Fountain Of Way

I’m Irish myself, y’know,” proffers 21st Century PT Barnum and Flaming Lips ringleader Wayne Coyne. “My name must have been O’Coyne at some point. I can’t say for sure if it’s authentic, but I’ve seen one of these family tree things that say what area you’re from on a computer. I think it’s real.”

Makes sense if you ask us. The Wayniverse always had a touch of the surrealistic Celtic saga about it, albeit one dreamt up by a druid who’d ingested too many mushrooms.
“Well, I take that as a great compliment! I come from a big family with a bunch of brothers, and when I was very young I went to Catholic church and all that. I didn’t realise it as I grew up, but once I learned about it as I got older, I think I came from a typical Irish family. Only I’m not an alcoholic!”
The theatricality of the Oklahoma band’s shows, in all their fake-bloody, cosmological extravagance, certainly suggests the high drama of the Latin Mass.
“I never thought of that. You know, the first place I did have a rock ‘n’ roll experience was in church. I don’t know why, but in the late 60s in this Catholic church in Oklahoma City, someone there formed a group, it was called Jay & The Americans or something, and they would play Sundays when we went. It gave me the false impression that all church was like that, and when they stopped playing I stopped going. But it’s strange how my rock ‘n’ roll experience and church, on one initial level, is connected.”
Thing is, most of us started skipping Mass around about the same time we began attending rock concerts. We substituted one form of ritual for another.
“Well, I agree. There’s times when people will talk about ritual and it makes it sound like normal everyday things that people do, but that really is where a lot of the power comes into it, ‘cos you kind of already know what’s coming. You go into a rock concert and there’s gonna be someone commanding your attention, telling you some shit that has the potential to be the greatest news you’ve ever heard.”
Flaming Lips shows understand this, exploit it, and also subvert it. Coyne will help set up the gear with the roadies, tell the crowd he’s going to walk offstage for a moment, and request that they go wild when he comes back on.
“I think that’s where the real power comes from,” he reflects. “We all know. We’re not really excited that Mick Jagger just suddenly appeared – we know this is a fucking routine, and part of the routine is that we go crazy when people come on stage. We started doing this when we played the first All Tomorrow’s Parties with Belle & Sebastian somewhere in Scotland, it was awesome.
“We’re playing this thing, and the place is so crowded you can’t help but be setting up your equipment amongst the fans. And I told them, ‘You’ve seen us up here for 20 minutes setting this shit up, now we’re gonna walk to the side of the stage and hide behind this amp and I want you to pretend like we’ve just been flown in by some helicopter and we’re running to the stage.’ And they went absolutely apeshit, knowing that it was all contrived, and fake, and it was them doing it. I have to say it was one of the greatest moments we’ve ever had. And then we realised enthusiasm is only fake in its birth. Once it’s started, it’s all real. Without us thinking about it too much, it does explode that pretentious entrance: suddenly here’s the rock star.”
The best art is playful. When you’re enacting Cowboys and Indians routines as a kid, you know it’s make believe, but that doesn’t inhibit the enjoyment.
“Kids know that you have to create your own fantastical world, and we expect them to do that, and then eventually they grow out of it,” Wayne says. “But the truth is, all great experiences are like that. You surrender to it and give it your own energy and love and dimension of values. I mean, how many times have you been to sports events? Sports events are nothing. Nothing is really changed. Your team either wins or fucking loses and the world is virtually the same after that. But if you get caught up in it enough, it’s fucking amazing to stand in this field with a bunch of other people feeling the same thing. And at the end of the day it’s just an experience for its own sake. And our concerts have the potential to be like that.”
So how does Wayne reconcile the part of him that’s had to play the driven, obsessed Captain Ahab role required to keep the Flaming Lips ship afloat for 25 years against daunting odds, with the part that needs to remain a decent human who can go home to his wife at night?
“Well, I think it’s exactly that: you wouldn’t do any of this unless you were driven by your obsession, because it does verge on the irrational part of your mind deciding what’s important in your life. But I think all art needs that. You have to not worry about the consequences. I think it was Jean Cocteau who said, ‘I don’t have ideas - ideas have me.’ And when the idea has a hold of me, I’m so glad to be a slave to this thing.
“And I don’t always know whether the art is worthy of everybody paying attention to it or whatever, but we’re just kind of doing shit that we like. Your term that you said, the Captain Ahab obsessive explorer fuckin’ maniac (laughs), I want to be that in art, and I think that’s what everybody wants me to be. That doesn’t mean you can’t still be a nice kind person. And there’s a time when I feel like we’re just entertainers out there putting this show on every day. I think The Flaming Lips are both at the same time. Proudly.
“I mean, a lot of rock groups don’t want to admit that it’s entertainment,” he continues, “that somehow entertainment feels like you’re kissing up to The Man or something like that. But I’m really relieved that this thing we do can sorta be thought of as a routine or an act or whatever, ‘cos it frees you up. It goes back to what you were talking about – the ritual of the church. You already fucking know what to do. You can invest it with all of your emotion and all of your energy. I know we have giant confetti machines and I walk in a space bubble, but that little thing of just saying, ‘I’m here with you - you may as well be involved, we’re doing this thing together, the more you get involved in it the better it’s gonna be, so let’s just get on with it...’ It is that human interaction, that communal energy, that love, that potential for an unexpected experience. That’s why you leave the house. Otherwise you’d just sit on your computer or watch TV.”
As a long-time Flaming Lips fan, I must confess that seeing Wayne Coyne ascend to the status of semi-respectable public figure and recipient of various awards at black-tie events has of late made me wonder if we’ve all entered an alternate reality. A couple of years ago Coyne delivered a commencement address at the Classen School of Advanced Study. ‘Do You Realize’ was selected as Oklahoma City’s official pop song last year. They’ve even named an alley after the band.
“I’ve thought of that as a kind of alternative reality myself!” he admits. “But when you’re there, I have to say, it doesn’t feel strange at all, because I’m 48-years-old, and a lot of these guys in their early 40s grew up listening to the Flaming Lips, even though they’re state representatives or senators or whatever. They just happen to be Flaming Lips fans who are at the state capital wearing a suit. But when you think about it in the big picture, yeah, it’s utterly absurd. I’m older than Barack Obama, who’s the President of the United States. I take that as a great sign.”