Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne Talks To Billboard About Official Oklahoma Song Fiasco

After 'Do You Realize?' was named Oklahoma's official rock song, the Oklahoma House of Representatives rejected the results and denied the song to be Oklahoma's official rock song. It was denied because Rep. Corey Holland told the Oklahoman that he didn't like that "one of the band members wore a red T-shirt with a yellow sickle and hammer on it when the Flaming Lips came last month to the Capitol." and Rep. Mike Reynolds said that "the band has a reputation for using obscene language, recalling band members used offensive language several years ago when the city of Oklahoma City named an alley after the band." The measure was then vetoed by Oklahoma governor and he will now sign an executive order to morrow to name the song Oklahoma's official rock song. Frontman Wayne Coyne spoke to Billboard about the ordeal:

It just seemed to me the whole thing was absurd to begin with and now it even becomes more absurd. Now I really feel like it's something worth fighting for because I don't want people to just think, ‘Oh, Oklahoma is this backwards state as we suspected.'

You know, when it happened a couple of months back that seemed surreal it ever happened and then when all of this started, I think everybody's knee-jerk reaction in the beginning was, ‘Ah, we knew it was too good to be true. That's more of the Oklahoma we thought we were dealing with,'But it's not true, and I think that's the main reason I wanted to make sure I got to say something about it.

I don't think we're battling against what we feel is like a backwards mentality here. It's really just a few religious wackos that think they can tell everybody what to do. It's not even to me Democrats versus Republicans. It's really just a couple of these small-minded guys who are the most popular guys in their church and their little small towns. In some ways it's so absurd, it can only make us look good and them look stupid.

There are a lot of other great things that are happening in Oklahoma. And you know for the governor to stand up and veto it and be on our side, it's such a great story in the end.

I think we'll print up a couple of thousand of these (sickle and hammer) t-shirts and everybody who comes to this thing will be wearing one, We'll see if we can get the governor to wear one too.

Its nice to see that the Oklahoma governor respects the democratic process and will allow the song to serve as the official rock song of the state. Wayne Coyne previously made some negative comments about Arcade Fire.

The Flaming Lips - Bohemian Rhapsody [zshare]