Most artists I run into aren't that thrilled with what they do anyway. They are glad to have different versions out there to see which one the audience likes the best.

I do think there is a segment of people in Oklahoma that really do love the Flaming Lips and love this other idea of what someone from Oklahoma could be like. I've sort of become the spokesperson for this "other person" who could come from Oklahoma.

I stopped caring so much about what people might think if I sung about love and humanity.

Most artists I run into aren't that thrilled with what they do anyway. They are glad to have different versions out there to see which one the audience likes the best.

I call it "being interrupted by success." We had done The Soft Bulletin, which came out in 1999, and we knew we that were gonna make another record before too long. But in between this, we were still in this mode of kind of just - not re-creating what we could be, but kind of doing different things. For the longest time in the Flaming Lips we were like, "Make a record, go on tour. Come back, make another record," and you know, I think, frankly, we were kind of like, "There's more to life than just recording records and going on tour."

If you have a song that you think sounds like another song you should contact the publishing company and say I have a song here, let's cut a deal that lets everyone walk away feeling good.

I think if you're lucky, you start to make music and it gets things out.