Coyne's Arcade Fire Apology

05/05/09 11:43am

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has apologized to Arcade Fire for calling them "pricks" in March.

Coyne told Entertainment Weekly magazine he wishes the whole mini-feud "had never happened" and said he didn't mean the diss.

"I didn't necessarily mean it about the people in the Arcade Fire," Coyne told the magazine when the publication asked if Arcade Fire sent a telegram to congratulate the Lips on their song "Do You Realize??" being made Oklahoma's official state song. "I meant it about the guys that were running their stages at a couple of festivals.

"I wish whatever had been said wouldn't have been taken as such a defiant statement from The Flaming Lips, because it wasn't. I just assumed [Arcade Fire's response] was a joke."

Coyne went on to take the high road and apologize to the band for what he said.

"I really feel bad about it. I like enough of their music. The idea that I'm somehow against them... I'm not!"

Coyne told Rolling Stone magazine last month that he thought Arcade Fire were "pricks" and that "they really treat people like shit."

Arcade Fire's Win Butler fired back at Coyne (in a more gentlemanly fashion) in a blog post on his band's website.

The Flaming Lips are recording the follow-up to 2006's At War With The Mystics at drummer Steve Drozd's empty house. It's going by the tentative title of Embryonic and should be out sometime in September.

"Some of it reminds me a lot of [Miles Davis'] 'Bitches Brew' period when Chick Corea and John McLaughlin and that series of more freaky electronic players were all having their heyday with Miles Davis," Coyne told Entertainment Weekly.

"I wouldn't say it sounds like jazz, but it sounds freaky and unrestricted."

The Flaming Lips will play these shows:

June 12 Dores, Scotland @ Clune Farm (RockNess Festival)
June 26 St. Gallen, Switzerland @ Open Air St. Gallen
June 28 Helsinki, Finland @ Pitka Kuuma
July 19 Chicago, IL @ Union Park (Pitchfork Music Festival)
July 28 Sydney, Australia @ Hordern Pavilion
July 29 Melbourne, Australia @ Festival Hall
Sept. 13 Monticello, NY @ Kushers Country Club (All Tomorrow's Parties)