The Flaming Lips – "We like Sex Pistols and Pink Floyd"

Across four decades and countless madcap ideas, The Flaming Lips have evolved from indie noiseniks to purveyors of Disneyesque symphonia to multi-media art ensemble, each new album expanding the group's sonic world and conceptual ambitions. Accidental hits (She Don't Use Jelly; Do You Realize??) have pulled them into the mainstream on occasion, and yet the Lips have consistently refused to court commercial success and often seemed to actively shun it, with a string of extra-curricular projects, including a homemade sci-fi movie and a line in deconstructive covers albums, defying even the most hardened Lips fan to make sense of it all. Frontman Wayne Coyne tells Jason Draper why the extreme-embracing unit will always remain a "weirdo studio band".

- By Jason Draper

Prog-minded punks or psychedelicised pop saboteurs? However you look at them, you'll arguably never be as baffled by The Flaming Lips as the band themselves. In RC 510, P frontman and creative spearhead Wayne Coyne guided us through 10 landmark Lips albums, from the DIY hit'n'hope of Oh My Gawd!!!... The Flaming Lips (1987) to the lysergic alt-rock of Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (1993), the immersive format fuckery of Zaireeka (1997), the hip-hop-inspired art-rock of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002) and beyond. Now, as the group celebrate their 40th anniversary and mark 20 years of Yoshimi... with a 5LP box set and tour, Coyne, now a father of two, is back via Zoom, talking from his hotel room ahead of a live show in Knoxville, Tennessee - to tell RC about the pact he made with the gods of music.

The Flaming Lips turn 40 this year. What does that mean to you?

Back in the 80s, when we had been around for five years, we'd think this is either like, oh, good, we're hanging in there; or: It's pathetic that we can't find anything better to do... And I never liked being young. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I didn't do anything except work on art and music. I didn't go out to bars or take drugs or anything, so I was already settled into being kind of an older guy. So, once I started to actually get older, it really began to make more sense for me. Twenty years is an insane amount of time for a weirdo band to be together doing stuff that already seemed insane. And you have to think, if The Rolling Stones have been around for 60 years, and we've been around for 40 years, it's not that big of a difference. So, I think we've gotten used to it, little by little.

You're the last man standing from the original line-up. Are The Flaming Lips still a band in the traditional sense? Or is it you plus the musicians you hire?