Music is made by individuals. Some artists will be very politically overt in their songs, some will be more subtle. You have to be true to yourself, true to your nature.

The film Black Orpheus is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil.

Actual patriotism has to do with loving a place enough to try and improve it.

Major labels just lost their way. It's like the housing bubble. They lost a sense of the fundamentals.

It seems like the record industry made so much crazy money in the 1960s that everyone wanted to get in on it. Now it's just become very corporate. So all of these people who despise music end up being in charge.

I think you have to want to be really famous. It's a lot easier to sabotage your career than to have a career to sabotage.

The Flaming Lips have been on Warner Bros. forever, and certainly everything I heard growing up was on a major label in some way, from the Cure to Radiohead to Bjork.