Chemicals Make You Small

When I read that Hammock had collaborated with The Flaming Lips on their song “Chemicals Make You Small,” I was a bit shocked. Wayne Coyne and The Lips are brash, experimentally noisy, irreverent, sometimes goofy and often oversaturated. They seem to have almost the opposite of Hammock’s ethereal, slow, quiet and completive approach.

Echoes and Dust features an interview with the lads from Hammock in which they discuss the influences for their new album, The Second Coming Was A Moonrise. In the interview, they explain being inspired by American Head by The Flaming Lips.

We just really connected with how American Head delved into the way drug use can back fire and destroy… not only for the individual using drugs, but also the devastation it has on the rest of the family and/or friends. Like Wayne, I very briefly sold a little weed, I worked at a chain restaurant, I had friends who were on drugs and decided to turn their headlights off while they were driving at night and ended up wrapping their car around a tree and dying. The Lips are from Oklahoma City, we’re from Arkansas and Tennessee. All of these similarities led to us reaching out to the Lips and asking if they wanted to collaborate on our song, ‘Chemicals Make You Small’. That particular lyric captured a real moment when a friend of mine was in the back seat thinking he was gonna die because of the drugs he was on. We had some correspondence with Wayne through Instagram, so we thought we’d just ask if they wanted to collaborate. They did way more than we asked them to do. We’re so grateful. We wish both of them nothing but love and light.

The Second Coming Was A Moonrise features more songs with vocals than most Hammock releases and “Chemicals Make You Small” fits in line with their usual vocal style, despite the presence of special guests. The tones are hushed, prolonged, emotive and fit with the instrumentation, especially the lush strings.