Unless you too have been living on mars, you've heard that Wayne Coyne, musical maestro mad-man of The Flaming Lips just recently released his cinematic magum opus: Christmas On Mars. The film was shot in 'Do-It-Yourself' style, using grainy 16 mm black-and-white film, mostly in Wayne's backyard- outfitted to look like a spaceship on Mars. It also took 7 years to finish, during which time The Flaming Lips released best selling albums, toured, and invaded stages world-wide with skeletons, santas, baloons and bevies of naked, dancing women.

Just in time for the holidays, Wayne sat down with MOG to discuss his take on Christmas On Mars, the impact of "Do You Realize", his various life philosophies, and what music is worth listening to now... And yes, we did, civilly and subtly, discuss his VISIONS OF MARCHING VAGINAS....Without much ado, below is 25 minutes into Wayne Coyne's psyche...........

(Wayne Coyne, on election day, wearing an Obama pin @ Warner Brothers Offices, NYC; photo by MOG indiepixie Faith-Ann Young).

ON THE FILM CHRISTMAS ON MARS:

INDIEPIXIE: Christmas On Mars took seven years to make. Elephants have a gestation period of 22 months. In other words, your film was the equivalent of 3 elephant births. Since I'd imagine an elephant birth to be quite painful, was this filming process equally so?

WAYNE: Well, if we were getting up every morning at 6 am and we were working on the film every day until the sun went down, like some Tibetan monk putting a piece of sand on a giant puzzle on a mountain side, it would be like that. But it wasn't. We started in 2001, and then 2002 we put out Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. We would work on it a little bit and then we would be off working on other records or going on tour.

Since an elephant is working on that thing every second of the day, I'd imagine when it finally shoots out, it is both a relief and a lot of pain. But in the way The Flaming Lips has done really for so long, we have to do so much stuff, make songs and videos and tour and t-shirts, and it's all just flying at you a million miles an hour. So you walk through space and time, and these things, like these elephants, are kind of shooting out of you. But you never feel as though they are a grand present to the world; it's kind of like, 'yeah I guess we did that' because you are just always moving on. So even though Christmas on Mars is finished, I still feel like it's still like going on.

INDIPIXIE: Why did you make a movie on Christmas? Did Santa not come one year?

WAYNE: No!!!! (chuckles) I think everyone should make movies about Christmas and songs about Christmas! The idea of Christmas to me is this idea that we do it ourselves. We get the lights out we put them on trees and we wrap the presents. It's just so wicked, fun, optimistic and so self-generated.

INDIEPIXIE: So Christmas doesn't have much of a religious correlation for you?

WAYNE: No, no, religion. I don't even really know what religion is but I've got no Jesus, no god. To me, it's all just us. Even the idea of Santa Claus – he's just a guy in a suit who puts on a cool looking suit and helps people who he wants to help. I think that's a great idea and a great creation in it of itself. I think any artist would look at that and say well, 'Christmas is a wonderful invention.' So I sing songs and make movies about it!

INDIEPIXIE: Parts of the film has an existentialist, George Orwellian theme. But you are a believer, no?

WAYNE: Well I am a realist. Even though I am optimistic, I do struggle. In the world, we try to control what we can but the more you understand about the world, the more you know…well…the whole thing is just flying out of control. In the movie, there are people who are confronted by an overwhelming helplessness. At some point, they are so overwhelmed, the oxygen generator breaks and the gravity control pod is out of control; all these things, and they are on this other planet. They have so little say over what's gonna happen in their life that they really should just go insane and crawl into a corner and kill themselves. Yet they don't, which is what we don't do……….

The more you know about the world, the more you really should just want to kill yourself! It's really not or will ever be this one-dimensional, beautiful happy place. It's full of hell and suffering and pain....And we are all gonna get older and we are all gonna die and everything beautiful is decaying.

But somewhere along the way you can look at that and be like 'Yeah I know. But I can love that and be happy in knowing that.' 'This is the life we have and let's be happy.' That's the story that maybe I can't tell within music or just within the Flaming Lips or just me standing here as Wayne in front of you. Maybe that is a story that only can be told with characters and settings and things. Maybe that's why Christmas on Mars says that.

INDIEPIXIE: After completing Clouds Taste Metallic, you said "I figured when I was done with the record, I'd have used up every idea I'd ever had." Do you feel the same way after making the film?

WAYNE: Yeah totally. I felt that way when we made our first record in 1984. When we were done with that, I kind of just said 'Ok, those are all the ideas I'll probably ever have…'

INDIEPIXIE: But this film seems to encapsulate all your ideas from your albums… using lot of the same symbols and imagery as in your albums and lyrics.

WAYNE: When we were editing Christmas On Mars, things would come up like the moths and the vaginal like things. I guess they just swim around in my mind and I think I am seeing them as some new inspiration even though I am really following the same ridiculous things all the time.

I do art and I like art, whether its bridges or clothes or painting or film or music. Even when I was walking over here, looking at all these New York buildings and it was like 'Damn, it's cool.' Anything you want to absorb into your mind through some sort of curiosity, you should do it. I think my mind does that. Even without being aware of it, I fall into these same things that I will always be fascinated with.

