Interview With Flying Lotus, 2026

Caught up with legendary record producer, DJ, filmmaker and founder of Brainfeeder, the amazing, Flying Lotus! We talk about his new Big Mama EP, go-to gear, lucid-dreaming, tips for staying creative and more. He was one of the very first interviews back in ‘21 and this time we got to sit down in person!

Big Mama is out now.

Photos by Ambar Navarro for Synth History.

Without further ado…

Flying Lotus by Ambar Navarro.

Flying Lotus - Big Mama EP.

Synth History: I read that for your new EP [Big Mama], you used FM and granular synthesis. Can you tell me about that? In terms of gear do you always try to change it up?

Flying Lotus: Yeah, for this one, I was doing a lot of FM stuff, mostly using the Elektron Monomachine, Machinedrum. I was getting a lot of FM stuff out of that. I personally like to switch things up in my process just because I've been doing this so long that I have to keep it interesting and challenge myself. I try to learn all the things that I've been curious about. Having a project is an opportunity to go down into a rabbit hole of something new, something interesting.

For this project in particular, I really wanted to do sound design work. I felt like my last project was a lot of synth stuff, so I wanted to do something more freeing, not bound by scoring to picture, my studio, or my usual process. You know what it's like, if you can find any way to approach building the tracks differently, you want to give it a shot. Maybe it doesn't always work, but it's still fun.

Synth History: I wanted to ask you a couple questions from our first interview, which took place during the pandemic, to see if anything has changed! The first question being: what are your go-to synths? Back then you said: Prophet 6, Deckard’s Dream, with honorable mentions being Moog One and Ob-6.

Flying Lotus: I think I'm using the Prophet 6 a lot less. In fact, I don't know where that one is… [looks around] Oh, there it is! But I'm not using it as much. I love the Moog One, though. It’s still on my go-to list. I think it's still pretty close. The CS-80 replaced the P6, I guess.

Synth History: You got that after?

Flying Lotus: Oh yeah, that would have been on my go-tos if I had it [back then].

Synth History: Secondly, what's inspiring you the most right now? Last time you mentioned Serato and Dirty House, and that you missed going out because it was pandemic times. 

Flying Lotus: Now, I don't go out by choice [laughs].

Synth History: [laughs]

Flying Lotus: I'm still listening to Dirty House, Liquid Jungle, Drum and Bass; more-so than house for sure. Just being able to record a bunch of new stuff is inspiring me now. I don't know. That's a hard question.

Synth History: I feel like as an artist you get subconsciously inspired by stuff all the time so it’s hard to pinpoint one thing.

Flying Lotus: Oh, you know what I'll say? Right now I'm inspired by Stephen King, reading some of his stuff.

Synth History: Anything in particular? 

Flying Lotus: Doctor Sleep. It just kind of clicked and hit me suddenly that there's actually a sequel to The Shining. I don't know why it went over my head for so long. I was like, oh, wait, that actually exists!

Synth History: I know they made a movie but I haven't seen it yet..

Flying Lotus: The movie is very well adapted, it's so close to the book. There have been a few times where I was like, maybe I won't finish the book because it's so close to the movie. You know where it's kind of going, but I really enjoy both.

Synth History: Speaking of movies, I watched Ash in the movie theater when you were doing your Q&A over at The Grove. It was really cool to see it on the big screen! What was the process like directing and composing the score simultaneously? Did you have the music in mind already or did it come after?

Flying Lotus: Well, I don't recommend it. Just so everyone knows. [laughs] If you can do it, great, but I do not recommend it. There is so much to do! But it was very creatively fulfilling and rewarding to see all these little tiny ideas being built and made and stitched together. There's nothing like it, nothing like that feeling. It was quite the challenge and definitely took all of my time and energy and everything. But, yeah, hopefully it will lead to some good opportunities that I don't know about yet.

I did have some music in mind for [Ash] initially, but when I started cutting the movie together, the music I had in mind wasn’t working. I had recorded a bunch of stuff before I started filming, and then the edit was showing me a different movie. But I could pivot, which was cool, and the whole thing was able to pivot.

A lesson I was taught then was that the process shows you what it's supposed to be. The ‘doing of it’ shows you what it's supposed to be. And sometimes, when you try to steer it too hard, it doesn't work out. You just kind of have to trust what your work is saying and go with it.

Synth History: When I was watching it, I felt like I really wanted to play a video game version!

Flying Lotus: Yeah, me too.

Synth History: We've talked about video games before. Do those ever inspire your work?

Flying Lotus: Oh, video games inspire me so much, almost as much as movies do. They're a big part of my process, thinking about experiential things and the storytelling, they just kick off my imagination somewhere.

