They'd say, 'The Flaming Lips! And you won't believe it: They're from Oklahoma City!' as if we're from outer space, ... And we thought, 'That's a good thing.' |
They're going to enjoy themselves almost regardless of what the bands do. We're just the dumb entertainment in the corner. |
This album is bigger and more lush than our previous stuff, ... We had the musicality and the ambition and the time to be more lush this time, to make more normal music. |
Time Travel |
To try to please people is an endless chasing of one's own tail. That's not very satisfying, so we do what we like and that satisfies us. When it does work out, its a bonus, really. |
We could take the movie around as well, and not just be playing as the Flaming Lips as a rock band. I'm thinking of taking it to theaters and having it be an experience where we bring in giant sound systems, smoke machines, Christmas lights, s--- falls on you from the ceiling and you can smoke pot and do whatever you want. There's something about the communal experience while something intense and unexpected is happening. I'm sure it will come out on DVD and there'll be a soundtrack, but that isn't the real experience. |
We really attempted it in a full-force Flaming Lips behemoth production style. We recorded 100 tracks of our beloved pedal steel guitar and 100 guitar overdubs for the music, and for the vocals we stacked all these crazy harmonies. We wanted to add different layers that people might expect from us, but we tried hard not to change the fundamental nature of the song. |
We remixed them in 5.1, which doesn't sound like much, but let me tell you — it's really a crazy, complicated thing to take these things that you did almost 15 years ago and revisit 'em in this format that only became available a couple years ago. A lot of bands can't do that because they don't have their own recordings. But we've always recorded ourselves, so it's a matter of me just going to the back room and grabbing the tapes and sort of putting them back on the reel. It's a weird treat. |
We transferred it all down to computer land within the last couple of days, |
We're aware that we have to be marketable, because at the end of the day, it's about making money, ... So we try to make our albums a good blend of art and commercialism. |
Yeah, people always get that wrong about me. I only took acid a few times, and never while I was in the band. I mean, most of the good rock things that I've done were actually done before I was in a rock band, like doing cocaine and having sex with people that you don't really know. |