 

(Wayne Coyne Live; photo by Kyle Dean Reinford)

INDIEPIXIE: So what is the morale for the film Christmas On Mars in a sentence?

WAYNE: Somewhere in there is this sort of built-in Flaming Lips philosophy that we create our own happiness. This idea that we wait for some great savior to come along and make our lives good: if you are lucky, maybe that does happen. For the most part that doesn't happen to people. What happens is you say 'Well this is the life I have these are my friends this is the world I am in. Let's make this work. Let's make this the thing that makes me believe in myself and be happy.' And I think that's a real thing.

 

ON ELLIOT SMITH:

WAYNE: I remember it was a couple of years ago now we were on tour and Elliot Smith died. Elliot Smith wasn't a great friend of ours but we knew him enough to know of his plight. He struggled with drugs; he struggled with depression. He struggled with what you'd think from the outside was a great life. As an artist and a song writer, he got to do exactly what he wanted to do- but he struggled with it and could never just be satisfied by what his life was. He seemed to hint that he kept waiting for happiness to finally come along.

INDIEPIXIE: Hinting in his music?

WAYNE: Yes but also even when we were around him. Even through the drugs that he would take- he sought some kind of escape other than the world that he really inhabited. And for whatever the calamity was that ended up with his death, I think what we took from it is that we can't wait. We have to save ourselves. We're the ones that have to make ourselves happy. We're the ones that know what we want. We're the ones are the ones that know what we don't want. We are the ones that have to be responsible for our own happiness. No one else is- whether it's our wife or our parents or anybody. We should say, you know, 'I can make myself happy.' Because we don't know what's gonna happen to us.

(Wayne Coyne on Left; Steven Drozd on Rt. During filming Christmas on Mars)

 

ON FLAMING LIPS' DRUMMER STEVEN DROZD AND HIS HEROIN ADDICTION:

INDIEPIXIE: So Steve (Drozd) kicked heroin addiction throughout shooting........

WAYNE: He totally did. When we started to make it in 2001, he was at the height of his heroin addiction. I don't want to make it seem like he was horrible. I mean, he is a really funny cool guy. And even at the height of his heroin addiction, he was very charming and fun to be around. It wasn't always like when you think of Sid Vicious, lying around, in bed, slobbering on himself. I am sure he had moments like that but I wasn't there….

But there would be nights when we were shooting where he was, I don't even know how to say it,....at the worst of his heroin addiction….Sometimes, I would think the next day, someone would call me and say, 'you know Steven, he overdosed last night.' You just get that accustomed to that way of thinking. People say, you know, 'how can you be shooting a movie when you think your friend is going to die the next day?' But you do because that's just what the life that you are living is. Your life just keeps moving along and you don't control it.

When he got off of heroin in 2002, I already had my Christmas. It was like all the things that I was talking about in Christmas On Mars made themselves true even to me. I had really thought he was going to die. We all did. I think even he did. And then when we realized he wasn't going to die, not only was he not doing to die but he wasn't going to get back on heroin, we thought "well f!ck, now it's all just gravy." You know? (chuckles).

(Wayne Coyne Live; photo by Kyle Dean Reinford)

On PERFORMANCE VS. MUSIC & the impact of the song DO YOU REALIZE?

INDIEPIXIE: How do you think people will remember you?

WAYNE: I think if I am lucky, people will probably know our song Do You Realize? more than they will even know me. Because music does work on your mind in kind of an abstract way; I think that's why we like it so much. Music can mean one thing to that person sitting there, and something totally different to the next person. And they are both completely right because it is a malleable thing. You can make it mean whatever you want. A lot of times you are stumbling around and music happens or you sing things and say things in the right context and it really does make this bigger universal wonderful statement.

When people tell me about what they think that song Do You Realize? means to them, whether it's at their wife's funeral or their baby being born, or at their wedding, I'm like, 'that's better than anything I could dream of myself.' To think that people are using my songs during one of their moments in their life....!

INDIEPIXIE: What The Flaming Lips song represents you most or do you feel closest to?

WAYNE: I think even if I didn't want Do You Realize? to represent me, it would anyway. There's elements of me in that song. Do you Realize? is almost like a guy waking up from a coma, you know, seeing things for the first time. Which when I am around kids when they are fascinated by bugs or farting or whatever, you again are like 'yeah you're right; we really do live in an endlessly interesting world.'

INDIEPIXIE: Why is performance such an integral part of your music?

WAYNE:  That energy and experiencing the same thing- we can't explain that, but that's really better than anything. When we are all together experiencing the same thing and believing that same thing at the same time. We can take those songs at any time in our life, and we are transported back to this time- it is almost like a magic way of thinking and being. But you don't get that unless you have that energy that only humans can create………..

