.
You sound so happy now with your wife and baby, but your previous marriage ended in divorce. What did you learn from that?
I grew up a lot. I used to be a curmudgeon who thought that music and work were the only thing that matters. But your family and your people, those things are important. You’ll find a way to make your dumb music, and you’ll find a way to make some fucking money. Who cares? That’s easy for me to say now. When I was 30, I would have read this interview and thought, “This guy’s stupid. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” But in time, you will.
BRENNA EHRLICH
The Flaming Lips’ album ‘American Head’ is due out September 11th.