After 30 years together the Flaming Lips are still among the best and most interesting bands in the world. Blessed with a rabidly loyal fanbase and the pockets of indulgent major label patrons, the Lips have been able to pursue just about every project that struck their interests: recently including covering Pink Floyds entirealbum, releasing an EP every month for a year in forms as diverse as Youtube videos and USB drives embedded in gummy fetuses. This summer their always unforgettable live shows will even mixwith thein a way that seems almost inevitable. SuicideGirls recently spoke with frontman Wayne Coyne about his new art gallery,, and the power of Twitter.: So tell me about your new art gallery, The Womb. Is it a coincidence that youre releasing a record in a fetus and opening a gallery called The Womb?: Well I would say that its not necessarily a coincidence. Youre starting to see how my mind works, for better or for worse. When you have to come up with things you have to name them, you have to give them a color, give them. I think, little by little, there is no pretense. Youre not building an idea of yourself; youre being yourself. So if I can name a gallery and call it anything I want, well, lets call it that! But I have to say I didnt give it very much thought. [I said to] the people that are helping me out with the gallery, Come on! Lets come up with a cool name, and they didnt really think about it too much. I said, Well weve got to call it something. If it ends up that we dont like it very much well just change it to something else. Sometimes I think thats the only way you can be real, is to say, It doesntwhat its called. Then it really has a great name. Now I think everybodythe name. So yeah, its not a coincidence, but just things I think about all the time.: What would you like The Womb to be?: Well, the friend whos helping me do it wanted to open a gallery, so a lot of it is based on his interests. He had a gallery five or six years ago, and he had some dilemmas with the building and finances and stuff. When this came around, he had talked to me in the beginning of January. He said, You know, Id like to open another gallery. I was interested in it becauseinterested in it. That would be number one.I think, beyond that, we just thought it could be very cool, you know. We wanted to bring in artists that we knew from all over the world -- to bring stuff[to Oklahoma City] so it could be part ofworld. I travel all the time, but not everybody here does. So we thought we would do that and it would be interesting to meet these people and be around them.Plus, we just wanted a space where we could have freaky events: concerts, you know, experimental art, experimental performances, parties where people do drugs and hangout; a place where we could be at 4 oclock in the morning that isnt one of our houses. So we thought, Why not make this place? If were lucky itll attract artists and weirdos, people who are already our friends, and be a way we can make new friends. Theres a lot of things about it.: This seems to be a time when you guys are doing a lot of smaller, fun projects:, the gallery, Two Blobs Fucking, the gummy skull and fetus, releasing a song a month... instead of doing one big album and tour.: Yeah, I agree! Once you start in that mode it does kind of remind you that anything is possible -- if youre lucky enough to have money and energy at the same time. It would be difficult for someone a lot younger than me, who doesnt have as many connections as me, as much money and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, I agree. I think its a great, explosive, freaky time for the Flaming Lips, like, Fuck! Lets do this stuff, you know? Again, Im lucky; Im around a lot of people who are energetic. They feed off my energy and I feed off of theirs. That makes all the difference.: Thinking about the skull and the fetus, there have always been those two sides of your art. Your stage show might have clips fromand have you covered in blood, but there might also be a rainbow and somebody dancing in a pink bunny outfit. A song like Do You Realize? is a beautiful song, but its also about death. Are those two sides of life kind of an obsession for you?: Yeah! I think understanding this bigof our experience of what lifemakes the other [aspects] deeper. Its a dumb analogy, but its the idea that you really dont want to just sit there and eat candy. Or potato chips. But if you have the right combination you can almost do it endlessly, because one is giving you a different sensation than the other.When we talk aboutthe idea that we can create our own happiness, and that happiness means something to us, we dont want it to be. Its only because of our experiences -- that we know how horrible the world can be, how boring the world can be, how full of pain the world can be -- that we want to believe that happiness and pleasure can be just as potent. But we cant know how potent either of them are if we dont really know them.When were doing songs were singing about whatever it is thats fucking with us. You never sing about the whole scope of what your life is. Youre really singing about a very specific moment. Sometimes its about questioning, What am I about? Other times its, Why do we have to die? Other times its like, Man its great to feel good and have good times. A lot of it is based on these little experiences. But I think music cananything a thousand times over because it makes your mind kind of involuntarily swim around. Thats one of the mysteries of music: how it engages all the different parts of our mind at the same time.So even though I might be singing something that sounds simple, like, Everyone you know someday will die,music and with theof where thats going to take you it can be a big, epic statement. Thats why we love music so much, because it makes everything -- if it want to be -- bigger and better.: It bypasses the part of your brain that holds things at a critical distance.: Thats why we want it on all the time. If youre driving to the grocery store in your car, you want to be taken, yeah.: Youve been posting on Twitter recently about yourideas. You guys have been doingreferences for a long time. What is it about that movie that appeals to you?: Its probably connected to everybodys childhood in some way, but itsconnected to mine. I was born in 1961, long before there was even video. The only time you could see a movie, if you didnt see it in the movie theater, was when it played on television. When I was youngplayed on television, I think, around Easter every year. So every year for the first, probably, ten years of my life Id see this movie. That would be one of the only movies that you would have seen multiple times. Nowadays you can watch a movie a hundred times and it doesnt even matter because every movieis available to you, all the time.So it became that you got to know the music, and know these characters. I think, as I started to embrace the idea of what the Flaming Lips music could be, I wouldreference that. It hints at this longing, it hints at this optimism, but a lot of that movie is about horrible tragedy and loss. I mean, the Wicked Witch... in the beginning, theythis other witch! Theythe Wicked Witch! [Dorothys] in this horrible tornado in the beginning. Its violent! Theres a lot to be scared about it. And Im not saying kids movies these days [dont], Harry Potter and all those other things all embrace that sort of thing. I think thats why people like them so much, because it really isnt just for kids. It has bigger things about it.Also, for me, I still think Judy Garland, the Dorothy character... theres elements of those songs, with her singing it... Someone else singing it would not have had the same intensity or power or believability. For me,is so far above what we think of as dumb musicals. It hassongs. The themes of it are these optimistic, fantastical things. Its about. Its about this idea of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. That whole thing is saying, The rainbow is in the distance. My life is here. I understand what my life is, and my life is real. I dont know if I can live the life thats over the rainbow. We cant stop from longing and thinking about it and believing in it, but I think its because we dont ever know if we can escape into fantasy. Parts of our minds are so rooted in whats real and whats reasonable and whats rational. Again, I think thats what fantasy and music and all that childlike wonder: its part of us but were not really able to hold it.So its a lot of things. Plus its a very psychedelic, drug-oriented movie, and I think when it became associated with Pink Floyds... It was like Reeses Peanut Butter -- like peanut butter and chocolate -- two great fucking things that are even better when you get to fucking have em together. All that. So Pink Floyd and. I mean, theres a million other things from my childhood. When I was growing up I had older brothers that took drugs and listened to music. A lot of that iswithin us. We live in the Midwest, you know.is based on her being from Kansas. People kind of think ofsometimes as living in this magic land, Youre living wheretakes place, and Im like, Not. That was in Kansas. Were in Oklahoma. But they are a lot closer than New York or Los Angeles or something. A lot of it ties into that.: You know, Im from Oklahoma City myself.: No! I wasnt aware of that.: So I can identify with the Over the Rainbow idea. Im younger than you but old enough to remember the sort of cultural isolation we had here, especially before the internet. I remember going to the record store twenty years ago and asking for a Meat Puppets record. The guy didnt know what I was talking about, so I was just fucked.: Thats what I mean. Theres this whole other world out there that youre longing for. I know what you mean. The way that the Wizard has all this fantastical stuff -- Ive been thinking about it because weve been fucking with it recently -- but what I like about the Wizard is that he says, Yeah, this is all a farce. It doesnt make it less fantastic, but its a farce. When he gives them their fake medallions and their badges, the things he says are great things to say about courage and all that other stuff, I forget. These realqualities are the real magic, and all this other stuff is just magic stuff that we get to behold. I think thats a great thing for a silly little movie to go to. Its got a lot of great things about it that, if Im lucky, apply to this world of the Flaming Lips as I create this fantastical shit that I want you to stand in front of while youre taking acid. But also, we dont want to forget that were people, and the greatest thing about being people is that we get to laugh and cry and fuck each other and have friends. We get to experience humanistic things.: Speaking of doing acid. There was a major headline in the news this week: The Drug War Has Failed . Connecticut just decriminalized pot...: [Laughs]: Is that issue personal for you?: It. I dont care that much about smoking pot myself but I know a lot of people that do. A lot of people that are smoking it, theyto smoke in a sense, because they suffer from too much anxiety, and theres this wonderful cure of smoking a joint, early in the day or later in the day, that lets them. I think thats great, thats great for them. Unfortunately, they may go to jail which would cause a lot more anxiety in their life. But I would say the opposite. I would say the Drug War is starting to have an idea what the fuck is worth having a war over. I would say, crack cocaine, crystal meth, some of these drugs, to me, are always going to be too hazardous. Theyre always going to rob young people of their... I dont know if you know the neighborhood I live in, but I live in one of the lowest income neighborhoods in all of Oklahoma.: Over by 18th & Classen, that area?: Yeah, yeah. Im over here in the Plaza District, but Im on the other side of 16th, so