The Flaming Lips are an
American rock band, formed in Oklahoma
City
, Oklahoma
in
1983.
The band is known for their lush, multi-layered,
psychedelic arrangements,
spacey lyrics and bizarre song and album titles
(for example, "Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles",
"Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading
with a Suicide Bomber)" and "Yeah, I Know It's a Drag... But
Wastin' Pigs Is Still Radical"). They are also acclaimed for their
elaborate live shows, which feature costumes,
balloons,
puppets,
video projections, complex stage light
configurations, giant hands, large amounts of
confetti, and frontman
Wayne
Coyne's signature man-sized plastic bubble, in which he
traverses the audience. In 2002,
Q
magazine named The Flaming Lips one of the "50 Bands to See
Before You Die".
The group recorded several albums and
EPs on an indie label in the 1980s and early
1990s. After signing to
Warner
Brothers, they scored a hit in 1993 with "
She Don't Use Jelly". Although it has
been their only hit single in the U.S., the band has maintained
critical respect and, to a lesser extent, commercial viability
through albums such as 1999’s
The
Soft Bulletin (which was
NME Magazine's
Album of the Year) and 2002’s
Yoshimi Battles the
Pink Robots. They have had more hit singles in the UK and
Europe than in the U.S. In February of 2007, they were nominated
for a
BRIT
Award in the "Best International Act" category. the group has
collected three
Grammy Awards,
including two for
Best Rock
Instrumental Performance.
On October 13, 2009 the group released their latest studio album,
titled
Embryonic.
History
Early history and releases (Debut EP to In a Priest Driven
Ambulance)
The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983 with Wayne
Coyne's brother
Mark singing
lead vocals and
Michael Ivins on
bass guitar. The band debuted at
Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After going through a host of
different drummers, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That
same year they recorded their only release with Mark Coyne singing
lead vocals –
The Flaming
Lips.
After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and
the band released their first full-length album,
Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the
psychedelic-rock imprint of
Enigma
Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums; 1987's
Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's
Telepathic Surgery, the
latter originally planned to be a thirty minute sound
collage.
Nathan Roberts replaced English and
Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the
alternative rock band
Mercury Rev)
joined in 1989.
In a Priest Driven
Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in
Fredonia
for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The
album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their
previous experiments in
tape loops and
effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne
made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to
Neil Young, which he first used on
Telepathic Surgery's
"Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since.
In 1990 the band caught the attention of
Warner Bros. Records and were signed promptly after
a representative of the label witnessed a show at which the band
almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, OK)
with the use of
pyrotechnics.
Signed to Warner Bros. (Hit to Death in the Future
Head through Zaireeka)
In 1992, the band released their major label debut
Hit to Death in the Future
Head after the recording of which Donahue left the band to
concentrate on Mercury Rev. Roberts left the band as well, citing
creative differences. They were replaced by
Ronald Jones and
Steven Drozd respectively.
In 1993, they released
Transmissions from the
Satellite Heart. This was the only studio album since
In a Priest Driven Ambulance to date in which
Dave Fridmann has not been involved. Due to
the success of the album and the single "
She Don't Use Jelly", the band was
featured on three popular television series:
Beverly Hills 90210,
The Late Show with David
Letterman and
Beavis
and Butt-head. The success of this record led to long
stints of touring, opening for bands including the
Red Hot Chili Peppers and
Candlebox.
Clouds Taste Metallic
was released to much critical fanfare in late 1995, though it did
not achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. The strain
of the year-long
Clouds tour added to the stress from the
three years touring in support of
Transmissions was a
major factor in the departure of Ronald Jones in late 1996. He was
said to be suffering from a severe case of
agoraphobia, although the documentary
Fearless Freaks states that
he left due to growing
paranoia over
Drozd's drug use.
The departure of Jones and a general dissatisfaction with standard
"rock" music led to the three remaining members of the group to
redefine the direction of the band with the experimental
Zaireeka (1997), a four-CD album
which is intended to be heard by playing all four CDs in four
separate CD players simultaneously. The music incorporated both
traditional musical elements and "found" sounds (as in
musique concrete), often heavily
manipulated with
recording studio
electronics.
As part of the development of this project, the band conducted a
series of "parking lot experiments" and then later, "boombox
experiments". In the parking lot experiments up to 40 volunteers
were given cassettes created by the band to be played at a parking
lot in their cars' stereo systems simultaneously. In the "boom box
experiments" an orchestra composed of up to 40 volunteers with
modified "boombox"-type tape players was "conducted" – directed to
vary the volume, speed or tone of the tape they were playing (again
composed by the band) – by
Wayne
Coyne.
