The Flaming Lips are known for incredible live shows, but frontman Wayne Coyne says it's all an act

Despite being known for rolling around in a Zorb ball in crowds, Wayne Coyne claims to be an introvert. He told Zan Rowe on Double J’s Take 5 program, “I would never jump on a table at a party and say, ‘Hey, listen to me! Look at me!’”

“Because I’m a singer, and when I’m on stage I’m trying to look fun, people might think I’m a confident, show-off kind of person. But we’re just not like that at all. No one in our band is like that,” Coyne explained. “In a way, music protects me… music is the thing that makes you fearless.” The Flaming Lips frontman shared his five favorite songs, ranging from The Beatles to Billie Eilish, with host Zan Rowe on the program.

As frontman for the Oklahoma-based psychedelic pop band The Flaming Lips, 63-year-old Coyne has been performing for over four decades and is widely considered one of the best live acts around. Watching a Flaming Lips show is like being in an ocean of color and pure energy, with dazzling visuals, confetti-filled balloons, Zorb ball surfing, and—on the band’s current Australian tour—towering pink inflatable robots.

“All this stuff we bring, these giant inflatable robots and laser beams around us, it’s not about us,” Coyne stated. He added, “It’s about the music, it’s about the atmosphere we create, it’s about you (the audience). It’s all about you guys making it happen.” Coyne believes they could perform without the props, but they don't want to because it’s fun and it excites them.

Coyne told Zan Rowe that the suits and shoulder pads are a kind of stage uniform: “I feel a little bit like James Bond. Not that anyone else has to feel that way, but I can feel that way myself.” As for the confidence on stage, much of it comes from rehearsal. The band does a four-hour sound check before each show to perfect the thousands of cues for this multimedia performance. “If I look fearless, it’s only because I feel like it’s all going to go well,” Coyne said.

Everyone in The Flaming Lips is trying their best. At some point, you become a fatalist: you’ve done the work, and the outcome is out of your hands. The band’s current Australian tour celebrates the 20th anniversary of their beloved tenth album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (hence the inflatable robots). The 2002 album is being played in full, alongside other fan favorites.

Yoshimi is a sci-fi epic full of space-age synths, beeps, and other electronic weirdness, combining quirky songs about robots and karate with slow, sweet melodies and indie rock instrumentals, standing out amidst the chaos. Most prominent is “Do You Realize??”, a song full of sincere sentimentality where Coyne sings about the simple truth of our brief and finite lives. (“Do you realize / that we’re floating in space? … Do you realize / that everyone you know someday will die?” he sings.)

While other artists might get tired of playing their biggest hit, Coyne loves that the song has its own cosmic influence, with many fans sharing that it’s been used at funerals, weddings, and everything in between. He said, “These are big, heavy moments. The music goes beyond the song itself, it goes out into the world and becomes its own thing.”

“We get to embody that on stage… we get to enjoy the absurdity and the sadness, and the pure joy of hearing it rumble through,” Coyne stated. “We always say the music gods are always looking down. [They say], ‘Wayne and his buddies are working really hard down there. Let’s give them a song like that.’” Coyne added, “We’ve been lucky to have a couple of those songs, but maybe nothing shines like ‘Do You Realize??’, which is good for us. It’s a huge honor to be woven into people’s lives like that.”

Coyne doesn’t take this relationship lightly, having experienced it himself. On Take 5, he detailed how songs by The Beatles, Nancy Sinatra, Billie Eilish, Aphex Twin, and David Lynch collaborator Julie Cruise, among others, have been imprinted on his mind in wondrous and inexplicable ways. In The Flaming Lips’ 42 years, Coyne’s goal has been to make music that explains pain in a way that nothing else can.

“It’s invisible, it can’t be touched unless we have music,” Coyne said. He added that music is “like bananas and water.” “I live in Oklahoma, we don’t grow bananas here. Bananas don’t grow anywhere near me. And yet, every day, I want to go to the grocery store and get one.”

“Because people love them so much, you expect them to be there. And also, everywhere you go, there’s water. You don’t go to a place that doesn’t have water. That would be weird. And music is like that too,” Coyne concluded. “It’s because we love it so much. We don’t want to be away from these things that can permeate us: water, bananas, and music.”

The Flaming Lips are currently touring Australia, with shows in Melbourne on Saturday, February 1, Sydney on Sunday, February 2, and Brisbane on Wednesday, February 5.