The Flaming Lips have signed with Jack White’s Third Man Record and will release a new album, The Teardrop Throbs on Friday, January 22, 2027. This will be the band’s 17th official studio album and first all-new LP in more than six years. It will also be their first album to not come out on Warner Brothers since 1990’s In A Priest Driven and their first without multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd—who joined in 1991 as the group’s drummer and parted ways with the band two years ago—since 1992’s Hit To Death In The Future Head. While the exact reasons for the split are still foggy, Drozd, who had taken a step back from active duty to enter a rehab program, says he was fired while The Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has countered that Drozd quit.
The LP is being produced by The Flaming Lips, Taylor Johnson, Dave Fridmann and Scott Booker, with additional production by Jon Fridmann and Mike Fridmann. In advance of the records’ release, the Lips have dropped the new single “God Will Control The Werewolves” on all streaming platforms.
“‘God Will Control the Werewolves’ started as a little story about my 2 boys (Bloom and Rex) and me playing hide and seek at the park as it was getting dark outside,” Coyne posted about the track. “We had all become very aware of the moon cycles when we stayed at an ocean view Airbnb about a month previous. The full moon had sucked all the water out of this ocean cove area and we walked a quarter mile out in the seabed seeing strange ocean creatures attached to the rocks.. but yes.. because of the moon we had this amazing adventure so it was fresh in our minds and on this evening of hide and seek it was luckily another full moon.. Bloom asked me if, while him and Rex were hiding, the werewolves would get them (they had also watched a few werewolf movies and knew that the full moon was the time when the werewolves were out and about) and I told him God would control the werewolves for a little bit while we played hide n seek.. The way I heard the song sounding (in my head) was kind of Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon BUT Syd Barrett is still in the band.. ha..”
To support The Teardrop Throbs, The Teardrop Throbs, The Flaming Lips will play a series of intimate shows throughout the US and UK. Those dates include stops at Nashville, TN’s Brooklyn Bowl (January 22-3), New York’s Irving Plaza (January 26-27), Los Angeles, CA’s The Bellwether (February 23-24), Chicago, IL’s Metro (February 27-28) and London’s O2 Shepherds Bush (April 2-3). Additional dates will be confirmed in the coming weeks.
Coyne sat in with Miley Cyrus on both October 15 and 18 during her shows at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, appearing on “Karen Don’t Be Sad,” a song she recorded with the singer and his band on her 2015 set Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, and the Lips staple “Do You Realize??.” Cyrus has not performed “Karen Don’t Be Sad” since the year it was released before last week. The cross-generational acts first recorded together on The Flaming Lips’ 2014 Beatles tribute set, With a Little Help from My Fwends.