In the meanwhile, a series of strange incidents (recounted in the
1999 song “The Spiderbite Song”) beset the band. Drozd's arm was
almost amputated needlessly due to what he claimed was a
spider bite (it turned out to be
abscessed as a result of Drozd's heroin use), Ivins
was trapped in his car for several hours after the wheel spun off
of another vehicle into his windshield, and Coyne's father died
after a long battle with cancer.
Artistic breakthrough (The Soft Bulletin and
Yoshimi)
Though their experimental endeavors received some press coverage,
their real breakthrough came with the massively acclaimed 1999
release,
The Soft
Bulletin. Marrying more traditional catchy melodies with
synthetic strings, hypnotic, carefully manipulated beats, booming
cymbals and oddball but philosophical lyrics (sung much more
strongly than on earlier releases), the album quickly became one of
the underground hits of the year, even widely considered to be one
of the best albums of the entire decade.
Compared by many to
The Beach Boys'
Pet Sounds due to the addition
of harmonies and orchestrated sounds,
The Soft Bulletin
also featured greater use of
synthesizers,
drum
machines, sound effects and more studio manipulation. After
this album was released, Coyne stated that,
"if someone was to
ask me what instrument do I play, I would say the recording
studio." Realizing that an attempt to recreate this complex
album live solely with additional musicians would be prohibitively
complex and expensive, the group decided to tour as a three-piece
and make extensive use of pre-recorded music to fill out the parts
not being performed live by the members of the band. Perhaps most
notably, this led to the decision to have Drozd (ostensibly the
drummer, but a talented multi-instrumentalist) play primarily
keyboards and guitar live instead of the drums. This, in turn, led
to a decision to utilize video recordings and projections of Steven
playing the drums for some of their older, more "standard rock"
songs.
In a further attempt to enhance the live experience for the
audience and to more accurately reproduce the sound of
The Soft
Bulletin live, the Lips devised the concept of the "Headphone
Concert". A low-powered
FM
transmitter was set up at shows, and the concert was simultaneously
broadcast to small
Walkman-style receivers
and headphones available for free to audience members. This would,
in theory, allow the audiences greater sonic clarity while still
feeling the power of a full live
P.A..
This concept was
debuted in Dallas,
Texas
and at the South by
Southwest conference in Austin, Texas
in March of 1999, and was subsequently used on the
International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue
tour.
Three years later, in the summer of 2002, The Flaming Lips joined
bands
Cake and
Modest Mouse on the
Unlimited Sunshine Tour. They also
released the full-length
Yoshimi Battles the Pink
Robots to much critical acclaim. Featuring guest musician
Yoshimi P-We and demonstrating more use
of electronic instruments and computer manipulation than
The
Soft Bulletin,
Yoshimi is widely considered to be The
Flaming Lips' first critical
and commercial success after
nearly twenty years of existing as a band. The final track on the
album, "
Approaching
Pavonis Mons by Balloon " earned a 2002
Grammy Award for
Best Rock
Instrumental Performance, and the album was certified gold on
April 10, 2006. In March 2007, the band revealed that they have
recently teamed up with screenwriter
Aaron
Sorkin to produce a Broadway musical based on the album.
Both
The Soft Bulletin
and
Yoshimi Battles
the Pink Robots have been released on
DVD-Audio for an enhanced listening
experience.
Continued success (At War with the Mystics)
Shortly after
Yoshimi,
The Soft Bulletin was
estimated to have sold 300,000 copies in the United States, and
later went gold in May 2007. The Flaming Lips released two
EPs in the same vein of their previous album's
robotic theme and containing remixed songs from
Yoshimi,
Fight Test and
Ego Tripping at the Gates of
Hell. They also appeared on the track "Marching the Hate
Machines (Into the Sun)" on the
Thievery Corporation album
The Cosmic Game. In addition to their
EPs, The Lips have been working for several years on a feature film
entitled
Christmas on
Mars. Filming for the movie ended in late September 2005
and premiered on May 25, 2008 at the Sasquatch! Music
Festival.
