Have You Washed Your Brain?

Tommy McKenzie and Matt Duckworth Kirksey are hoping to melt your mind. The two Flaming Lips instrumentalists have teamed up under the alias “Brainwasher” to release their first album as a duo. 39 Lightyears from Heaven arrives on October 24th and encompasses over 10 years of collaborative work between the two musicians. 39 Lightyears from Heaven is equally inspired by the work of David Lynch, Portishead, and The Flaming Lips themselves. The result is an ethereal record built on emotion, memory, and imagination. As the group’s chosen name implies, their debut record is meant to cleanse the mind and body through industrial, psychedelic sounds and sentimental lyricism, allowing a listener to lose themselves in the otherworldly sonic landscape - a brainwash, so to speak.

While McKenzie and Kirksey joined the Flaming Lips at separate times- Kirksey in 2014 and McKenzie 7 years later in 2021, the two musicians have been playing in bands together for decades, helping out their friends and colleagues in the music industry. Hailing from Oklahoma City, they said it is almost inevitable that they would eventually collaborate on a project.

“We were both born and raised in Oklahoma City. It’s a small town in a lot of ways and a really small music community,” Kirksey said. “Everybody knows each other and everybody plays in each other’s bands, and the two of us really connected on the types of music we like.”

“In that small circle in Oklahoma City, we really had just played in so many bands that eventually we were going to converge. We actually played with each other for a project on the patio of a Mexican restaurant, and we realized it was really fun playing together, and eventually that led us to realizing we should start a band,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie and Kirksey found that they both shared a love for experimental psychedelic rock, especially the likes of Nick Cave, Portishead and The Flaming Lips. Their fondness of transcendent sounds and genre bending created a natural chemistry. They found inspiration to write a record of their own following a cover performance of the John Prine song Angel from Montgomery- the unique spin they put on the 1971 country classic was a stepping stone in finding their own, distinct sound. The band had finally given themselves permission to establish an often eccentric identity.

“Being able to cover songs in our own style really allowed us to see that we could follow this thing through, and that we wanted to develop something that was unique to us. I think it increased our confidence to realize that we didn’t have to be anyone but ourselves,” McKenzie said. “In terms of what we both wanted to do with the music and what we wanted to reference sonically, there was just a lot of unspokenness between us. We really agreed on almost everything, and that really started with establishing an identity.”

The duo began work on Brainwasher’s debut album over a decade ago, with the earliest songs having been written as far back as 2014.

“It was just like something that we kept coming back to over the years that we had to put on the backburner because we’d be making a Lips record or we’d be on tour for a year,” Kirksey said.

There was never a clear finish line in sight, which contributed to the spontaneous songwriting process and free-forme feel of the record. The writing and recording process was uninhibited, a true partnership between friends who have been playing together for decades.

“It’s come together in such unique ways,” McKenzie said. “Because we had no deadline it just felt like all avenues were open for us when it came to writing.”

McKenzie and Kirksey wanted the music to feel authentic and true to themselves. They were not interested in using common tropes to create a viral moment or attempting to fit in with a largely commercialized music industry.

“We are both drawn to music that you believe is coming from a true place for an artist,” Kirksey said. “What I really don’t like is music that sounds like it’s being made for an ad or being made to fit with whatever the current popular genre is. We want this to sound like it’s coming from a real and raw place, whether those emotions are happy, sad or in-between.”

While they do share many favorite artists, McKenzie finds more footing in genres like Krautrock and Psychedelic Rock, whereas Kirksey has always felt more connected to singer/songwriters like Neil Young and Willie Nelson.

“I find that the music itself is where I draw the most passion from. I really love anything with bass and groove, the kind of music that gets you moving,” McKenzie said.

“For me, it’s funny because even though I play drums in The Flaming Lips, I don’t listen to a ton of rock music. I really relate more to country music and old school singer/songwriters,” Kirksey said.

These differences in taste worked to their advantage, with each member contributing to the songwriting process in a way that felt natural. Their divergence in ability and style allowed them to take on different roles in the creation process- Kirksey’s main focus would be writing the lyrics, while McKenzie worked on writing and composing the music.

“I hear a lot more emotion in music than in lyrics and Matt hears so much emotion in words, so that combination makes one really concrete strength of ours, where there is emotion on all sides of the album, and I think people will really relate to it on different levels,” McKenzie said.

