A: Flaming Lips have been around for close to twenty years now. Who influenced you when you were first starting out?
W: Well, my brothers in the beginning had these great records, everything that was cool. They loved records and they loved drugs, and the whole idea of just being whatever you wanted to be. So I really owe most of the way I am to those early days. If someone wanted to play football, or be a mechanic or be a painter it didn’t matter. If I wanted to be an artist it was never elevated to some snobbish level. It was all the same thing to them. So by the time I turned eighteen and wanted to be in a band, it wasn’t looked down upon. I know that for a lot of people, it was a struggle to want to be an artist. For me there wasn’t any humiliation. We didn’t have anything to lose. You could be in a band or work at McDonald’s, who cares? They’re both fine. Luckily, around the time that we formed in 1983, there were all sorts of great anti-music things going on. Whether it was Talking Heads or Black Flag, where they weren’t necessarily the best players in the world, but damn did they mean it. It’s not about skill, it’s about wanting to be in a band. It was a thrilling time to be coming up in that mindset. I remember that right before we released our first album, The Minutemen came through town and stayed at my house. I remember talking to them, and seeing their van and equipment. They load their stuff, drive themselves, book their own gigs…it seemed very doable. I thought that I could do that. I mean, you see things like The Who and Led Zepplin and wonder how you get to that level. But I could see groups like The Butthole Surfers or The Dicks, and think that it was attainable. If the largest we ever got was playing to one hundred people, that would be great.

We simply put out a record, then another one and so on. Before you knew it, we had made five or six of them, and we started to figure out what we were doing. Then someone like Warner Brothers comes along and gives you all of this momentum…who would have thought that a band started in a living room would get to this point? It was based on those real life experiences, not on something I had read. If the largest we ever got was playing to one hundred people, that would be great. We simply put out a record, then another one and so on. Before you knew it, we had made five or six of them, and we started to figure out what we were doing. Then someone like Warner Brothers comes along and gives you all of this momentum…who would have thought that a band started in a living room would get to this point? It was based on those real life experiences, not on something I had read. I was there with Mike Watt, when he told me all about playing to thirty people one night and three hundred the next. Luckily people like him came along and encouraged us. We didn’t have to be The Beatles.

A: I was impressed by your infamous parking lot experiment, where you ‘conducted’ a variety of sounds from different locations. I hear you’re working on a film, and that you want to make it a multi-media experience by touring it in music venues….
W: Yes, it’s called Christmas On Mars. We want to play it as a loud, in-your-face experience. I remember when I was young, there would be theaters that would infuse rumbling during earth quake scenes and stuff like that. I think movies are great, but some of the current theaters are small and it seems like less of an experience. I can’t compete with Steven Spielberg, and have no expectations to. But I thought I could make a weird movie that has some over-sensationalized aspects to it, and that we could play it loud and bring in something like a snow machine. Something that’s more of an experience, where you could drink beer and do whatever you do at clubs. Maybe it could lead to something different. There’s potential, there’s another way to do things. I’ve done so many music videos, and all of the guys I work with are really into films. It’s not like we woke up after taking ten hits of acid and decided to make a movie (laughs). Even though I wouldn’t mind if people think that. I realize that it’s a big endeavor, and that it costs a lot of money and all that stuff. I think that it’s an exciting time to think that there aren’t limits. If you truly want to do it, maybe anything is attainable. All of it is a risk, but that’s part of the thrill of it. It’s just another crazy idea that might lead to something cool. There’s a ton of work involved of course. You have inspiration for something like the parking lot experiment, a grand notion that you can see laid out ahead of you. But in the end, it takes hours and hours of work to make things gel. I think people see that now in the way that our records are made. There’s the spark of the great idea, and then the work behind it. I think a lot of artists turn a blind eye to it, the intense work. It’s the challenge of the boredom, doing the same thing day after day and trying to make some progress. After you do that for months and months it gets to be fucking tiresome. Our recording process is four grown men, sitting on a couch thinking (laughs). Occasionally, something happens. It’s like watching someone read a book. It’s very dull, and we know that it’s dull. We hope the records are exciting. Making the music exciting is something totally different from the musician being excited. If that were true, it would be the easiest thing in the world to make exciting music. You could just go in there, take some cocaine and jump around and a great record would appear (laughs).

Much thanks to Wayne for his generous time donation and friendliness, to the band’s manager Chris and to everyone at Warner Brothers for their assistance. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is available now.