Detroit Lakes, Prepare for the Freaks

No strangers to summer festivals, the freaks and weirdos (not my words) that are The Flaming Lips will be making their first trip to the 10,000 Lakes Festival next weekend for what will no doubt be the best show of the festival.
I had a chance to catch up with Lips frontman Wayne Coyne earlier this month in a phone session that ran the gauntlet from festival details.
“Is this something that’s out in the middle of nowhere where people are going to camp and do drugs?” to what to expect from one of the coolest live bands on earth, “Here’s just some freaked out, loud entertainment for you.”

Wayne added, “I really like playing the really weird little spots like the 10k thing. For our own experiences, we want to do new and exotic things. We still feel like we’re pirates out there that want to experience new things.”

Known more for a string of critically lauded and Grammy-winning albums, The Lips have quietly (at least to those who haven’t seen them) become one of the best live bands on earth.

“It kind of happened by accident. It was the idea of people weren’t paying that much attention to us anyway and we weren’t trying to be the biggest rock stars so it let us be free to do whatever the f*ck we wanted.” He added, “Instead of being a big time rock band, we decided we’d just be weird and do our own trip. The more we did whatever we wanted, the more the audience liked it.”

And while they’re a great live band, they’re keeping in line with their image as the odd-man out at 10K being they’re not really a jam band in the classic sense.

“Sometimes it’s weird that we’re so identified with jam bands ‘cause the one thing I know for sure is we don’t jam. I’m not a good enough musician to really jam and would never be able to stand up there and play guitar solos.”

One of the things fans have been patiently waiting for is Wayne’s movie “Christmas on Mars.” A science-fiction movie, about the first Christmas on Mars, it was written and directed by Wayne and filmed in his back yard. Started in 2001, it was recently finished and will be shown at various festivals throughout the summer, even possibly making an appearance at 10k.

“We think we’re going to bring it up to the 10,000 lakes thing. Its just logistics of where we’re going to put up the tent and the size of the generators and stuff like that. I think we’re going to bring it up there and play the show on Friday and then play the movie on Friday night and Saturday.”

The Flaming Lips: Main Stage, 10KLF; Fri., July 25, 10 p.m.