In what has become an increasingly bitter war of words, Scurlock claimed that he was fired two months ago because he’d publicly criticised Coyne’s close friend, Pink Pony singer Christina Fallin, who was accused of racism after she wore a Native American headdress in a photo shoot.
In an interview with Pitchfork, Scurlock maintained that Coyne was suffering a mid-life crisis in the aftermath of his messy divorce (Michelle Martin-Coyne, 45, petitioned for divorce last September on the legal grounds of incompatibility), and said his time with the band was often fraught with discord. He claimed to have endured verbal abuse and threats of physical abuse from the frontman.
"I put up with endless verbal (with threats of physical) abuse from Wayne because I absolutely loved the music we were making and playing," he ventured.
Wayne Coyne himself sees it all quite differently.
"Well, Kliph had become a little bit less significant in the group over the past couple of years,” the 53-year-old singer told Hot Press writer-at-large Olaf Tyaransen. “I don’t think he cared about some of the music that we were doing. Kliph was primarily a musician that just played with us live - we didn't ever really work very much with him in the studio. I think he really only appeared on a couple of songs anyway. And that's just the way it worked.
“I mean, Steven [Drozd] is such a fantastic drummer. I think it would be intimidating for anyone to come in there and think that we need something else anyway. You know? I think Kliph just got less and less interested in what we were doing and, towards the end, we sort of felt like, ‘Let’s just start to work with these other guys'. These other guys work with us anyway, and they're our friends, and they live here. Kliph lives five hours away, and even if we wanted to throw together something like we're doing tonight - a little video shoot - it would be a big hassle or whatever.
“It seemed that this would work out for us better musically. As I've gotten older, I've become more open and curious and I think it's interesting to work with someone like a Kesha or a Miley Cyrus. Their ideas of their music are very fresh and cool and wonderful to me.
“I know Kliph did not like the way we did things like cover a Stone Roses album in our studio, so I’m thinking, 'Okay, well don’t be part of it then!’ Little by little, those things all added up to it. Like, 'We'll just get someone who's more interested in what we're doing'. It was not a very big deal.”
Having said that, Coyne is obviously unhappy about all the negative publicity and totally refutes the drummer’s allegations.
“Some of the things that Kliph said in the press are just absolute, absolute lies from his anger at being fired,” he fumes. “I don't know how anybody can take them seriously. He knows that it's just a lie, I suspect a drunken ranting lie! I don’t even always know what it is he's saying because he says so much, you know? There's a lot of hate, but good for us - we're playing with some people who love music, who love playing in Flaming Lips, love playing in the band, love having new adventures and new creations and things."
You can read the full interview with Wayne Coyne in the next issue of Hot Press, which hits the streets on May 15.