“It’s really worked out for the best because Tommy has become the music guy and he writes these great instrumentals that are industrial and dark, and they create a great canvas for me to write the lyrics,” Kirksey said. “Sometimes, it’s hard to find people who don’t take their music a little too seriously, they get too precious with it, and we’re able to just bounce ideas off each other and not get our feelings hurt if one of us doesn’t love something.”

“Ultimately, it’s really been about trusting each other’s taste. We just work well together,” McKenzie said.

Movie soundtracks, specifically surrealist films like the works of David Lynch, were another source of inspiration the group tapped into. Both members of the band shared a desire to emphasize creating an emotional landscape and painting a picture through the music and lyrics. They found that looking towards composers like Angelo Badalamenti gave them some direction on how to effectively move an audience or listener.

“At the very beginning, we were writing from the feeling you get from the emotive music of Twin Peaks. There is that great video of David Lynch directing Angelo Badalementi while he is playing piano, and it’s just really moving,” McKenzie said.

“The music that I love is music that you feel connected to, and that’s really our goal, just to create feelings, and I think a lot of that is because we love old school movie soundtracks that heighten emotion,” Kirksey said.

At first, the decade-long creative process for 39 Light Years from Heaven consisted mostly of the pair sending each other song ideas and voice memos via email, meeting up at Kirksey’s house in Norman, Oklahoma every once in a while to record or swap notes.

“I think our songwriting process has kind of evolved. We used to meet up at Matt’s house in Norman, and we’d maybe play some chords on a keyboard and we’d get a drum machine loop going while I start playing bass on top of it, but it was also a lot of me just sending him bass ideas I would record on Ableton,” McKenzie said. “I sent him so many things that I’m sure it became very obnoxious at some point, but I trusted that he would pick out the things he really liked and that he thought would work best.”

“The process has been much more online than some of the other writing processes I’ve done in the past, we were just sending stuff to each other back and forth. If we started making something and it didn’t become a brainwasher song, it could become a Flaming Lips song or it might become a song for a friend’s band,” Kirksey said. “We are just always doing stuff and we never really worry about what it’s going to end up as or whether it’ll even become anything at all.”

Sonically, the band describes the record as being in line with psychedelic rock, but not quite fitting alongside a song in The Flaming Lips’ catalogue. McKenzie said that a lot of their sound comes down to the use of loops and hums in the background, which can be built upon.

“I got into this idea of having two panned weird sounds through a loop, so you would have things that are basically atonal and then you fill in the space with things that can kind of groove,” he said.

As the album writing progressed, the pair worked across the country in-between tour dates. They recorded in a variety of locations, including a home studio set up at a mutual friend’s house in Savannah, Georgia and Wayne Coyne’s Pink Floor Studios in Oklahoma City.

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“We would have these periods of time where we were spending 10 days in Savannah, and we weren’t in a recording studio so we didn’t have a drum set or anything and most of the drum sounds are actually things like shutting the dryer door or banging on pots and pans,” Kirksey said. “There are also a couple studios in Oklahoma City that we work at, so we would get together and work for a week to get everything sounding the way that we want and get more of that hi-fidelity sound than we were able to get out of a home studio.”

“We really wanted to keep the elements recorded at home while also bringing in the hi fidelity stuff. Sometimes those more rough sounds end up working better than turning it into something more precious. It’s knowing what to accentuate and what combo of those things works best,” McKenzie said.

“All the music I like has that mixture of rougher textures and hi fi textures,” Kirksey said. “Sometimes when something sounds too manufactured and too perfect I lose interest, but I also want to be able to listen to it for more than 15 minutes, so it still has to sound good and well mixed and not be an assault on everyone’s eardrums.”

The band worked with esteemed record producer Dave Fridmann, along with Taylor Johnson to master the record. Fridmann and Johnson helped them turn 10 years of music, all recorded with vastly different methods, into a seamless blend of timbres and made sure that the album was sonically cohesive as a whole.

“We had all these things that were recorded halfway between at home and in the studio, and in Savannah or Oklahoma City and you just kind of wonder, does any of this make sense together?” McKenzie said. “To be able to have people of that talent and caliber, it really helped us create a narrative and a full listening experience that exists in this emotional world we are trying to create both musically and lyrically.”