I see it every day. The horrible destruction that drugs do, especially to young families. Theres guys over here who dont have a job, they have four kids, they dont know what the fuck theyre going to do, and then get addicted to fucking crystal meth.Life is tough enough and then you get these drugs that make you insane, and theyre very addictive and very cheap and theyre everywhere. Yeah, its horrible.But Id say pot is not anywhere near, ever, the same category as crack cocaine or crystal meth. Those are completely different things. So, to me, the idea that we can say, Pot is fine but these other drugs are bad. I think both of those things can be true at the same time. I dont think we need to make every drug, ever, legal, Make em all legal! Fuck it! I dont believe in that at all. We can sit here and analyze it and say, Yknow, pots been around a long time. Even Barrack Obama has smoked pot and hes the President of the United States. He seems like a smart, rational, mega-thinker of a dude. Ofhe [smoked pot], because hes a smart, curious dude. He wants to find out things for himself, and one of the things hed want to find out is, What is pot?So thats what Im riding at. If a conservative state like Connecticut can legalize it, I say, Yes. Fuckin do it. Lets make the laws out there in our world worthy of respect. This stupid law that makes pot illegal makes you suspect oflaws. Like, Why are these laws here? They seem stupid. Lets give the law some validity and say, Lets change this stupid law. That would be my argument.: You mentioned how a curious person wants to try new things, wants to say, Yes. Thats an idea that Ive always associated with you guys ever since I read that Dave Eggers piece that used you guys as an example a long time ago.: Well thats great of you to say that, and I agree. When that was brought to my attention, that Dave had said that, I hadntabout it that much. I just thought I was kind of doing what I like, pursuing the things that I like, but when he said that I thought, You know, youre right. Thatchange everything. That makes a big difference It even makes a big difference when you see someone else do it, because you may be cautious or you may think, Whats going to happen here?, but when you see other people do it its like, Gee, whats the harm? Fuck it! We learn from our mistakes, but if we dontwere never going to find out anything. All were going to know is the things that are already in our minds: things that make us afraid, things that make us second guess what were doing. I agree.But Im also doing art. Im not flying a 747 airplane full of 500 people, you know. There are areas in our society where we want people to say, Yes, and take chances. See what you can do. Take risks. Part of that would be people who are thinking about smoking pot. I mention it only because I cant think of a single artist or a single musician who wouldnt want to try pot. Maybe they wouldnt like it but theydto try it just to see what the fuck it is.: I know that technology has enabled you and a lot of other people to do amazing things, but do you ever feel like the internet sometimes allows people to feel like theyre doing something when they arent, or being connected when theyre not?: Well, that would be up to them. Id never blame it on technology. For us, even the way that we were able to makeback in 1997, without the ways computers are working, without the way all these new digital effects were working, we probably wouldve never thought that we could make it.As far as people communicating... People will say, to me, Dont you think Twitter is kind of empty?, and Ill say, No. I dont think its empty at all. People say, Texting people, is that really communicating?, and I say, Yes! I can give you a thousand examples. Were traveling in Canada; were traveling from the east coast to the west and stopping at a lot of places in between. Canadas got some pretty empty areas when you get out into the middle of it. We were going to be in a place called Medicine Hat, Canada. Iwe were going to be there for an evening and I thought, Man, what the fuck are we going to do there? So I tweeted -- and this is the power of my Twitter account, motherfuckers -- that we were going to be in Medicine Hat, Canada. I jokingly said, I hope I run into some mystical Indian and he brings me peyote. Its a stupid thing to say. What the fuck? Its funny, you know.People immediately tweeted me back, saying, Wayne! Thats so cool! Go to this bar and well meet you there. I was literally walking down the street and people knew I was there, came out, took us into this little art complex where people were painting and doing music. I had just taken a picture, as I do, of a dead bird on the street. Five minutes later I was in a little art complex where they were painting a dead pigeon that they had found silver. That would have never happened if I hadnt announced, Hey, the Flaming Lips are bored and were spending 14 hours in Medicine Hat. That, I know for sure, happens everywhere we go: if I announce where were at, people say, Hey! Look at this, this is interesting.We were just in Barcelona a couple of days ago and I couldnt remember where the fuck an absinthe bar was. I tweeted, Hey, anybody out there remember where the absinthe bar is?, and within twenty seconds four people said, Yeah, Wayne, its here. I got in a cab and we went there. Its. It doesnt change your life, but its like, those are cool experiences with people who arent necessarily my close friends but people who I think are. Thats what I think we want. You dont really have room for 10,000 close friends in your life because you dont have enough time, but you have room forof people who are. We can connect on things that only take moments to explain to each other. I think its wonderful.: Whats real absinthe like? All Ive ever had is the fake stuff.: I dont think these days we can ever really know what the real absinthe was like, unless you are lucky enough to run into someone