FLAMING LIPS CHRISTMAS ON MARS LIKE GUNS N ROSES CHINESE DEMOCRACY

Wayne Coyne discusses the release of Christmas on Mars, The Flaming Lips new film which was seven years in the making

Seven years in the making, The Flaming Lips have finally completed their much talked about and highly anticipated movie “Christmas on Mars.” The Sci-Fi movie, which began filming in 2001 and premiered in 2008 at The Sasquatch Music Festival, tells the story of the first Christmas on a newly colonized Mars and comes complete with all the unpredictability, weirdness, optimism and oddities The Flaming Lips have been known for. Lead vocalist of The Flaming Lips, Wayne Coyne, not only wrote, edited and directed “Christmas on Mars” but he also acted in the movie along with all his other band mates.

We caught up with Wayne Coyne at the Los Angeles premiere to get his thoughts on The Flaming Lips success contributing to the film’s delay.

“But I do think we were sort of interrupted by the success but I have to say that really made the film so much better. I think if I would have finished it the first year or two or three when we started, I don’t think it would be anything like it is now. It would not be as rich and as strange and as weird and as optimistic and as unpredictable. Most of what makes the film good is I feel like, I made like three or four films in the time. I’ve had so much more experience and so much more willing to take chances and more willing to just go for the absurd and go for whatever my subconscious commanded me to do. So, I think for whatever the comparisons to Chinese Democracy, that might apply.”

So after experimenting with numerous music videos throughtout the years with The Flaming Lips, Wayne and the band knew the time was right to make a movie.

“We would make music videos but a lot of times we were just making silly little art films that featured our songs but we were never trying that hard to be played in the top ten of VH1 and MTV, we simply did crazy things and that was satisfying enough for us but you know I kept saying ‘We should make a film’ and those guys were saying the same thing ‘You guys should make a film. It seems like you’re ready for that.’ Whatever that means. So I think in my mind I was starting to think we should make a movie. The Flaming Lips, not that we need a movie but it sort of felt like these groups that we would align ourselves with especially like a Pink Floyd or even The Beatles, you know they had movies and they had stuff. You know it’s not just records and shows. So I felt free to say ‘OK, we’ll make a movie.'”

So now that the long road of artistic creativity is finally over, does Wayne feel relieved to have the project finished?

“If nothing else being able to make the movie with my family and friends and all the cool that worked on it with me and all that. Just doing that alone to me was well worth it and then to have this great, crazy, absurd Christmas story come out of it, that’s all just icing. And then to have people like it and for it to be a another vehicle that expresses the sort of Flaming Lips philosophy or something then that’s even better. So yes, the question is I’m relieved and yes!”

“Christmas on Mars” was released on DVD on November 11th, 2008 in three different packages. One package is a conventional DVD available at conventional retailers. There will also be a deluxe edition containing the film on DVD as well as a soundtrack CD. The Mega Deluxe Edition will feature: The Film and Soundtrack (in Deluxe Edition packaging), an exclusive t-shirt, a collectible movie ticket replicating those used during the rock festival tour, trading cards featuring all four members of the band from the movie on one side and performing on stage on the other, an “Eat Your Own Spaceship” bumper sticker, and a box of “Flaming Lips” popcorn featuring Wayne as The Martian. The first 1,000 Mega Deluxe Edition versions will have the popcorn boxes signed by all four members of The Flaming Lips. Of those 1,000 copies ten will contain a “golden ticket” good for two tickets to the Lips annual New Year’s Eve concert in Oklahoma City.