Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne on the profound influence of punk rock in his life: “Previous to that, you didn’t know that art was fucked up. To be a musician meant, ‘You’ve gotta know music. If you don’t know music, you don’t belong here.’ When really, some of the greatest musicians would say just the opposite — ‘Don’t worry about that, fuckin’ do your thing.’ But in this world, when you’re young and surrounded by a bunch of know-it-alls, everybody wants to tell you, ‘This is how it works and you don’t know nothin’.’ And you’re innocent, you believe them and say, ‘Well, I wanna try to do it my way.’ I was lucky punk rock came along. And I really did relate to John Lydon, I really did relate to the guys in Duran Duran and even Anthony Kiedis and Red Hot Chili Peppers. They just said, ‘Fuck it, we’re gonna do it our way and we don’t care.’ Beastie Boys. Having that inspiration, you can’t know how valuable that is. Suddenly what you thought might be true, they’re living it saying, ‘Yeah, it’s true.’ We started to do more and more shows and Black Flag came through here and played and the Minutemen came though here and played and the Replacements. And all these people, Sonic Youth came here and they would sleep on our couch and we’d talk to them and it’d be like, ‘We’re not alone.’ And I think that’s such a powerful bond, and it’s even more of a bond than just doing music. To know that there’s this thing, that you can do it, you can be a part of it. They’re inspiring you and you’re inspiring them, and it’s amazing. It’s knowing, ‘I’m not stupid for thinking this. I’m not purposely being an outsider.’”
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