Exclusive: Denver singer/songwriter Elizabeth Allen talks ‘Dark Side of the Moon’

By Greg Touland

In December of 2009, the psychedelic punk band The Flaming Lips collaborated with musicians past and present to cover one of the most treasured albums in rock history, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The tour supporting the album was characteristically theatrical, complete with Wizard of Oz dancers, confetti cannons, and one Denver musician in gold body suit, Dorothy slippers and Isis wings, singing in the role of queer electro rocker, Peaches.

We recently caught up with local musician Elizabeth Allen, discussing wig stores, losing your voice, and life on the road with one of today’s weirdest and most beloved live rock bands.

So how did you first meet the Flaming Lips?

Well, I was at the Blue Bird to see a Tame Impala show about two years ago, and somebody said to me “Wayne Coyne’s in the balcony.” At first I didn’t know who that was, but then someone explained he’s the singer in the Flaming Lips. And so I went up there with my drummer, and he introduced us to Wayne, telling him we were in a band, and Wayne said “Do you guys want to open up for us in Aspen?”

But he’d never heard the band?

 Nope. Later on he said he saw me and thought I looked like a weirdo and assumed our band was cool. So I said “yes,” and we hung out all night that night. I showed him around Denver: Gabors and The Breakfast King. I played him my band’s music in the car, and he was excited about it. A few weeks later we opened up for The Flaming Lips in Aspen.

Did they give you the offer to sing with them that night?

No, but they invited me to hang with them in Oklahoma City — where they live — for their New Years Eve show. It was weird, I felt like a groupie, in some way. I hung out with him and his wife, drinking at their house until seven in the morning. He owns like four or five houses, all together in this compound, in the neighborhood where he grew up. It was like the Teletubbies.

And after that we kept in touch. One day I texted him saying, “If you ever need a female vocalist, I’m down.” I didn’t hear from him for a month or two, but then last summer he texted me asking “can you sing ‘Great Gig in the Sky.'” And I said “yes!” immediately.

That’s a pretty challenging song.

It’s the hardest song I’ve ever had to sing. So I called him the next day and he said “can you sing it this Friday? We’ll fly you out tomorrow.” So they fly me out to Atlantic City and I’m fucking scared shitless. They wanted me to be naked in gold paint, but I found this skintight gold body suit that worked just as well. I had these giant Isis wings and ruby red slippers, like Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. They do this whole Wizard of Oz theme where they pick people from the crowd to dress up as Dorothy, to go along with Dark Side of the Moon.

But Wayne said I needed a wig, so his manager gave me $300 and there I am wandering through Atlantic City, alone, and I reach out to this woman in the wig-store saying “I have sing in front of ten thousand people tomorrow and I don’t know what I’m doing!”

But you pulled it off?

I did. I wasn’t supposed to perform until the next night, but when I got back Wayne said “you’re going to do it tonight.” So I did it at the Showboat Casino in Atlantic City. And since there are no words in the song, I got lost in it, but I couldn’t hear anything, and while I nailed it, I totally blew out my voice.

Oh no! And you had to perform again the next night?

Yes. I didn’t realize it until the next day when I was warming up, and that was the probably the scariest moment of my life. I was brought there to sing, and it was the one thing I couldn’t do. My voice was gone. So I started freaking out, and I said “Wayne, Wayne, Wayne! I don’t have a voice!” And he was like “Woman, it doesn’t fucking matter! You get out there and be a freak. I just got my picture taken with Dave Matthews!”

And when I had first arrived in Atlantic City, Wayne had said “if you’re good, if you do this well, we will have you do the other shows on the tour. But if not…”

So this was an audition for an even larger gig. What did you do?

Well, do you know about whistle tone? [Note: Whistle tone is the highest register of the human voice – even above a falsetto. Think Mariah Carey in “Emotions.”]

It’s something I used to do as a child. It’s an octave above where I usually sing. So I went out there and used that, and I don’t really know what happened, to be honest. It went over well; people were freaking out. I don’t know how it sounded, but it doesn’t really matter. I learned a lot that night: you just show up and give it your all, even if you don’t have it all.

So did you get the job?

Yes. They flew me out to Chicago to play with them in Chicago a few weeks later. Then Milwaukee. Then I rode with them on the bus back to Oklahoma. It was all a big party. A giant adventure-circus. You go to bed, wake up in a new city, surrounded by fans that think you’re a god.

Well, seeing you in that outfit, you do look pretty mythical.

Yeah, it’s a whole other world. In Chicago, after the show, I made the mistake of going out into the crowd in that costume, and it got crazy. People were just freaking out on me. I hadn’t realized what it was to be at that level of performance.

After that we went to Red Rocks. That was probably the best performance I gave them. I’d never played Red Rocks before. And I had a lot of personal stuff going on: that night: My sister was working for the Nature Conservancy in Africa, and she got very sick. And as far as I knew she was on her deathbed. All that translated into the song. That song is about death, life, birth . . . yeah, I just . . . it was like an out of body experience. Time just disappeared. My family and friends were in the crowd. And I love that band so much. It was incredible.

Elizabeth Allen continued to tour with the Flaming Lips, singing “Great Gig in the Sky” and other songs with them. She returned to Denver this summer and is currently working on a variety of music projects.