On their latest album, With a Little Help From My Fwends, they cover the Beatles' entire Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with a little help from their "fwends," including J. Mascis, My Morning Jacket, Foxygen, Phantogram and Maynard James Keenan, and Miley Cyrus. All artists' royalties from the album will be donated to The Bella Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the band's hometown of Oklahoma City that assists low-income, elderly, or terminally ill pet owners with the cost of veterinary care. We spoke with frontman Wayne Coyne about the album, doing covers, pets and some of his famous collaborators.

I'm really curious what it's like when you work with Miley Cyrus: is she like what you thought she'd be like? Did she have a lot of handlers with her when she was in the studio?

Last year, if there was a "person of the year," it was Miley Cyrus. I had a sense that she just didn't give a f-k. She had so many people telling her how stupid she was, or how embarrassing she was. But also, she had a lot of people telling her how absolutely great she was. And I could tell that she was like, "I don't give a f-k what people think." And to me, that's when the power of music and art really starts to accelerate.

Because if you're really trying to sell records, that's a difficult area to play in. If you're trying to be popular, that's difficult. If you're trying to be something other than yourself, you're probably gonna lose. But I could tell with her, she's like, "I'm just doing whatever the f-k I want and I don't give a f-k what people think." And I think she knew that we were fans, and last year on my birthday she tweeted a happy birthday wish to me and said that I was one of her favorite artists, and I tweeted her right back. We just got each other's numbers after that and became friends. I think if you were around her, after five minutes you'd go, "Oh, I get it." I don't think I would have any fun being in the studio with someone that was surrounded by managers and handlers. She's not like that at all. I think that most of the people that are going to want to be around me aren't like that.

Even when we did stuff with Kesha, three years ago now, she wasn't like that. Everybody's always like, "Working with Kesha: what was that like?" We just went to her house, and it was just her and us. There wasn't anybody else there, there wasn't anybody telling us what to do. It was our songs, and we recorded until about four in the morning, and then we went home. But Miley, in a sense, is like me in that she just does what she wants to do. She's the boss, she's not calling anybody saying, "Can I do a song with Flaming Lips?" If she wants to do it, she just does it. And anybody that works for her says, "Great, let's go do it!" And I think her camp does not look at it as being absurd. They know her, she's a freak. I can tell you for sure, she's a bigger freak than I am. You'd love her. I mean, if you were around her, the perception that people have, that would completely disappear, you'd just love her. She's absolutely fun and full of love.

I don't know if you're familiar with the controversy between her and Dr. Luke. But is he the reason why your collaborative album with her got shelved?

Well, yeah, when I go do music, I don't think about lawyers and contracts and things, I've kind of lived in this Flaming Lips world for so long. We really are just doing what we want to do, and Miley Cyrus is like that. She doesn't have a dilemma like Kesha did, or does.

I think Kesha, when we did this stuff, we didn't know how it would turn out, we didn't have that much time together. But the stuff that we did together was just spectacular, and it made us want to do more. And I think we did like four or five songs, and then Kesha would remind me, "Wayne, I can't put this music out, Dr. Luke will kill me." I was like, "Oh! I didn't know!" I don't really consider it: to me, it's just about us and the music and if the music is worth it, I'll do anything I can to make it work. I worked with Erykah Badu, so believe me, I can make anything work! And Erykah is wonderful in her own crazy way.

If the music is great, all these other things that get in the way - like the Dr. Luke thing - it's like, "We can get through that, it'll be OK." I don't really know the situation, only they do, I hope it works out. I hope that everybody can hear this music [that we made], it's great. It will be great, even if it takes five years to come out. The music that we did together, it's just stellar and I know that's why she wants it to come out. I don't know Dr. Luke at all, but when we [Kesha and I] speak, I know there's some anxiety about their relationship. I think she would like to have the freedom to do more things in that spirit. Where it's not - again, I don't know their situation - but so many producers producing her. She could produce herself, that's probably what she is wanting to happen with her own career. I love Kesha, she's great. Miley is a lot more of her own entity, I think the success of Hannah Montana has allowed her to be the king of her own destiny.

And I think Kesha will get to that eventually. She doesn't have that sort of power now, but I think she will eventually.