who makes it themselves. We have some friends who make moonshine, and weve occasionally run into people in Europe that make real absinthe from real wormwood. To me, it fucks you up. Its a good drunk. Theres a little bit more of a dream associated with it. I think its awesome. But, to me, its more that youre in a place where people are drinking absinthe as opposed to you drinking it while everybody else is drinking something else. When youre around 50 or 60 other weirdos at 3 oclock in the morning and youre all drinking absinthe, smoking cigarettes, listening to music, telling stories, theres prostitutes outside... its just a fuckingplace to be. [Laughs] Its not necessarily that youre drinking absinthe, its just that the absinthe has created this atmosphere. Youre not around people who are drunk on whiskey or beer or other things. Everybody there is in the same dream state. Of course, a lot of times were drinking Red Bull because we dont want to stop. We want to keep going.: Speaking of which, you just turned 50 this year, but you seem as energetic as ever. How do you maintain that? How do you keep that spirit up?: A lot of it I think is just luck. The natural inertia of my genes and whatever have allowed it. I do yoga almost every day. I mean, sometimes I dont because were getting up at 6AM and flying or something. I try to be a happy person. I try to be involved with as many happy, healthy, energetic weirdos that are like me, that pull me along into their universe. But I think a lot of it is just dumb luck that I havent been injured or have any brain damage or anything like that from being alive as long as I have. Then, just seeing that my time is limited now. When youre 20 you can almost feel like your whole life is ahead of you and nothing drives you that much. For me, when I turned 50, I was like, Oh fuck. Thats very cool, because I used to look at people who were 50 and think, Those motherfuckers are done with. I realize now that theres a big variety of how you can be [at] 50, and Ive been very lucky that my 50 is like... Im healthier now than I was even 10 years ago.But it gives me that inertia of knowing... maybe I have 50 more years, maybe only 40, maybe 30! My father died when he was 64, maybe I only have a little bit! So that drives you as well. You think, Well I can sleep, [but] not tonight. I can sleep at the end of the week. It pushes you. As my life has gone on I start to value experiences more than things. Im not really concerned about having more and more things in my life. Im lucky. I have a great house. I have all these. Now, Im more driven to having experiences and not just things.: What else do you guys have planned for this year? Do you have something coming after the fetus that we dont know about?: Well, every other month were doing those elaborate, 12 inch EPs. Those, really, are very beautiful. I have a guy in Dallas who makes those, and hethe machine that the vinyl goes into. He does each one himself. Theyre pretty fucking fantastic. Beyond that, I have a gummy frog that youll lick. The salt box is moving ahead. Some of the things we were trying to do on it we wont be able to do, but some other new things have come up that well be able to do. We have this sort of stroboscope that spins and you shoot a light at it and it makes these sort of... animations. Quite a few great little things.At the end of it we still have our secret skull/vag combination thatll have the fetus inside the skull, but were not showing people that yet. Its going to be pretty fantastic. Thatll be a collection of all these songs that weve done [this year]. Thatbe 50 or 60 songs by the time we finish in February of next year. I think its going to be a great, freaky year for us. Well probably always operate like this to some extent. I dont know if well release somethingmonth, but I havemany things now that people are showing me and saying, Wayne! What about this? What about that?, that I believe that if I kept pursuing I could keep releasing interesting Flaming Lips objects for five years.: Has that been an upside of the decline of CD sales, that record companies like Warner Bros. might be more inclined to let you be creative with packaging and things like that?: Not really. I dont think its the record companies at all. Make no mistake, Warner Bros. still sells shitloads of records. They just dont sell shitloads ofrecords. Theyre a mega-successful company even by todays standards. Theyre going to keep selling shitloads of records. Maybe not records that me and you would buy, but theyre a big, diverse company.But with us and Warner Bros. theyme and the Flaming Lips to do this. They said, Everybody keeps talking about the next thing. Well, if anybody could be the ones to do the next thing, you guys would be one of them. Why dont you go do your thing? We are still on Warner Bros., but weve been given this freedom to do our thing. What I mean by that is... weve always had freedom with Warner Bros., but theyre a giant bureaucracy that takes a lot of time to go from the front of the building to the back. When you do something that has the Warner Bros. stamp on it, you could not release something every month. It would take you six months just to release one thing, you know. And theythat. So, when I told them, Heres what Id like to try, they were like, Good. Lets do that. But youre going to be the one that has to do it, because we cant do that.Thats the great position that were in. Were able to do it, we know how to do it, we want to do it. We have a lot of people connected with us that help us to do it. I think it would be very difficult for a young band whos just starting out to do what were doing. Weve been doing this a long time, so not only do we have a backlog of experience we have a lot of cool people who help us do all these things.: I dont think your career arc could be replicated if you tried.: We wouldnt have been able to do it on purpose. A lot of it just happened by accident, Yes! Lets do it!