As the “Fearless Freaks” the Flaming Lips will be making their triumphant return to stages across the country, singer and mischievous leader Wayne Coyne is viewing the return to the road with a brand new perspective. On the long-running Oklahoma City psychedelic rock pioneers’ 16th studio album, 2020’s ‘American Head,’ Coyne and musical partner Steven Drozd mined specific moments of trauma from their past and snapshots of characters living on the margins of society to create a sprawling and openhearted masterpiece that is a perfect commentary on where the country is today: beaten, bruised, but not defeated.
Ahead of the Lips’ triumphant return to Philadelphia for a special show at The Fillmore this Sunday, Coyne sat down with Metro to talk about returning to the road, their run of socially-distanced “Space Bubble” concerts in their hometown of Oklahoma City last January, and how fatherhood has changed his priorities.
The Flaming Lips are finally returning to the road. I’m sure you’re excited to get out there.
Well, if you think back to June and July, it sort of felt like we were coming out of the worst of COVID, with restrictions and all that. But I don’t know, this has been going on for so long, we’re still pretty cautious. I think this jaunt that we’re doing is seven or eight shows. So it’s not 50 shows in a row or something just in case you get in an area of the country where things are more restricted and they cancel shows. Even the Canadian parts of this tour— that was going to be at the very end of these seven or eight shows that we’re doing in America—those already got postponed again. I think it’s all still kind of in flux.
From month to month, we’re really not sure if it’s all going to happen, or if it still feels like a good idea or what, you know? I feel like at the moment, it seems to be going well. But you keep hearing about another surge coming from Europe or something like that. I guess these days you really do believe it, because I think we’ve thought we were out of this at least three or four times now where you think, “Oh, this has to be the end” and then there’s another surge. So, I don’t know. Are we feeling like this is the end because everybody is vaccinated or are we just not ready to say it’s over? You know, because you just don’t want to be tricked again.
It does feel like we are all walking on eggshells at the moment. But for the most part, venues seem to be doing a good job with checking for vaccines.
We went to the Austin City Limits a couple of weekends ago, a big outdoor festival. And even though it’s outdoors, it’s in Texas. It was restricted to that you had to have a vaccination card and stuff like that and it was fantastic. The patience of the people that were running the thing and all the people having to check the IDs and all that. I think it would be a great way to be forever now. Just be a little bit more aware of whether people’s health is at risk here, instead of being the drunken free for all [that it was when] we all are just running around the world. I mean, before COVID, we would call it a tour, but we would like to jump around the whole planet at random. Play in Texas, and like two days later, we’d be in Tokyo. Then two days later, we’d be in South America. We would call that a tour. But really, it was just jumping around from place to place just because you can.
I think now, we would consider that a little bit more. Maybe that’s not such a good idea to just be so casual about going from place to place? Maybe that was what the risk was all along and we just didn’t know it. I think it would be a welcome relief to know that most people that are going to concerts, care about the people that are around them as well. Unlike the way it is kind of in the rest of the wild west out here. When even going to the grocery store, you’re kind of confronted with people who just don’t believe Trump lost. They believe Trump is still president, they don’t believe vaccines work, and they think it’s all a conspiracy. You’re like, “Okay, anyway, I’m just getting some coffee. See you later.”
When you debuted the plastic “space bubble” at Coachella in 2004, it was a way of getting closer to the audience by crowd surfing inside a giant plastic bubble. But this year you returned to the stage in your hometown of Oklahoma City for a series of “bubble concerts” that made it safe for the audience and the band to be socially distanced to enjoy the shows. How did that shift feel and how were those shows?
The whole thing was very stressful. We would question it all the time, you know, like, are we doing the right thing? Is this going to work? We have two documentaries about the space bubble show. So there’s one about how we did it and how it all came together and another one is just the concert itself. I’ve just been immersed in it, you know, since the beginning of the pandemic. I think if we felt as though it was too stressful or too dangerous or too risky, we simply wouldn’t have done it. So I think as we went, we discovered new ways to make it safer. And we discovered that the audience I think, as it went on, people just got more and more used to this idea of social distancing. By the time we were doing the first space bubble concerts, all those things were pretty normal. So it wasn’t that bizarre for people to wait outside in a restricted line, and then be brought in really almost one at a time into the show.
You and your partner Katy Weaver had your son Bloom in 2019 and you are expecting your second child in 2022. How has fatherhood been for you?
For me, it’s the best thing ever. I come from a big family. There were six kids and our parents and animals and friends. I mean, my house has been full of people, my whole life. So I probably always wanted to be a father, and I didn’t really know it. I think that’s probably why The Flaming Lips is this long friendship with these guys, because it’s like my family. I think that’s probably for the beginning of my life, my adult life, I did have a family, and it was The Flaming Lips.
Now, I have this other type of family that makes being in the Flaming Lips even better. It just really gives absolute meaning and love to everything that I do instead of it being kind of adrift. I guess to me, being a father is the greatest job in the universe. It has nothing to do with being a rock star, being a president or being a CEO. The universe just says, “Okay, now you got this big important job. Don’t f*ck it up.” Being responsible is such a glorious feeling. I know, that goes against what I think most people would probably think but for me being responsible is like the best drug ever.
