Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne Reveals 'Dark Side' of Pink Floyd Cover Album

Posted on Dec 21st 2009 3:30PM by Joshua Ostroff
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The 2000s not only brought back the singles format, the past decade also revived the art of the cover song.

Not that there hasn't always been a Tiffany-type eager to score an easy hit by covering the Beatles -- but the Internet has given cover songs their sense of fun back, be it Ted Leo tackling 'Since U Been Gone,' Chris Cornell revamping 'Billie Jean' or pretty much everyone covering 'Crazy.'

Flaming Lips are no stranger to the form, having previously performed Madonna's 'Borderline' for a Warner 50th anniversary compilation and contributed to cult video game 'Stubbs the Zombie' by singing 'If I Only Had a Brain' from 'The Wizard of Oz.' But now they're doing a full cover-album of that 'Oz'-related Pink Floyd classic 'Dark Side of the Moon' with help from Henry Rollins and Peaches.

"It's one of the most popular records of all time," Wayne Coyne tells Spinner, "so there would at least be a couple songs on there that anybody could go, 'I gotta hear the Flaming lips take on 'Money' or one of those mega songs.'"

When their latest album, 'Embryonic,' was still a month away, Flaming Lips were approached by iTunes about recording a couple of digital-only tracks with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, an experimental rock band led by Coyne's nephew Dennis Coyne (with whom they collaborated on 'Borderline').

"I think they were thinking we would do our own songs," Coyne admits. "I was being honest with them and said 'I don't think we have any songs.' So almost as a joke, I said 'maybe we'll just do a cover of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon.'"

Already well-known for busting out Pink Floyd classics like 'Breathe' as encores at festivals and concerts, Flaming Lips' spontaneous yet ambitious new plan snowballed quickly from there.

"From a musician's stance, it's just a great record. It's not all just songs, there are instrumental weird bits in there and it's not very long. It's only nine songs and some are reprisals of the same theme over and over. It's not a mega thing to do, like covering the 'White Album,' he says, adding, "and we know every moment already."

Then Coyne called in some friendly favors, picking Henry Rollins -- partly because of the "absurdity" of his involvement in a Pink Floyd cover project -- and Peaches, because they'd already worked with her on a live cover of Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs'

"She was a lot of fun and a great singer and real energetic and easy to be around. So when we thought of this song, 'The Great Gig in the Sky,' which has this crazy acrobatic woman singing on it, we thought of her. If anyone can sing it, it's probably Peaches. And it's amazing -- she's a spectacular technical singer, which maybe a lot of people wouldn't know even though her music doesn't always show you that. It's clever and funny but people don't always realize how musical it is.

So Peaches worked from Berlin, Rollins worked from L.A. and the Lips worked in Oklahoma, with the whole project coming together in just a few days. Flaming Lips' 'Dark Side of the Moon' will be available digitally as of Dec. 22 and at month's end the alt-rock legends will perform Pink Floyd's album in its entirety at their annual hometown New Year's Eve Freakout!! concert at Oklahoma City's Cox Center.

"Pink Floyd is written and arranged in such a way that it's very resilient to other characters playing these parts. Some of our versions of the Pink Floyd stuff, you won't know what you're listening to. In that way, it's wonderful," Coyne says.

"Anytime there's a song that lets your flavor in -- if you're cinnamon and sitting on top of a latte -- that's how people see what you're about. That's why cover versions can be so interesting and fun. Even a songwriter like Bob Dylan would do other people's songs. Why would he do that? 'Cause it's cool."