In 2002, they performed as the opening act, as well as the backup
band for singer
Beck on his
Sea Change tour. In the summer of 2004, it
was announced that The Flaming Lips would appear among the
headliners on the 2004
Lollapalooza
tour, alongside such legendary artists as
Sonic Youth and
Morrissey; however, the tour was canceled due to
lack of revenue. Following the concerts' cancellation, the band
entered Tarbox Road Studio with producer
Dave Fridmann and began work on their eleventh
album, the more organic-sounding
At War with the Mystics. The
record, aimed to be a more guitar-based and heavier effort than
recent albums, featured more politically-conscious lyrics than any
of their previous releases, and was released in April 2006 to a
mixed yet mostly positive reception. Also in 2004, the band
recorded the song "SpongeBob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall
of Energy" for the
soundtrack of
The SpongeBob
SquarePants Movie.
In 2005 the band was the subject of a documentary called
Fearless Freaks, featuring
appearances by other artists and celebrities such as
Gibby Haynes,
The
White Stripes,
Beck,
Christina Ricci,
Liz
Phair,
Juliette Lewis,
Steve Burns,
Starlight Mints, and
Adam Goldberg. In that same year, The Flaming
Lips contributed a version of "
Bohemian Rhapsody" to the album
Killer Queen: A
Tribute to Queen. Also in this year, The Flaming Lips
released the
DVD VOID , which chronicles all of their
ventures into music video that have been produced since they signed
with Warner Bros. in 1991. In October 2005, The Flaming Lips
recorded a cover of "If I Only Had a Brain" for the soundtrack of
the video game
Stubbs the
Zombie, which features modern rock bands covering songs
from the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, the band released one new
song, "
Mr. Ambulance Driver",
for the soundtrack of the
2005 film
Wedding Crashers (a
slightly edited version of the song found its way on the new
record).
The band released two singles from
At War With the
Mystics: "The W.A.N.D.", which was featured in a Dell
commercial and which was originally put out as a download-only
single in early 2006, and "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", which became
their highest-charting single on the
UK
Singles Chart, peaking at #16. A 4-track EP, entitled
It Overtakes Me, was
released later in the UK that year. The only instrumental on the
album, "The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts
on His Werewolf Moccasins," earned a 2006
Grammy Award for
Best Rock
Instrumental Performance, making it twice in a row the Lips
have been nominated in that category and won.
Following
the April 4, 2006 release of At War with the Mystics, the
band began a tour to support the album in the United Kingdom
, including a finale at the Royal Albert
Hall
and performances at the O2 Wireless Festival. At the
Leeds England date of the festival, the band opened for
The Who, of whom they are long standing fans.
The band
continued to tour throughout the fall of 2006 stopping in Montreal
, the Virgin
Festival on the Toronto Islands, Atlantic City
's House of Blues, The University of
Vermont
in Burlington
, their hometown Oklahoma City, the Austin City Limits Music
Festival
in Austin,
Texas, and New York City
, NY
as well as
several other cities. The homecoming show in Oklahoma City was
performed at the Zoo
Amphitheater and included the unveiling of a new
UFO stage prop, and would provide footage
for the U.F.O.s at the Zoo concert DVD.
On December 5, 2006, Oklahoma City honored the band with a downtown
alley named after the band.
Vince Gill
and
Charlie Christian were also
given street names by the city. Flaming Lips Alley is at the center
of Oklahoma City's entertainment district, Bricktown. At the
official dedication in 2007, Coyne said of Oklahoma City, "...We’re
on the way to becoming, I think, the fucking coolest city in
America."
Christmas On Mars
In 2001, The Flaming Lips began filming a low-budget
indie film entitled
Christmas on Mars. Completed in 2008,
the film tells the story of the first Christmas of a colony set-up
on the surface of Mars. The band as well as many of their
associates and friends act in the movie, and it is written and
directed by Wayne Coyne. The band brought the film to rock
festivals across America during the summer of 2008 and screened it
in a large circus tent they had bought for that purpose.
Christmas On Mars was co-directed by Wayne Coyne, Bradley
Beesley and George Salisbury. The film was released on DVD on
November 11, 2008, along with a soundtrack written and performed by
The Flaming Lips.
Recent activity
They
performed at Bonnaroo 2003
and 2007 in Manchester,
Tennessee
. At their most recent appearance, they
played a full version of "
War Pigs" 90
minutes prior to their midnight show, which they told the audience
was "just a sound test" but was seen as a continuance of their
oddity and love of their audiences.
The band released their first live concert DVD,
UFO's at the
Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City, on August 7,
2007. The DVD also came with extra content including the entire
concert in .MP3 format, a program for creating a remix of "The Yeah
Yeah Yeah Song", desktop wallpaper, and ringtones.
