The Flaming Lips are curating and recording a collaborative remake of The Beatles’ entire Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP. Titled With A Little Help From My Fwends, the album is scheduled to be released October 28, 2014. Lead single “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” will be available for download starting May 18th to fans that pre-order the album (on iTunes or Amazon). That same day the Lips will appear on the Billboard Music Awards with Miley Cyrus performing “Lucy,” an appearance that was pre-taped in Manchester on May 14, 2014. Sneak a peak in the below video and watch this Sunday during the BMAs at 8/7 central on ABC (pictures and more details about the BMA performance are here).
As first reported on March 13th, The Flaming Lips have been writing new original music for Miley Cyrus’ next project. That same night the Lips performed with Miley at her Tulsa stop on the Bangerz tour, and the following day Miley recorded “Lucy in the Sky” with the Flaming Lips at Hanson’s studio. Wayne Coyne instagrammed the below photo after the session, captioned “Miley in the studio vomiting diamonds while singing Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds!! If you’re a Beatles and John Lennon freak you gonna love love love this track!! Got Andrew from MGMT too!!!!!”
Although Andrew VanWyngarden’s exact involvement hasn’t been clarified since that post, Moby’s has. In mid April Moby headlined ACM@UCO Rocks Bricktown, a free festival hosted by Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips-associated Academy of Contemporary Music. While in OKC Moby also recorded parts for With A Little Help From My Fwends, including “Lucy.” A snippet of Michael Ivins and Matt Duckworth mixing Miley and Moby’s vocals is here. Later in the month Wayne went to Moby’s home to film the electronica star’s role as an “evil cult leader” for the “Lucy” music video. Moby added on instagram that he is “the wizard looking for a brain.” The video was also teased to feature some sort of alien Santa nazi maconroni-heads in some sort of evil control center. By video’s end, “evil is defeated” (cue macaroni head splatter).
While in L.A. filming Moby’s scenes, Wayne also visited Miley Cyrus – recovering from an extreme allergic reaction to a prescription antibiotic – and apparently filmed her part for the “Lucy” video from her sickbed.
A preview of the finished and soon-to-be-released “Lucy in the Sky….” music video is below, followed by tweets documenting the process, and photos of Miley’s shoot (along with Steven’s “get well” message for her). That’s Moby in the black hood towards the end!
Proceeds from “Lucy” and With A Little Help From My Fwends will benefit Oklahoma City dogs and cats through the Bella Foundation, a local nonprofit that Coyne assists. Last week Wayne posted on instagram that “all money [is] goin to help dogs and cats in OKC!!!” and told Rolling Stone “I’ve been all around the world, and I’ve never seen another city that has as many homeless animals as here.“
The latest news on With A Little Help From My Fwends is continually updated at twitter/TheFutureHeart and facebook/TheFutureHeart, and in this mammoth album preview. Click here for in depth details. A summary of updates is below:
- While at Dave Fridmann’s Tarbox Road Studios with The Flaming Lips finishing the Electric Würms debut record, Linear Downfall recorded parts for “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” and “Fixing a Hole.” They discussed both projects in this interview with The Future Heart.
- Since then Steven has been toying with “Fixing a Hole”
- Steven also worked on “When I’m 64,” with Def Rain and New Fumes
- Steven and New Fumes continued work on Birdflower’s “Within You, Without You” cover
- My Morning Jacket may contribute a “Day The Earth Stood Still Robot voice”
- Zorch recorded “Good Morning, Good Morning”
- Stardeath and White Dwarfs are working on “Lovely Rita”
- Treasure MammaL contributed “She’s Leaving Home”
- A slew of contributors were tagged by Wayne on a recent instagram post: #foxygen#flaminglips #moby #mileycyrus #mgmt#mymorningjacket #seanlennon #phantogram#newfumes #beatles #birdflower #morgandelt#treasuremammal #sunbears #electricwürms #stardeathandwhitedwarfs #lovemoneyparty
- Insiders that have heard completed mixes are excited:
https://twitter.com/brookekelty/status/466633413899079680
https://twitter.com/brookekelty/status/466633124860817408
The Future Heart 
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