We probably would have thought, It doesn't seem like it's working.Дo you worry that you might repeat yourself and make an album that sounds too much like one you've made before?

You know, without that record we probably would have not been around for 30 years. It's just one of those records that we could have easily forgotten about or thought 'Hey, that was fun' but it's always referenced. Is there an album you've made that you consider your masterpiece? Like, you'll never top it? I remember being like, 'Jesus Christ, that's a long time.' But then 20 years comes around and people are like, 'You guys have been around for 20 years!' It's like, ' Jeeesus.' There's a furniture store in Oklahoma that, even though it's shut down, the sign on the front would celebrate that it had been around for 20 years. But being together 10 years kind of felt sad-like jeez, haven't we found something better to do? In between the 10- and the 20-year, you don't really celebrate 15 years that much.

Being together five years felt like an achievement. But as it went, we didn't want it to end. If you told me, 'This is going to last 30 years,' I would have said: 'Oh, fuck, that sounds horrible !' I think it would have been a horrible thing to think, Oh, this is gonna be your entire life. Well, when we started, I don't think we even wanted it to last 30 years. Was there ever a time when you didn't think the Flaming Lips would be able to go on? These things that would really affect you. You've weathered a lot of crises as a band. And then we'd convince people to give us money, and we'd spend a year in the studio messing around. We had to go out there and pretend that we're a real group or something. For a long time, we would just do whatever we had to do so that we could make another record. Even though we play a lot, our main thing that we like is really making records. I think growing up around my older brothers and people having different drug dilemmas-just being in a very intense, freaky environment when I was really young-I think it really suited me to be around a bunch of freaks all the time.Д«ut mostly I think it's just luck. What is your secret to longevity as a band? Most bands don't survive nearly that long. Some of those are just impossible to get. We would include stuff like the six-hour song and the 24-hour song and the King Crimson cover record and the Stone Roses cover record. Well, noвЂ¦ I think we've done about 25? But there's a lot of them that you wouldn't know about because. You've been a band for more than 30 years now. In a wide-ranging conversation with Newsweek, Coyne discussed the Lips' improbably long career, his equally improbably creative partnership with Cyrus, what the hell 'Oczy Mlody' means and his deep loathing of Donald Trump. 'Because she's so right.' (He posts a clip from Streep's speech on Instagram, adding 'Right on sister!!!!' in the caption field.) 'I'm gonna put some social media out that celebrates that,' he tells me, pulling out his iPhone. He seems particularly inspired by Meryl Streep's anti-Trump remarks, which he watched on his flight. Coyne is fired up after watching clips from the prior night's Golden Globes. Politics comes up during our conversation. He says what videos they're gonna make.'' 'But then she has this desire to be like, 'I want to write the songs. And she embraces all that,' Coyne says of Cyrus. 'She's an extrovert, as extroverted as you can be. A rare moment of pop levity, 'We a Famly,' stars the Lips' unlikely muse of late, Miley Cyrus.

As on 2013's The Terror, the lyrics use surreal imagery to grasp at death and isolation. It is a strange and cold record, populated by inscrutable song structures and icy synths that wash away any trace of the band's noise-rock past. It's a Monday afternoon in January, and the Flaming Lip-in-chief is in New York City to promote Oczy Mlody, the band's 14th or 16th or 25th studio album, depending on how you do the math. Related: The Wayne Coyne guide to Oklahoma City Coyne, clad in a neon vest with glittery arts-and-crafts trinkets stuck to his face, looks about as out of place in this corporate environs as a god-fearing dental hygienist wandering lost through a furry convention. There is nothing remotely trippy within view-just papers and office supplies and stacks of promo CDs. Over the years, the Flaming Lips frontman has variously appeared at home floating over crowds in a gigantic hamster ball, taking a bath in his Oklahoma City backyard and putzing around white fiberglass structures designed to resemble Mars.Д«ut this one feels especially strange: We're sitting in a bland office at the Warner Bros. Wayne Coyne does not have a natural habitat.

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