A previously reported, Kesha has filed a lawsuit claiming that Dr. Luke (Lukasz Gottwald) was sexually, physically and emotionally abusive toward her during their 10-year partnership. Dr. Luke, in turn, filed a defamation suit claiming that the accusations are false and that Kesha and her mother Pebe are making these claims in an attempt to extort Gottwald into releasing the singer from her exclusive recording contract. In an interview with Radio.com, promoting the upcoming Flaming Lips album, With A Little Help From My Fwends, frontman Wayne Coyne defended Kesha and gave his take on her relationship with Dr. Luke.
Coyne and Kesha, who worked together on 2012's The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, previously had plans to record a collaborative album together before it was abruptly shelved.
(Photo : Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records)
The collaboration would've been recorded under the name Lip$ha, but in November of 2013, Coyne tweeted, "As of now ...sadly there will be no Lip$ha.... I can't say why... It is sad..."
Coyne finally opened up about why the album got nixed, telling Radio.com that it was because of her contract with Dr. Luke. He compared working with Kesha to working with her pop star peer Miley Cyrus, who is featured on their latest covers album.
"[Miley Cyrus] doesn't have a dilemma like Kesha did, or does," he tells Radio.com. "But the stuff that we did together [with Kesha] 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!'"
Wayne elaborated on his experience working with Kesha, noting that she wasn't your typical pop star with an entourage or handlers.
"We just went to her house, and it was just her and us," he says. "There wasn't anybody else there, there wasn't anybody telling us what to do. It was our songs, and we recorded until about 4 in the morning, and then we went home."
Coyne voiced his frustration with the process and the politics of releasing good music but believes everything will work itself out in due time.
"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,'" he told them. "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 where it's not 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."
We'll have to wait and see how Kesha's lawsuit and Dr. Luke's countersuit will play out. Hopefully we'll get to hear the unexpected Lip$ha album one day, but for now get a taste of what could've been with their collaboration "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)."