The high-value production sounds both grounded and expensive, and the dissonance between the different recorded elements lends well to their woozy, dreamlike sound. A particular highlight is the closing track, “Try,” which masterfully mixes very soft and very loud dynamics.

“The last song on the record is a really quiet song, but there is one part of the song that is really loud, and Dave got really excited about that and accentuated it to the point where when we sent the record off to the vinyl pressing plant they sent us an email that said there was a part of the record that was so loud it was going to damage their press machines,” Kirksey said.

The song is a fitting representation of the work as a whole, where seemingly opposite ideas fit perfectly together. You can feel the emotional release that comes with an album written over such a long, transitional time period for both band members. Life changes a lot over the course of a decade, and in many ways the music is better for it.

The nature of the creative process for 39 Light Years From Heaven became in itself part of the overall perspective. Pairing songs written 10 years ago with songs written well after the two musicians would get together in The Flaming Lips was bound to foster nostalgia. Both McKenzie and Kirksey especially appreciate the songs that reflect specific time periods of their lives. They both cited “Home,” as a personal favorite on the record.

“Home is really a special one because we wrote it in Savannah, at our friend’s place where we go to hide out and get away and just work on music,” Kirksey said, “It’s about the idea of wherever you are, you can be home, whether that’s on a tour bus or in Savannah or wherever we are. I really love the songs that tell stories and that remind me of a specific time and a specific place.”

McKenzie and Kirksey were aided along the way by their friends in the industry, especially their bandmates in The Flaming Lips, and were highly encouraged by their label to finish the album.

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“We have had a lot of encouragement within the industry, we both do a million different things for a million different bands and we’re always making music but as people started hearing this thing that we were doing, they gave us a lot of encouragement to get it done,” Kirksey said. “Wayne was one of our biggest supporters, and really helped us take this to the finish line, whether it be through helping us record videos or just pushing us along.”

“We’ve really been blown away by the reaction,” McKenzie said. “We make music for ourselves, and we’re pretty much always making music, so anytime anybody likes it that’s just a bonus for us.”

Dedicating time to a project like Brainwasher’s doesn’t come without trials. The band’s schedule- between touring, writing, filming music videos and doing press, can be overwhelming at times. It takes a true passion for their craft to appreciate the balancing act. The pair have found that having a close knit crew eases some of the stress they face on the road.

“I’ve been touring over 20 years and you still have to love the travel part of it, which I really love. If that were to ever become a burden to me it would be really hard to do this. If you can’t handle being stuck in an airport for two days then it’s not going to work out,” Kirksey said. “But I still get a lot of joy out of just being around our guys on tour, we have the best and hardest working crew in the world.”

“The closeness we have with everybody in the band and in the crew has been a huge deal for me,” McKenzie said. “We have known these groups of people for such a long time and having that kind of stability on the road, even if you are going through deeply emotional moments while traveling, gives you the strong foundation you need.”

When they have time off, McKenzie and Kirksey both find that the best way to recover is by sticking to a daily routine that involves helping around the house and spending time with friends and family.

“For me, I just throw myself into shit that needs to get done- mowing the lawn, taking care of the baby, it’s not that glamorous but that’s how it goes, and I kind of like it like that,” Kirksey said. “But sometimes I do really wish I could just sit on the couch for 10 days.”

“It’s the same thing for me: mowing, walking the dogs, doing some part time work at a guitar peddle company with some people I have known for a really long time, just getting back into my routine,” McKenzie said. “I also love doing something tactile, like building something, when I have some days off.”

As October 24th approaches, McKenzie and Kirksey find it almost hard to believe that 10 years of hard work is finally coming to full fruition. In some ways, they felt like they may never get to this point in the project.

“I think we were thinking that maybe we were gonna work on it for another 6 months or another 2 years or 10 years and one day I was just driving to the studio and listening to what we had and I realized, ‘I think it’s done now,’” Kirksey said. “I think just knowing when to stop is hard when you are making music, so I think that was key for us, was knowing that it was ready. I don’t think I ever told Tommy this, but there were several years where my New Year’s resolution was literally to finish this album, and it never happened until now.”

“Being able to hold the thing in our hands, and knowing that it feels like a really complete body of music that we can be proud of is a really great feeling,” McKenzie said. “It’s surreal and relieving in a lot of ways, because I think so often we found ourselves wondering if it ever would be finished, but mostly it’s just exciting.”