On November 16, 2007 the Flaming Lips performed at the 2007
Oklahoma Centennial at the Ford Center in downtown Oklahoma City
with other famous Oklahoma artists to celebrate Oklahoma turning
100 years old.
In addition, the Flaming Lips' single "The W.A.N.D." was featured
in a new Dell Inspiron commercial that aired during the summer and
autumn of 2007, along with their song "Do You Realize??" featured
on a Mitsubishi commercial and a Range Rover commercial. Also, "The
Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" was used for a Kraft salad dressing
commercial. The Flaming Lips also contributed original songs to the
soundtracks of several 2007 films: "The Supreme Being Teaches
Spider-Man How to be in Love" for
Spider-Man 3, "I Was Zapped by the Super
Lucky Rainbow" for
Good Luck
Chuck, and "Love the World You Find" for
Mr. Magorium's Wonder
Emporium. The Flaming Lips also contributed two songs to
the soundtrack of
The
Heartbreak Kid: "Maybe I'm Not the One" and "Tale of the
Horny Frog". In addition, "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" was featured
during the opening credits of
The Brothers Solomon. They also
contributed the song "Spongebob and Patrick Confront the Psychic
Wall of Energy" to
The SpongeBob SquarePants
Movie in 2004.
The band
headlined the Jam on the River festival on May 24, 2008 in Philadelphia
, Pennsylvania
.
In June
2008 the band headlined at City Stages,
an annual music festival in downtown Birmingham, Alabama
. Coyne opened the show by playfully joking
with the crowd, stating that rumors of the band ignoring the entire
state of Alabama were simply not true as he vaguely recalled they
played in Birmingham some time around 1987.
The Flaming Lips also
played at Virgin Festival in
Calgary
, Alberta
on June 21, 2008.
On July
4, 2008, the band was a featured headliner at the inaugural 80/35
Music Festival in downtown Des Moines, Iowa
. Their opening included the throwing of 250
large orange and yellow balloons into the audience and a multitude
of audience members in various
Teletubbies outfits. They played for 100
minutes.
The Flaming Lips performed "Medley from Tommy" on 12 July, 2008 at
the Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA in honour of the
The Who at the 2008
VH1 Rock Honors. Taping took place 12 July,
followed by a network broadcast on the 17th. The telecast included
short interviews of Wayne Coyne in psychedelic loungewear and their
covers of iconic The Who material (including "
Pinball Wizard" and "
See Me, Feel Me").
On July 14, Wayne Coyne announced the band have started work on the
follow-up to
At War with the Mystics, stating that "some
of it sounds like
John Lennon but if he
got together with
Miles Davis and they
went back in time, but there was a supercomputer that they could
figure out how to work!"
NME.COM In September 2008, Coyne mentioned that a new
album could be ready for release as early as June 2009, with
recording scheduled for March.
In 2008, Entertainment Weekly named
The Soft Bulletin the
23rd-best album of the previous 25 years.
In December 2008 it was announced that the band are to act as guest
curators at the September 2009
All Tomorrow's
Parties New York Music Festival, headlining and choosing all of
the bands for the final day of the event.
On
Saturday, April 18, 2009, they headlined Vanderbilt
University
's Rites of Spring Music Festival. A various
assortment of Teletubbies accompanied them, and two of the
Teletubbies got engaged on stage. On Sunday, April 19, 2009, they
headlined the Green Apple Music Festival on the National Mall in
Washington, DC.
They also headlined the Rock Ness festival on the banks of Loch Ness
in Scotland in June 2009. Once again
appearing with Teletubbies on stage, Wayne Coyne made several
speechs about his delight about playing next to the Loch and the
band played an extended two hour slot. The band is confirmed to
play the 2009 Voodoo Experience Festival in New Orleans on
Halloween.
They were the headline show at Pitchfork Music Festival on July 18,
2009, performing on the main stage in Chicago's Union Park. Fans
had the opportunity to vote for their favorite Flaming Lips song in
order to create the set list for the night.
The band was one of
the headlining acts at 2009's Electric
Picnic, Ireland
's premier indie rock and arts festival held every
September 4th, 5th, and 6th.
In a May interview with
Entertainment Weekly, Wayne
announced that the title for the new album would be
Embryonic and that a September 2009 release
date was likely. On September 16, 2009, The Flaming Lips performed
on
The Colbert Report
and announced that they would stream the full album
Embryonic from the show's website.
