Flaming Lips' Drummer Kliph Scurlock Gets Fired, Reveals That Wayne Coyne Is A Complete Jerk?
Kliph Scurlock
Wow, so it turned out that Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips was a jerk too? The same guy who was criticizing Win Butler and Beck for being some pompous pricks, is in fact a very awful guy himself?
Last month, Kliph Scurlock, the Flaming Lips’ drummer, quit the band, but we learnt a bit later that he was actually fired. And the reason couldn’t be more wrong: Kliph was fired for criticizing Wayne’s friend, Christina Fallin , the daughter of Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin. In March she posted a picture of her wearing a Native American headdress on Facebook with the caption ‘Appropriate Culturation’, and Scurlock was openly critical of her because it was offensive for Native Americans, while Wayne disagreed and posted a series of people wearing headdress on his Instagram, making a mockery of the whole thing. And, according to Gawker, this is why got Kliph fired!
‘I was fired for telling Christina to go fuck herself after her lame-ass ‘apology’ when people got upset at her stupid headdress photo,’ Kliph wrote. ‘That happened in mid-March. I wasn’t anywhere around during the performance [at Norman Music Festival] the other night’. Of course, Fallin is in a band and she did a Native American war dance at this music festival, in front of protestors holding signs saying ‘NOT A FASHION ACCESSORY’ and ‘CULTURE IS NOT COSTUME’. Fallin finally apologized but Kliph stood up by the side of the protestors,… and got fired!
The rumor was confirmed only recently and Kliph sent this long email to Pitchfork summarizing the story. He also added pieces of information that reveal what kind of man Wayne Coyne really is. ‘Ha ha… You so full of shit … ‘ responded Coyne to one of Kliph’s messages, ‘You’re a fucking coward !! Go stick up for your Indian friends if its so important to you !!’ and he later texted, ‘I think….. I am gonna make it so your ‘beliefs’ no longer have any association with the Flaming Lips ..’
Stories like the following one are also very troublesome: ‘He also once tried to get me to talk shit on the Black Keys on Twitter when he got mad because they supposedly dissed Led Zeppelin in a Rolling Stone article (I didn’t read it), but I pretended to do it and never hit send,’ wrote Kliph.
The long email is a series of more than disturbing actions that Wayne allegedly did, and if we knew about the grotesque publicity stunts and the eccentricity, it is no more laughing matter. ‘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,’ Stuff like this demonstrates what a dictator Wayne Coyne has been for the band!
‘As I stated earlier, I decided to keep publicly silent about the reason behind my firing for a number of reasons’, continued Kliph. ‘At first, I thought he would likely have a change of heart and I would be back where I felt I belonged and everything would move forward. But then he posted the photo on Instagram of his girlfriend, a roadie, Sarah from Phantogram and (to really drive his point home) A DOG wearing a headdress with a caption giving a shout out to Christina Fallin as a jab at me. That’s the moment I knew he wasn’t going to change his mind and was, in fact, doubling down on his reason for firing me.’
Is Wayne Coyne, who has always been considered by many fans as this cool and eccentric guy, in fact a complete asshole? And the fact that Mary Fallin boasts in fact far-right record – she ‘quashed broader criminal justice reform, refused Medicaid expansion that would cover 150,000 Oklahoma residents, signed 10 new restrictions on abortion and contraception, blocked local minimum wage increases, and slashed education funding – adds to the already terrible picture,… why is Wayne Coyne hanging out with this woman? So should I burn all my Flaming Lips CDs? What a phony character…But good for Kliph for standing up as he did!