Synth History: Would you ever art direct a video game?

Flying Lotus: Oh, I'd love to do anything. Whatever they need, whenever they call. Yeah, I'm down.

Synth History: Who are some of your biggest influences when it comes to directing movies or some of your favorite directors?

Flying Lotus: I have a lot!

Synth History: I love your [points to Twin Peaks chevron/zig-zag acoustic panels]

Flying Lotus: David Lynch, for sure.You can't escape David Lynch. And why would I want to? Another [director] I don't mention enough is Quentin Dupieux.

Synth History: Mr. Oizo!

Flying Lotus: Yeah. He's been great. He really gave me a lot of motivation and inspiration early on in my filmmaking, seeing him do his thing when he was also DJing and making music. It was really inspiring. It made me feel like I could also do that, manage a way to do both things that I love. He just has this ‘don't give a fuck’ attitude, shoot a movie with no money and make three movies a year and stuff. I just love it. He's incredible.

Synth History: To get back to music, can you tell me about starting your label, Brainfeeder? I know it’s been around for a minute but [Big Mama] is your first EP released on your own label. Are you excited about it?

Flying Lotus: Starting a label just came from being around so many great artists and seeing their potential. There were these smaller labels that were trying to come up from Europe and stuff, trying to sign LA Acts, and I was like, well, why don't we have our own thing? Why don't we do it? Teebs, Samiyam, all those kids. We all lived kind of in the same vicinity. So, it's a very natural progression. For [Big Mama] it’s interesting, so far it's been great.

Synth History: Is it hard to do the label and make your art at the same?

Flying Lotus: You know, I have a lot of help, thankfully, and I mean, I wouldn't have been able to do this without having a bunch of people helping me out. I'm really grateful for the team because we have a good, well oiled machine now.

Synth History: I read that the name Flying Lotus comes from lucid dreaming. Do you lucid-dream a lot, are you inspired by that?

Flying Lotus: I don't lucid dream as much as I used to, and when I do, it's very special, and it's always been special. I'm always inspired by just the fact that our brains can do this. It just feels like it's wrong, you know, but it's right, it's ancient. It feels like a super power, untapped potential, human potential, or something.

Synth History: I wish I could do it more often but I’ve only become aware of my dreams when I’m experiencing them only a few times. 

Flying Lotus: Oh, man, I feel you. I think it's one of those things where you kind of have to just engage with it so much to where you're training your brain to look for the signals. When I was really in it, that's how I was doing it. I was reading books on it and looking at videos back when YouTube was like nothing basically. It just got me open for it.

Synth History: Do you have any tips for maintaining creativity, working in the studio or overcoming writer’s block? You’re very prolific and seem to always be working on things, maybe even several things at once! [2021: Flying Lotus’ answer was: Switch up the BPMs. Try and take on different genres and most importantly HAVE FUN. Stop being so serious over there and make some silly shit]

Flying Lotus: Well, I think it may appear that I'm doing a lot of stuff at once, and it may appear that there's a lot happening sometimes, but a lot of times I'm just cooking up ideas. The thing that I'll say as a tip is: Don't let social media and all that stuff make you feel like you're supposed to be doing a specific thing. I think that social media can obviously do some great things, but I think it gets in the way of the process for a lot of creators, because they're just overthinking how the world sees it. Is it on brand? Is it gonna sell? Is it gonna stream? Whatever, all that stuff. We all have to kind of remember why we're doing this. 

Also, there are so many ways to work on music that aren't necessarily the obvious ways that I think can help with writer's block. For example, for me, even with this Big Mama EP, it came out of just doing sound design and being very strict about it. I said, “I'm taking this month. I'm not writing any music. I'm just recording sounds, making sounds and drum noises and processing stuff, just treating it and not recording any songs. Not sequencing anything.” By the time that month was over, I was so ready to make some music with all these cool sounds that I built.

So, I think there's something to be said for just finding ways to make music without sequencing things or without having a great idea. You can always record some drum loops and save them for later. There's always something to do. The idea of the writer's block is kind of a tricky one. Do you actually want to do it? And if you don't want to do it, I think it should be okay to just be like, you know what I'm just chilling today. You know? But there's always something to do.

Shit, organizing your samples. Spend some time organizing samples and delete some of that shit, too. And just see. You might stumble on that one sound and go, “Oh, wow,” you know, "I forgot about this sample pack." And then suddenly, you got it.

Synth History Exclusive.

Conducted by Danz.

Photos by Ambar Navarro.

Camera + lighting assistant Max Flick.