Embryonic was
released on October 13, 2009.
The Flaming Lips curated the 2009 US All Tomorrow's Parties
festival at Kutshers in Monticello, NY.
The band's
follow-up to
Embryonic is a complete remake of
Pink Floyd's
The Dark Side of the Moon
featuring
Stardeath and White
Dwarfs,
Henry Rollins and
Peaches. The album will likely be
iTunes-exclusive.
The Flaming Lips also appeared as one of the headliners at Voodoo
Fest 2009 alongside acts such as
Eminem and
Kiss. It took place at City Park in New
Orleans, Louisiana over Halloween weekend.
In November 2009 the band caused some controversy at a UK gig by
advocating the use of violence against people who use
animals in medical research . The band were
also criticised for their use of "crude
propagandist" techniques in some of the visual
imagery used at their gigs.
Awards
- * Won: (2003) Best Rock
Instrumental Performance for "Approaching Pavonis Mons by
Balloon (Utopia Planitia)"
- * Nominated: (2004) Best Alternative
Album for Fight Test EP.
- * Nominated: (2007) Best Alternative
Album for At War With the Mystics.
- * Won: (2007) Best Rock
Instrumental Performance for "The Wizard Turns On..."
- * Won: (2007) Best
Engineered Album, Non-Classical for At War with the
Mystics.
- * Nominated: (2008) Best Surround Sound
Album for At War With the Mystics 5.1.
- * Nominated: (2007) for Best International Act.
Official rock song of Oklahoma
In March 2009 "
Do You Realize??"
was announced as the official rock song of Oklahoma. Ten choices
were put to a public vote, and out of 21,000 votes cast nearly 51%
were for "Do You Realize??" The
Oklahoma
Senate approved this choice unanimously. The
Oklahoma House of
Representatives failed to confirm the choice after Rep. Mike
Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City attacked the band for its use of
offensive language, and Rep. Corey Holland, R-Marlow said he had
been "really offended" when a band member came to the announcement
ceremony in March wearing a red T-shirt with a yellow
sickle and hammer. However, that evening
Oklahoma Governor
Brad Henry announced he
would sign an executive order naming the song the official rock
song. Henry said that for more than 20 years the Flaming Lips have
produced "creative, fun and provocative rock music." "The music of
the Flaming Lips has earned Grammys, glowing critical acclaim and
fans all over the world," the governor said. "A truly iconic rock
n' roll band, they are proud ambassadors of their home state. "They
were clearly the people's choice, and I intend to honor that
vote."
Members
- *Wayne Coyne – lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, theremin, bass
(1983–present)
- *Michael Ivins – bass, keyboards,
backing vocals (1983–present)
- *Steven Drozd – guitar, drums, percussion, keyboards, bass, backing
vocals (1991–present)
- *Kliph Scurlock – drums,
percussion (2002–present)
- *Mark Coyne – vocals
(1983–1985)
- *Dave Kostka – drums (1983–1984)
- *Richard English – drums, vocals, piano (1984–1988)
- *Jonathan Donahue – guitar
(1988–1991)
- *Nathan Roberts – drums (1988–1991)
- *Jon Mooneyham – guitar (one month in 1991)
- *Ronald Jones – guitar
(1991–1996)
Discography
References
- DeRogatis, Jim. Staring at Sound: The True Story of
Oklahoma’s Fabulous Flaming Lips. Broadway Books, 2006. ISBN
978-0-7679-2140-4
- Part 4: Exploiting the major label, retrieved
8-2006
- flaminglips.com; retrieved 8-2006
- Ink19
- Live Music / Dance – philadelphia weekly
online
- The Flaming Lips
- ClashMusic.com
- Entertainment Weekly 1000, retrieved
11-2008
- Billboard.com
- Entertainment Weekly's
- "Convinced of the Hex"
//www.flaminglips.com/blog/mikael/embryonic-set-stream-colbertnationcom
The Flaming Lips – Embryonic Deluxe Edition
- Flaming Lips bring 'Embyronic's' rock 'n' roll edge
to Hollywood
- http://www.nme.com/news/eminem/45776
- [1] Understanding Animal Research, 2009.
- Barbara Hoberock, " "Flaming Lips' 'Do You Realize??' named state rock
song", Tulsa
World, March 2, 2009.
- Michael McNutt, "Oklahoma House votes down Flaming Lips' state rock
song 'Do You Realize??'", The Oklahoman, April 23, 2009.
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