(Wayne Floating over Crowd; photo by Kyle Dean Reinford)

INDIEPIXIE: But we are talking more than just human energy. I mean you fly across audiences in a ball……………

WAYNE: Well I am doing all that because I just like crazy shit. (laughs)

(Wayne Coyne in Hamster Ball; photo by Kyle Dean Reinford)

WAYNE: But it's the idea that I am sort of demolishing this sense of 'coolness'. Like I'm not cool; I'll do anything. You're not cool; you'll respond to anything. And if we keep going, through volume, confetti, space bubbles, the videos that we are showing, everything just hopefully overwhelms you till we are both just in awe of the thing that the audience is creating. The audience is creating a kind of energy and love that lets us create a kind of energy and love back at them. And it does- it makes life like it's just brighter and louder and better. It's a real thing. Obviously groups do it every night. And for us to be one of those groups to do that exchange of love- it's a great power, a great honor.

(Wayne Coyne Live; photo by Kyle Dean Reinford)

INDIEPIXIE: What's the last concert you attended where you felt that sort of shock or revelation?

WAYNE: Well I feel it in concerts quite a bit. Because it doesn't take much. I mean I'm a wuss; I'm easily satisfied. (laughs)

I saw Radiohead at Lollaplaooza and there were definitely moments where I thought "there's that thing." But for me I gotta tell ya, Radiohead's down here to the back of the stage and then there was a football game or something behind and they were shooting off fireworks. So those were going off. At the same time the security guards had grabbed some freak who had jumped on stage, and I'm not saying it because I like violence- but this guy deserved it. And they were beating the hell out of him right below him. So I had Radiohead and their music, fireworks , this wicked fight.

INDIEPIXIE: Wow. In one word......visceral....

WAYNE: Yeah, I'm thinking I don't even need to exist. I've got everything! So for me that was a great moment. 

(Radiohead Live; photo by Faith-Ann Young)

INDIEPIXIE: What are you listening to right now?

WAYNE: I still like those boys on the MGMT record, even though me and Dave Fridmann {Editor's Note: Fridman is the Flaming Lips' 6th Lips and esteemed producer who also produced the MGMT album Oracular Spectacular} have been listening to it for a couple years.

I think my nephew's band started The White Dwarfs.

I like a song on this record called High Places. It's really bizarre.

I like this weird little kind of Barry Newman meets Echo & the Bunnymen group out of England, called Late of the Pier?

Asides from that I listen to the same old crap that everybody else does, the same old Beatles bootlegs, you know...(chuckle)

INDIEPIXIE: What's your most beat-up vinyl?

WAYNE: I don't listen to vinyl that much because everyone gives me CDs all the time any way. But the CD that I've probably played most that I know that I've had for the longest time is probably Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. And I've actually lost the copy so many times, I actually have three copies of it….but that would be the one that I have had the longest.

INDIEPIXIE: Artistically, are you more inspired by your dreams, your day to day or um.....(prior) trips?

WAYNE: Well it wouldn't be trips. I think it would be the middle one. The idea that you are awake, and things happen, and you are seeing the meaning right there.

But I've definitely had some dreams that have told me a lot .......like even the vaginal headed marching band.

INDIEPIXIE: Right. The vaginal marching band was a dream, right?

WAYNE: Yes it was a dream.

INDIEPIXIE: Just checking. it wasn't just some crazy East Village Halloween parade?

WAYNE:  No no no I really don't know! (laughs) That's why I can say it because I made it myself; I have no justification for it. I don't even know what it would mean! Just for me I thought it was cool.

INDIEPIXIE: Freud would have a hayday................

Wayne: Well I know but Freud makes too much if it. I think of course we'd like that sort of stuff. Why wouldn't we dream up stuff like that?

PS: MOG's got little elves working on getting some of these interview clips out to you as well. (I had Wayne hold the camera and show off his directorial techniques as well!) So look out for those in a couple wks..

PPS: Those killer live shots above were graciously contributed by photo extraordinaire Kyle Dean Reinford. Check his out more of his stuff here and at Brooklyn Vegan. Coolio.

PPS As always, special thanks to Warner Brothers, Rick and Wayne for the coffee (and) talk.

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Sure I (along with 100,000 hormonal chicks) first dug Butch for his sleeves of tattoos and ability to kick whiskey off bars whilst singing. But he's also also a gem of a man and become a good buddy of mine. So I recommend to listen to the track attached and download it on RCRD LBL (where most of you know I've been chugging steadily as Associate Editor). After all, it's recession and it's free goddamn it!

For a bit of background, almost a year to this day, Butch lost his house and everything within in the LA fires in Malibu. But miraculously, he managed to turn the tragedy into art. He spent the next year writing and beating out songs on his piano, then intricately and meticulously mastering the CD. Since this album was so personal and intimate for him this time, he delayed release from this summer until now, until he was satisfied with the end result. So even if "Ships In A Bottle" is not your type of jam, you'll see it's got unique guts and grit, reflective of how sometimes it takes you to loose everything to feel something. 

 

Um and for you kids in NY, tonite he's performing w. Jesse Malin....if u can hold ur whiskey, I'd say go. Plus, I'd beat money the crew will head to bowery electric afterwards (which Jesse owns) for some brews.

See his myspace for more info.

x

IP

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