Wayne Coyne's near-death experience made him "less afraid" to take risks.
Wayne Coyne admits his near-death experience changed his life
The 61-year-old star was held up at gunpoint in a restaurant when he was just 17, and he admits the experience changed his outlook towards making music.
He shared: "I do think it made me less afraid to do things in the name of art.
"I now think: 'What harm is going to happen if I make a bad record?' Once you’ve stood with a gun to your head and thought: 'Well, I’m gonna die,' the petty little things don’t bother you. It definitely shaped my fierceness - if that’s the right word.'"
Despite this, Wayne only realised that the incident wasn't "normal" years later.
The Flaming Lips star told the Guardian newspaper: "There were a lot of robberies around that time.
"You assumed if you got robbed, you were also going to get shot, your body would be thrown in the walk-in cooler and your mother would find out on the news. That pizza place was around the corner. I did get the feeling that these guys had already robbed a couple of places, but all we saw was a brief police report.
"Aged 16, 17, I assumed: 'Everyone must nearly die two or three times, growing up.' Only later in life did I realise: that’s not normal."
Meanwhile, Wayne previously admitted that making records "saved" him and his bandmates.
He said: "People forget: it is about making records. It’s easy to think it’s about rock stars and all this sort of stuff, but it really is about making albums. What we really, really love to do is to make albums and write songs.
"If you don’t like doing that, eventually you’re going to be stuck, because someone’s going to have to make the records for you, or write the songs for you. That’s probably the thing in the end that saved us."
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