![\"Issue37-the-flaming-lips\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Issue37-the-flaming-lips.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nFor many musicians, approaching the crown jewel of the Beatles catalog would take a lot of nerve\u2014but for the Flaming Lips, reimagining Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band <\/i>was less about intimidation and more about wonder. \u201cOut of sheer curiosity, we picked\u00a0 some Beatles songs and thought, \u2018How are they doing that?\u2019\u201d says frontman Wayne Coyne. \u201cWhy are they doing that?\u201d<\/p>\n
For the track-for-track tribute With a Little Help From My Fwends<\/i>, the band recruited a small army of friends\u2014from My Morning Jacket, Phantogram and Dr. Dog to Moby, Grace Potter and Miley Cyrus. Helmed by noted producer Dave Fridmann\u2014who won a Grammy for the Lips\u2019 At War With the Mystics<\/i> in 2007\u2014the band deconstructed the songs and recorded their own interpretations, and what seemed familiar and simple became revelatory and perplexing.<\/p>\n
Covering iconic albums isn\u2019t exactly new turf for the band\u2014in 2009 they remade Pink Floyd\u2019s The Dark Side of the Moon<\/i>. It\u2019s another project the Oklahoma psychedelic rock band has added to its original music. Formed more than 30 years ago, the group\u2014core members include Coyne, Michael Ivins and Steven Drozd\u2014achieved mainstream breakthrough with 1999\u2019s The Soft Bulletin<\/i>, and worldwide fame followed with 2002\u2019s emotional, electronic saga, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Now after three Grammys, millions in album sales and hundreds of glitter confetti-covered shows, the Flaming Lips have metaphorically traveled back to the moment psychedelia went mainstream.<\/p>\n
Why cover Sgt. Pepper\u2019s<\/i>?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
We did a couple of shows around New Year\u2019s Eve and wanted to do something different, so we decided to do a Beatles\/John Lennon set. We literally stumbled on this great version of \u201cLucy in the Sky With Diamonds.\u201d We played it a few more times at other shows and people seemed to like it. Then we did a version on Letterman<\/i> with Sean Lennon playing with us. That set it\u2014that we\u2019re really in this thing with the DNA of the Beatles.<\/p>\n
Was taking on the Beatles intimidating?<\/b><\/p>\n
There are three groups: People who love the Beatles and love what we did; people who don\u2019t care about the Beatles and what we did; and the third group who love the Beatles and think if you try to do their music you should be killed. We try not to think about those freaks. The Beatles music is out there\u2014and doing our version doesn\u2019t harm their version.<\/p>\n
How did you choose the artists?<\/b><\/p>\n
Most are friends of ours who are not famous in any big way, just people I know. Just this morning I was texting with Antony and the Johnsons. He\u2019s like, \u2018If I had the time Wayne, I\u2019d do it.\u2019 I\u2019ll keep trying. I think persistence helps\u2014people like to know I\u2019m determined, and that if we do something it will be used and appreciated, and it will be beautiful. I want people to know I care, which is why I am persistent.<\/p>\n
Miley Cyrus was in early.<\/b><\/p>\n
We had this day booked with Miley Cyrus\u2014we had talked about working on original music together, and I mentioned doing \u201cLucy in the Sky With Diamonds.\u201d That was the beginning of the record, right there. We knew we had lots of friends and knew cool musicians and producers who wanted to do it, we just hadn\u2019t started until we got those great tracks with Miley.<\/p>\n
Which songs came together easy?<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cLucy in the Sky With Diamonds\u201d and \u201cA Day in the Life\u201d happened very easily, in one or two takes. The most difficult was \u201cBeing for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!\u201d, which seems like it should be easy, but\u2014and this is the same for a lot of John Lennon\u2019s music\u2014you take John Lennon out of it and it\u2019s not great. We struggled with that. I asked our friend Maynard [James Keenan] from Tool to do it. A week later we got the track back\u2014and it sounded virtually like it does on the recording, we just added some EQ.<\/p>\n
What was your approach to the project?<\/b><\/p>\n
Being influenced by the Beatles and Pink Floyd just like a thousand other bands, we got the feeling these are really simple songs done by a singer-songwriter with some ornate production. Not that anybody could do it, but it sounded like something you\u2019d be able to do. It gives you the impression that if you sit there and play guitar and sing, you can do something close to what the Beatles did. It\u2019s not true, but it gives you that impression.<\/p>\n
Do these projects keep you fresh?<\/b><\/p>\n
(laughs<\/i>) In the end, that must be what it is. My energy and my focus are part of what gets it from being an idea to getting it done. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s all worth doing\u2014but that\u2019s what creative people do: create. The more you do it, the more freedom you have to do stuff, and the less you get hung up on it.<\/p>\n
Was it like this in the beginning?<\/b><\/p>\n
Being creative doesn\u2019t mean you only create good things. The mistake people make is that they don\u2019t want to do anything that\u2019s bad, so they don\u2019t do anything. We\u2019re very lucky that we just started doing stuff and didn\u2019t think it was bad, though some of it was. But before we knew it we\u2019d done quite a few things. We learned a great lesson: If you don\u2019t do stuff then you\u2019re never going to find your way and gain confidence.<\/p>\n
Did you have a Plan B?<\/b><\/p>\n
As a professional, I didn\u2019t have anything else I could do. It wasn\u2019t that big of a decision to make. We resigned ourselves to work in a restaurant and in our spare time do our best to cobble our art together. We were lucky that for a moment in time a big label like Warner Bros. was interested in signing us. If that hadn\u2019t happened, we would still be weirdos working in restaurants trying to cobble our art together.<\/p>\n
Did the label deal affect the band?<\/b><\/p>\n
Though it wasn\u2019t a huge amount of money, it was a huge amount of money for us, and we could quit our restaurant jobs and figure out how to make our records and shows better. This went on for three or four years without anyone coming in and saying \u201cWait a minute, what are you freaks doing?\u201d That was a great time for us to take it seriously and work hard. We were fortunate that it worked and we were able to keep going.<\/p>\n
Is a new album in the works?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s like we do so much stuff that sometimes we forget. But because we\u2019re always doing things there\u2019s this building up of really great moments that we\u2019re going, \u201cHey, that would make a great Flaming Lips song.\u201d So we are collecting bits. Some things we didn\u2019t even know we were making and I\u2019d go back and say, \u201cThat\u2019s good, who did that?\u201d And the engineer would say, \u201cYou did.\u201d<\/p>\n
You forgot music you wrote?<\/b><\/p>\n
There are at least six or seven pieces recently that when I heard them I wished we\u2019d made them. It turned out we did make them! It\u2019s the best way to do it\u2014otherwise you get too self-aware about it. Art that\u2019s most expressive just happens. The best things aren\u2019t the ones we labor over. They just happen.<\/p>\n
\u2013Linda Laban<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE FLAMING LIPS\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Putting their own spin on a landmark Beatles album \u00a0 For many musicians, approaching the crown jewel of the Beatles catalog would take a lot of nerve\u2014but for the Flaming Lips, reimagining Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band was less about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[7660,6462],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14679,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14676\/revisions\/14679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}