AMERICANWAY

ITINERARY CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: GEORGE SALISBURY; BOB GRUEN 2 4 N OV E M B E R 2 01 4 A A .CO M/A M E R I C A NWAY H E A R H E A R What we're listening to this month: M U S I C Trendsetter The Flaming Lips' WAYNE COYNE returns with a little help from his friends. O ' ' ' - , Flaming Lips mastermind Wayne Coyne, 53, has released a prolifi c array of music to a ravenous cult following; collaborated with David Lynch, Yoko Ono and Biz Markie alike; and made a run of most unusual short fi lms. Coyne's latest joie de vivre is The Flaming Lips' just-released, head-to- tail cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, featuring guest shots from Miley Cyrus, My Morning Jacket, Phantogram and others, dubbed With a Little Help From My Fwends. Here, Coyne talks to American Way about the project. AMERICAN WAY: The Flaming Lips seems to be one of the last rebel out- posts in the musical world. WAYNE COYNE: See, I think I get thrown into the category of being a romantic, but I'm not really. I'm not really antisocial or rebellious or antiestablishment. It's probably because I just don't care that much what other people think. I'm just doing my thing. AW: Before With a Little Help, you'd already recorded cover versions of albums by Pink Floyd, King Crimson and The Stone Roses. What's the appeal of such projects? WC: Any good musician will listen to records they love, and it's like looking at a painting or watching a film and going, "How did they do that?" I just don't think most groups are as tena- cious or as confident or as freaky as to record their own versions and then put them out. AW: How did With a Little Help come about? WC: We'd been trying to make it for a while, and we've often done a lot of Len- non or Beatles songs in our live shows, but we'd never really gotten the album going. Then earlier this year, I ran into Miley Cyrus, and we started talking about work- ing together, and she had this one day to work with me and I said, "Let's give a shot at 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.'" She was totally up for it. We got drunk. We got tattoos. We got a lot of songs done. That moved the project forward. AW: Sgt. Pepper's "A Day in the Life" seems like the perfect Flaming Lips song, a four-minute distillation of "Wayne's World," if you will. WC: There's an impression a song like that gives you that it's simple, but the untouch- able magic of the Beatles is that most of it looks really effortless. Having played it, I can tell you it's not. —J . R EN T I L LY Stairway to Heavenly Sounds LED ZEPPELIN IV is back and more captivating than ever. The third-best-selling album in U.S. history doesn't actually have a title. The band's name isn't on the sleeve either. Led Zeppelin's fourth album boasts an inscrutable cover image: a hunched-over firewood-gatherer who appears badly in need of a back massage. The packag- ing reflects Led Zeppelin's enduring mystique. "It's the product of a band allowing themselves absolute musical freedom to do as they wished," says Dave Lewis, editor of the Led Zeppelin fan magazine Tight But Loose. Guitarist Jimmy Page has now remastered the album — commonly called Led Zeppelin IV — for a de- luxe reissue (Atlantic/Swan Song, $17). It comes with a bonus disc of alternate mixes that showcase the band's intricate interplay. On "Black Dog," John Paul Jones' scuttling bass lines Velcro themselves to the main guitar riff, which he wrote. Near the song's end, singer Robert Plant unleashes a wail that would startle Tarzan. During the sonic apocalypse of "When the Levee Breaks," Plant's gale-force harmonica and Page's deluge of white- water guitar collide with John Bonham's off-the- Richter-scale drumbeat. Why does Led Zeppelin IV remain so alluring? It transports listeners to exotic realms such as the Golden State with "Going to California," the Welsh hin- terlands with "Misty Moun- tain Hop" and the great beyond with "Stairway to Heaven." Also, it rocks. "As a complete work, Led Zeppelin IV remains their most focused statement," Lewis says. "It still emits a freshness that belies its age." —S T EP H EN H U M P H R I E S FOO FIGHTERS Sonic Highways (Roswell/RCA Records, $12) THE BARR BROTHERS Sleeping Operator (Secret City Records, $12) JOHN MELLENCAMP Plain Spoken (Republic Records, $12)

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