Miley Cyrus and the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne Close a Generation Gap

The collaboration between the rock band the Flaming Lips and the pop singer Miley Cyrus has so far yielded, among other things, a cover of the Beatles classic “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”; a trippy short film titled “Blonde SuperFreak Steals the Magic Brain”; matching torso tattoos; and a recently released album, “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz,” inspired by the singer’s affection for animals.

Music critics have done some head-scratching over the results. But in the unlikely partnership between the band’s frontman, Wayne Coyne, who is 54, and Ms. Cyrus, who is 23, the amateur sociologist sees a golden opportunity to examine the generational divide.

A few recent articles have suggestedtension between the two groups. The older demographic (born roughly from 1961 to 1980) bristles at what it perceives as an entitled attitude and constant need to be praised; the millennials (born from 1980 to 2000) seem dismayed by X-ers’ skeptical worldview and preference for antiquated forms of communication like email.

Might the BFF status between Mr. Coyne and Ms. Cyrus hold a key to intergenerational harmony? Reached by phone in the Midwest, where he was on break from touring with “Cyrus,” as he often referred to her, Mr. Coyne gamely considered the matter.

“I think because I’m so old and because she’s so young, we reach around and meet in back,” Mr. Coyne said. “As opposed to her being slightly behind, or me being slightly ahead, in years. Then it would get confused.”

He first met Ms. Cyrus when she was 20 or 21, he said, and was unsure how well they would work together in the studio. The former child star is famously outspoken, although Mr. Coyne doesn’t attribute that to a generational trait so much as to her youth and celebrity.

“Everybody who’s 20 or 21 owns the world anyway,” he said. “And then if you’re Miley Cyrus, you really own the world. For some reason, we seemed to know things about each other, enough to know we’d like each other. She works the way I do. We both have the same quality of saying, ‘Yes.’”

Mr. Coyne told Billboard that Ms. Cyrus was “probably influencing us more than we’ll be able to influence her,” because her endless energy and lack of a self-censoring filter were a benefit to the Flaming Lips, a band that has been together more than 30 years.

Indeed, the band is currently promoting a 20th-anniversary remastered edition of “Clouds Taste Metallic” — an album released when Ms. Cyrus was 2

So is Mr. Coyne saying that aging, self-questioning Gen X-ers can get a creative jolt from pairing up with millennials?Continue reading the main story

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“A lot of things that ended up being on the ‘Dead Petz’ record, I was there when she was making it up,” Mr. Coyne said. “I’d ask, ‘Are you embarrassed by that?’ But that’s what’s powerful about it. She doesn’t have any filter. There’s no reason to have any filter. It’s so badass.”

One area where Mr. Coyne is unlikely to follow Ms. Cyrus’s example is in the sex department. Although “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz,” like much of her recent music, is overtly sexual, with single-entendre song titles like “Bang Me Box,” Mr. Coyne said he can’t imagine himself applying the same frank sexuality to Flaming Lips music and live performances.

“When it’s her being sexy, I think it works great,” he said.

As for himself?

“I’m doing the best I can, I’ll say that.”