Win Butler

The Flaming Lips have been on Warner Bros. forever, and certainly everything I heard growing up was on a major label in some way, from the Cure to Radiohead to Bjork.

I studied the Bible and philosophy in college, and I think in a certain sense that's the kind of stuff that still makes my brain work.

It's a lot easier to sabotage your career than to have a career to sabotage.

I was really sick of bands just ignoring the audience as a posture in rock music. And I think we fed off each other in terms of trying to engage the audience, not in a hammy way, but actually trying to be aware of the space that you are playing in and trying to connect in some way through the music.

My favorite English teacher in high school showed me 'Brazil' when I was 15, and it blew my mind. It's one of those movies that's revealed itself in different ways as I've gone back to it over the years.

If you think about it, if you've ever been to a Catholic service, it's practically a laser light show. It's very dramatic, very theatrical. The outfits they wear, it's all designed to be impressive.

It seems like the record industry made so much crazy money in the 1960s that everyone wanted to get in on it. Now it's just become very corporate. So all of these people who despise music end up being in charge.

I never really felt super-Texan. It wasn't like I was unhappy, but I wasn't superhappy.

I love my iPhone; it's great to have a camera around all the time.

The cliched rock life never seemed that cool to me.

There are so many bands that I'm kind of aware of through media about them, and it ends up filtering my experience of the actual music.

When I was living in Boston, I worked in this store that played the college radio station. I had to listen to it all day, and I didn't care for most of it.