The Flaming Lips have teamed up with a young fan for a new Nick Cave covers album.

The album, ‘Where The Viaduct Looms’, arrives on October 25 and The Flaming Lips have shared a preview of a cover they recorded with young 13-year-old fan, Nell Smith. They have covered the 2016 Bad Seeds track, ‘Girl In Amber’.

Smith has been attending Flaming Lips gigs for three years and caught the attention of frontman Coyne after being spotted at the gigs with her father several times. The pair eventually exchanged contact details and recorded the covers album together remotely during the pandemic.

In a statement (via Consequence of Sound), Coyne said: “It is always great to meet excited, young creative people. With Nell we could see she is on a journey and thought it would be fun to join her for a while and see if we could get things going.

“It was a great way to connect with her and help harness her cool attitude to making music.”

Smith added: “I still really can’t believe it, it was hard to get through all the songs but Wayne was so encouraging when I was struggling with a few of them that I kept going.

“It was a really steep learning curve. I hadn’t heard of Nick Cave but Wayne suggested that we should start with an album of his cover versions, and then look at recording some of my own songs later.

“It was cool to listen and learn about Nick Cave and pick the songs we wanted to record.”

Yesterday, Cave recalled the time he met late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts after a rare trip to a gym.

He said: “As I walked back out, in my tiny tracksuit, my giant white trainers and my bucket hat, there, walking toward me, was Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones.

“As I watched Charlie Watts disappear into the crowd, I rearranged my bucket hat, and thought, ‘There goes a truly great drummer,’ which is what I thought when I heard the news this week of his passing — ‘There goes a truly great drummer.’”