The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne issues statement on former drummer Kliph Scurlock

Coyne first tackles, upon being prompted by interviewer Patrick Doyle, Scurlock’s comments: “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.”

Then their musical reasons for parting ways: “As time went on, he got to be a lazier and more close-minded musician. We didn’t ever really do that much with him. I mean, we would play shows, but he’s not creative. We never wrote songs together. He was a guy that we thought was, I guess, good enough technically that could do stuff in performance. But we know a lot of musicians, so it was not that big of a deal.”

And, for the greater chunk of the interview, they discuss the controversial issue regarding any association of The Flaming Lips with Fallin’s perceived anti-Native American actions, perhaps best summarized by Coyne’s stating “I would say that I’m very sorry, to anybody that is following my Instagram or my Twitter, if I offended anybody of any religion, any race, any belief system. I would say you shouldn’t follow my tweets; you shouldn’t even probably want to be a Flaming Lips fan because we don’t really have any agenda. We go about doing things through our imagination. And I would say that if we wrongly stepped on anybody’s sacredness, then we’re sorry about that. That was never our intention.”

Of course, all of this is discussed in much greater detail throughout the interview, which you can read in full over at Rolling Stone.

(For more background on Scurlock’s side of the issue, see our initial coverage here.)