Wayne Coyne accuses ‘hateful’ Flaming Lips ex-drummer of spouting ‘made-up lies’

Singer responds to former bandmate's recent letter which detailed why he felt he was fired from Flaming Lips

Wayne Coyne has hit back at Flaming Lips’ former drummer Kliph Scurlock, calling him a “hateful person” and casting doubt over the recent letter he wrote to Pitchfork.

Scurlock wrote a letter to the website which claimed he was fired from the band after criticising musician Christina Fallin for wearing a Native American-style headdress. Coyne publicly defended Fallin at the time, even posting an Instagram picture of his friends and his dog in headdresses.

In his letter, Scurlock claimed that this disagreement over Fallin’s headdress photo culiminated in his ejection from the band. It read: “I put up with endless verbal (with threats of physical) abuse from Wayne because I absolutely loved the music we were making and playing (and also because I love Steven, Michael and Derek.) I turned a blind eye when he pulled several of his (what I consider to be) tasteless publicity stunts.”

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Scurlock continued: “I kept my mouth shut when he threw away the track Deerhoof had sent us to work on because he had suddenly decided that song was going to be done with Kesha.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, however, Coyne has responded to the allegations, calling Kliph a “compulsive pathological liar” and saying: “The only thing that we would have to say about Kliph leaving is that he just was not very significant to us. And all the things he’s saying about the reason he was fired, it’s all just made-up lies. He knows we struggled with him for years and it didn’t occur to us that it seemed that significant.

“I don’t even use the word ‘fired.’ He just doesn’t play drums with us anymore – that’s the way I’d put it. I don’t like having any hate go anywhere. I absolutely loved Kliph, but he had a lot of problems with being immature and he would just hate everything.”

In the same interview, Coyne apologised for offending Native Americans with his flippant use of their culture, saying he hadn’t meant to cause offence, adding: “I realise now that it goes deeply to the heart of some Native Americans. And I definitely regret it.”

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