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Later on the album, she joins the band for a song called “God and the Policeman” which ponders the idea that if an Earthly power – or a higher one – is watching over us, they know the things we’ve done and we’re basically living our lives on the run. They also found a new cosmically acquainted collaborator to join them on a few songs – the inimitable Kacey Musgraves – who lends her voice, though no words are sung, to “Watching The Lightbugs Glow.” Through the process of imagining they were another band, they seemed to find focus and a renewed sense of who they really are. American Head, though, falls right in with their mid-career classics like The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Their collaborations with Miley Cyrus and Ke$ha were cool, but for me, not essential components of the Flaming Lips body of work. The band’s output felt unhinged, dark, and just a little too challenging – for me – to warrant repeat listens. It seems like each decade finds this band re-imagining who they are and what parts of themselves they want to let us in on and I’ll admit I went into American Head cautiously as the last decade for the band has, for me, been a bit tough to digest. I think a lot of the lyrical content on American Head was pulled right from the adolescent memories of Wayne Coyne himself. But The Flaming Lips are, at heart, an American band who grew up living American experiences. Together with multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, Coyne imagined what it would have been like to be in a local band that crossed paths with Petty in the early days of his Rock-n-Roll journey.ĭon’t take any of that to mean that these psychedelic explorers traded in their outer space effects for jangly guitars and a strong back beat.
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After Petty’s death in 2017, Coyne watched the documentary Runnin’ Down A Dream and began to think a lot about Petty and Mudcrutch – a band that spend some time in The Lips’ home state of Oklahoma. American Head, according to Coyne was inspired in many ways by Tom Petty’s pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch. The identity of the Flaming Lips isn’t easy to describe and is best experienced at their concerts, which typically include animal costumes, dancers on each side of the stage, fake blood and, occasionally, a giant UFO.Believe it or not, after spending the last few decades floating somewhere deep in the cosmos, The Flaming Lips have returned to planet Earth.Īmerican Head is the 17 th studio album from the Flaming Lips – the Oklahoma band fronted by Pittsburgh native Wayne Coyne.
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I want to be the guy who made a movie called ‘Christmas on Mars.”’ They have created their world for themselves to live in. They don’t just go up there and play their instruments. “I’ll talk about groups like the Beatles or Pink Floyd or whatever. “We want this identity,” explained Coyne. “The Soft Bulletin” had a cinematic concept to it, and those ideas bled into “Christmas on Mars.” But they took a new direction with the sonic explorations of 1997’s experimental “Zaireeka,” which paved the way for their masterpiece, 1999’s “The Soft Bulletin” and their breakthrough, 2002’s “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.”īut in 2001, Coyne wanted to disrupt the regular band pattern of tour-record-tour.
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The New York Times called it “destined for cult status.”Ĭreating their own worldThe Flaming Lips have been around since 1983, experiencing the occasional success (including a guest appearance on “Beverly Hills 90210” - the first one). That Coyne and company even finished the movie has been a surprise to fans who for years have seen trailers promising its imminent release. The 86-minute movie is playing in theaters this fall and was released Tuesday on DVD by the band’s record label, Warner Bros.
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With moviemaking experience only from music videos, Coyne directed “Christmas on Mars” by casting friends (including professional actors Adam Goldman and Fred Armisen) and bandmates (the band’s multi-instrumentalist Steve Drozd stars). “I’m kind of that smelly, weird, almost insane guy making his weird outsider art in his backyard.” “I do know, for sure, I would be one of these guys who built a city out of bottle caps in his backyard if I didn’t have the Flaming Lips,” said Coyne in a recent interview, dressed in his trademark, always slightly rumbled silver suit, with a bow tie that never gets tied slung around his neck.