The Flaming Lips will return on September 11th with their 21st (!) album to date. Entitled American Head, the album consists of 13 new songs recorded with longtime collaborator David Fridmann, and serves as the follow-up to 2019’s King’s Mouth.
The Lips first previewed the upcoming LP with “Flowers of Neptune 6”, a collaboration with Kacey Musgraves. Now, they’ve unveiled a second track in “My Religion Is You”, which you can stream below.
To coincide with today’s announcement, frontman Wayne Coyne has published a short story called “We’re An American Band”, which discusses the album’s inspiration.
“The Flaming Lips are from Oklahoma. We never thought of ourselves as an AMERICAN band. I know growing up (when I was like 6 or 7 years old) in Oklahoma I was never influenced by, or was very aware of any musicians from Oklahoma. We mostly listened to the Beatles and my mother loved Tom Jones (this is in the 60’s)… it wasn’t till I was about 10 or 11 that my older brothers would know a few of the local musician dudes.
So… for most of our musical life (as The Flaming Lips starting in 1983) we’ve kind of thought of ourselves as coming from ‘Earth’… not really caring WHERE we were actually from. So for the first time in our musical life we began to think of ourselves as ‘AN AMERICAN BAND’… telling ourselves that it would be our identity for our next creative adventure. We had become a 7-piece ensemble and were beginning to feel more and more of a kinship with groups that have a lot of members in them. We started to think of classic American bands like The Grateful Dead and Parliament-Funkadelic and how maybe we could embrace this new vibe.
The music and songs that make up the American Head album are based in a feeling. A feeling that, I think, can only be expressed through music and songs. We were, while creating it, trying to NOT hear it as sounds… but to feel it. Mother’s sacrifice, Father’s intensity, Brother’s insanity, Sister’s rebellion…I can’t quite put it into words.
Something switches and others (your brothers and sisters and mother and father…your pets) start to become more important to you…in the beginning there is only you… and your desires are all that you can care about…but… something switches.. I think all of these songs are about this little switch.”
Pre-orders for American Head, including various vinyl configurations, are now ongoing via the band’s website. See the album’s artwork and tracklist below.
In related news, The Flaming Lips recently delivered a quarantine performance for the ages, as their appearance on Late Show with Stephen Colbert featured the band and audience members alike situated inside giant bubbles.
American Head Tracklist:
American Head Tracklist:
01. Will You Return / When You Come Down
02. Watching the Lightbugs Glow
03. Flowers Of Neptune 6
04. Dinosaurs On The Mountain
05. At The Movies On Quaaludes
06. Mother I’ve Taken LSD
07. Brother Eye
08. You n Me Sellin’ Weed
09. Mother Please Don’t Be Sad
10. When We Die When We’re High
11. Assassins of Youth
12. God and the Policeman (Feat. Kacey Musgraves)
13. My Religion Is You
