Interview: The Flaming Lips [Part I]

by John Davidson
20 June 2006

As THE FLAMING LIPS continue their miracle run with Warner Borthers, one of the world’s most esteemed record companies, one question comes to mind: How do they continue to offer perplexing – even often weird—pop music? Unlike most bands who never sell millions of albums, the Flaming Lips manage to still curry favor with their suitors. How else to explain their two decade career, one that includes an LP released as a 4-CD set (1997’s Zaireeka) that was designed to play as both individually and simultaneously?! Or maybe we should just shut up and be glad someone is giving them an artistic chance in the face of an industry-wide slump in sales. On the occasion of the Lips’ recently-released LP At War With the Mystics, here are excerpts from my conversation with co-founder MICHAEL IVINS [pictured above left] about playing festivals, career longevity, and the artistic process.

Are you excited to do some summer festivals this year?

MICHAEL IVINS: We’ve been playing festivals since we started—Roskilde, which was years ago. It always sort of struck us, until the whole Lollapalooza concept got going, that the Americans really didn’t do huge summer festivals like they did in Europe. But now it seems as though it has started to catch on. I think it’s cool.

What’s the difference between festivals in the U.S. and the ones in Europe?

MICHAEL IVINS: Reading and Glastonbury have been at it for, like 30 years or something. And they’ve wrapped them around what they call “bank holidays” over there. We have the Monday holidays here, the long weekend, but there definitely seems to be a different attitude here with those sorts of holidays. [Here,] they’re almost wrapped around how you stay home and watch a football game or party all night Sunday. Whereas the long weekend seems like a really big deal in England; everybody decides to get up and meet in a field in Reading or Glastonbury or something, and take in a big festival to go camping. Even people who aren’t into rock and roll don’t just go on day trips for those, they go on longer excursions. There’s something a little more culturally built-in over there, than in here, maybe. Plus, everything’s so small, distance-wise, that you can live pretty much anywhere and get on a train to head up to Reading or something like that. As opposed to here, where it’s just starting to get that feel. I think it goes beyond music over there, where there just happens to be music going on. It’s more of a tradition. Here, I think it’s more of a show. Which is fine.

America is finally getting on board with more eclectic festivals: Bonnaroo, Bumbershoot, Intonation, etc. Maybe it’s something we can embed into our culture.

MICHAEL IVINS: Sometimes it’s just so beneficial to go over to Europe or elsewhere to see how different people live. People are the same everywhere, for the most part. We have to get up and go to work or whatever. But there’s also something different… sometimes I think that Americans, instead of driving their big huge cars all over the place and not walking and thinking that we have to have one-stop shopping and having everything open all the time. You know, the whole convenience store idea. That was an interesting experiment, but is that actually a good idea? To have one or three convenience stores, that’s fine. But really, at three o’clock in the morning, can’t you just go back to sleep and then get up at a reasonable hour to go get what you need? It’s like our culture means that you have to be consuming something at all times. And rather than it be a two-way street, the rest of the world seems to be embracing the supersizing. It’s safe, because I know I can walk into a McDonald’s wherever I’m at.

[Parts II and III to follow]

Filed under music indie-rock