Would you believe … Miley Cyrus and the Flaming Lips doing a Beatles song?
The twerking gal and the Okie psychedelic band’s Wayne Coyne offered an unlikely surprise during the Billboard Music Awards by covering John Lennon’s psychedelic masterpiece, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” in a pre-taped interlude that was by far the trippiest of the night.
The performance was taped on Saturday night during Miley’s concert at Manchester’s Phones 4 U Arena, where she was joined by the Flaming Lips’ singer and bandmate Steven Drozd. The collaboration between the two began when Cyrus read a Rolling Stone interview with Coyne in which he praised Miley’s over-the-top concerts.
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“He said he liked that I dressed up as a mushroom and a rainbow,” she told the magazine.
Cyrus then invited two of the Lips onstage in L.A. to perform the band’s “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.”
Then, last month, on a day off from her Bangerz tour in Tulsa, Okla., she and Coyne recorded “completely weird” versions of the Beatles’ “Lucy” and “A Day in the Life” for the Lips leader’s remake of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with members of Tame Impala and Moby. The album, With a Little Help from my Friends, is slated for release on Oct. 28.
“They taught me to sing into the sadness,” Cyrus said. “And that’s helped me a lot on tour.”
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The Stone article says that Cyrus and the band have become fast friends, going out clubbing, getting their lips tattooed and attending a 2 Chainz show. She and the band are even writing songs for her next album.
“They’re real musicians,” she marvels about the Lips’ Coyne and Drozd after revealing everything on Bangerz was recorded with computers. “They can change keys on a whim. They’ve had me on this journey that’s greater than anything I’ve been on. It’s really deep.”
That trip continued with the performance at the Billboard Music Awards.
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