The Flaming Lips – at least how we all knew them – are officially dead.
In case you missed it over the holidays, Steven Drozd – the instrumentalist, musician and vocalist who has been the better half of The Flaming Lips since the 1990s – accidentally leaked on social media that he’s no longer with the band.
Although the news had been floating around the OKC creative class for a while, it was quickly picked up by the national online music press, sparking mass hysteria in pink robot quarters.
Our main man Ryan LaCroix with KOSU has the basic details:
It’s been a trying week for Flaming Lips fans.
It started when Stephen Drozd confirmed what many of us feared: he’s no longer a member of the band.
Drozd has been absent from the Lips since fall 2024, sometime around when his daughter went missing — but was found! — in Seattle, and Lips collaborator Nell Smith tragically died in a car crash that same week.
“They’re done with me – but we’re not talking about it,” he said in a now-deleted Threads post.
Drozd later poked fun at himself for his “loose lips,” but the damage was done. Fans sounded off online about Drozd’s departure and everyone’s loss, with some blaming the Lips — and specifically Wayne Coyne — for not posting about the split.
That sucks. When I first heard this news was official, I went and listened to The Soft Bulletin on my record player like the band had just died. Then, about halfway through, I remembered that the band, as we knew them, actually died in 2009 when Wayne left his longtime wife and creative collaborator Michelle Martin for a Paseo bar fly and threesomes with Miley Cyrus — and that I was probably just being melodramatic about it.
On the topic of being melodramatic, I guess Wayne and the other bandmates didn’t like Steven letting Flaming Lips fans know he’s no longer part of the band that brought so much joy and music to their lives.
First, the new Flaming Lips drummer — who replaced the last drummer Wayne ran off — left a post about the situation.
Instead of addressing Steven by name, acknowledging his legacy and influence with the band, or wishing him the best, he glossed over the three-time Grammy award-winner’s departure, and instead defended and praised Wayne Coyne.
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Yikes. If drumming all the music Steven wrote for him doesn’t work out, this dude should move to corporate America. With brown-nosing skills like that, he’ll be in the C-suite in no time. Seriously, how desperate is this guy to keep Wayne happy? That was like watching a politician bend over to appease Trump.
On the topic of people who share narcissistic personality traits with Donald Trump, Wayne didn’t like how Steven broke the news to fans. Probably tired and drained after chasing his kids around in the hamster ball all day, he fired off an Instagram post teasing a mysterious “real reason:”
First of all, imagine the pressure of being Wayne Coyne’s kids' Scout Elf — and all the weird shit you’d have to report back to Santa.
“I don’t know, Santa. One kid was drawing on the wall with glitter glue, and the other was shooting cars with the confetti cannon. Plus, Miley Cyrus was there and things got really weird.”
Second, as is usually the case when people say they’ll post more later, Wayne never got around to sharing another update.
As a result, we’re left to only speculate what happened. According to some Ogle Moles, Steven got tripped up with personal and family problems — while others chalk the whole thing up to Wayne being an insecure, controlling dick who doesn’t respond well when people stop playing along. Then again, maybe real life martians have something to do with it all. Who knows.
Regardless of the reason he’s gone, this feels like the official end of an era for the Lips.
You have to wonder what’s next. Will they replace Steven with another one of Wayne’s nephews, or do what the Eagles did and bring aboard Vince Gill? And what will Steven be up to? Since he was the real musical genius in the band, I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
