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Wayne Coyne was 16 when he realized hewould die. He was working at the fast-food restaurant Long John Silver’s when arobber held it up, putting a gun to Coyne’s head. Though he was uninjured, theincident left him with an awareness of his own mortality that would shape theway he lived. Most mornings Coyne wakes up and literally looks death in theeye.
“We have this fireplace in our bedroom,and my wife keeps this giant skull in there,” he says. “And every day I look atit and I’m reminded, ‘Hey, motherfucker, you’re still alive. Make it count. Golive your life.’”
That sentiment has carried over to hisrecords with The Flaming Lips. On 1999’s TheSoft Bulletin and 2002’s YoshimiBattles the Pink Robots, the records largely responsible for the cultfollowing the Lips carry today, Coyne recognized death’s inevitability, thenoffered solace. “Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die,” hesang, advising his disciples to nonetheless live life to its fullest: “Insteadof saying all of your goodbyes, let them know you realize that life goes fast.”
After those uplifting records, theLips’ latest, Embryonic, comes as ashock. On it, Coyne again confronts death, but this time can’t muster words ofcomfort. It’s a chilling record, driven by the most menacing, psychedelicfreak-outs the group has attempted in nearly two decades. There are no Yoshimi-styled warm and fuzzies here, orany escapist fantasies about galaxy surfing or time travel. Instead, in afrail, frightened voice, Coyne sings of decay and desolation, resigned to hisfate as the music closes in on him.
“I know that sometimes I sing aboutthings that could appear to be naive or optimistic,” Coyne says, “but the thingswe sing on Embryonic are notoptimistic. These songs are not saying that life is only good. We know thatlife is full of pain, that life is strange, that life is unpredictable.
“That’s one of those powerful things,the awareness of how temporary life is, how temporary happiness is, howtemporary comfort is,” he adds. “Your life isn’t set any one way. It’s alwaysin transition. Ideally it’s in a transition from one reasonably pleasant thingto another, but a lot of times it’s not. A lot of times horrible thingshappen."
The Lips didn’t set out to make analbum so overtly bleak. They pieced Embryonicfrom long jam sessions, hoping that if they recorded long enough they mightcapture something powerful.
“A lot of music and art comes from yoursubconscious, and you have to let those ideas seep out,” Coyne says. “So Ididn’t know what I was going to sing about, but I thought that I was brutallyhonest and if I followed whatever muse or whatever trip I was on, that theywould eventually come to my rescue. That’s how Embryonic ended up so strange. It’s about some element of the darkand unknown deep within ourselves that we’re not aware of, or that we’re notsure we want to be aware of. It hints at some animalistic, base humanexperience. I’m not sure we intended to do that, but when it happened we werevery pleased and surprised. Hearing it, I thought, ‘I didn’t know we could dothat.’”
Coyne cites his favorite song on thealbum, “See the Leaves,” as an example. Sloppy and ominous, it’s the record’smost striking moment, imagining a world “without hope, without love,” where thesun is failing, leaving the trees to whither. Like much of the album, it was anaccident. It began as a closing jam to another track, later aborted, before theband reshaped it into its own song.
“There are drum fills on that song thatdon’t hit on time, and all these other things about it where if you tried to dothem on purpose you would change them,” Coyne says, “but when it all splattersitself so beautifully in front of you, you’d be a fool not to accept it.”
TheFlaming Lips play the Riverside Theater on Wednesday, April 21, at 8 p.m.
“We have this fireplace in our bedroom,and my wife keeps this giant skull in there,” he says. “And every day I look atit and I’m reminded, ‘Hey, motherfucker, you’re still alive. Make it count. Golive your life.’”
That sentiment has carried over to hisrecords with The Flaming Lips. On 1999’s TheSoft Bulletin and 2002’s YoshimiBattles the Pink Robots, the records largely responsible for the cultfollowing the Lips carry today, Coyne recognized death’s inevitability, thenoffered solace. “Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die,” hesang, advising his disciples to nonetheless live life to its fullest: “Insteadof saying all of your goodbyes, let them know you realize that life goes fast.”
After those uplifting records, theLips’ latest, Embryonic, comes as ashock. On it, Coyne again confronts death, but this time can’t muster words ofcomfort. It’s a chilling record, driven by the most menacing, psychedelicfreak-outs the group has attempted in nearly two decades. There are no Yoshimi-styled warm and fuzzies here, orany escapist fantasies about galaxy surfing or time travel. Instead, in afrail, frightened voice, Coyne sings of decay and desolation, resigned to hisfate as the music closes in on him.
“I know that sometimes I sing aboutthings that could appear to be naive or optimistic,” Coyne says, “but the thingswe sing on Embryonic are notoptimistic. These songs are not saying that life is only good. We know thatlife is full of pain, that life is strange, that life is unpredictable.
“That’s one of those powerful things,the awareness of how temporary life is, how temporary happiness is, howtemporary comfort is,” he adds. “Your life isn’t set any one way. It’s alwaysin transition. Ideally it’s in a transition from one reasonably pleasant thingto another, but a lot of times it’s not. A lot of times horrible thingshappen."
The Lips didn’t set out to make analbum so overtly bleak. They pieced Embryonicfrom long jam sessions, hoping that if they recorded long enough they mightcapture something powerful.
“A lot of music and art comes from yoursubconscious, and you have to let those ideas seep out,” Coyne says. “So Ididn’t know what I was going to sing about, but I thought that I was brutallyhonest and if I followed whatever muse or whatever trip I was on, that theywould eventually come to my rescue. That’s how Embryonic ended up so strange. It’s about some element of the darkand unknown deep within ourselves that we’re not aware of, or that we’re notsure we want to be aware of. It hints at some animalistic, base humanexperience. I’m not sure we intended to do that, but when it happened we werevery pleased and surprised. Hearing it, I thought, ‘I didn’t know we could dothat.’”
Coyne cites his favorite song on thealbum, “See the Leaves,” as an example. Sloppy and ominous, it’s the record’smost striking moment, imagining a world “without hope, without love,” where thesun is failing, leaving the trees to whither. Like much of the album, it was anaccident. It began as a closing jam to another track, later aborted, before theband reshaped it into its own song.
“There are drum fills on that song thatdon’t hit on time, and all these other things about it where if you tried to dothem on purpose you would change them,” Coyne says, “but when it all splattersitself so beautifully in front of you, you’d be a fool not to accept it.”
TheFlaming Lips play the Riverside Theater on Wednesday, April 21, at 8 p.m.
