Do you need a model on how to prosper in the domain of the modern musical economy? How about an Australian garage band that cut albums to the rhythm of an Atlanta rap team, turns like Peak-Era Grateful Dead and that has just told the largest company in the transmission to go to hell?
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are a fascinating phenomenon in rock. For 15 years, their LPs have changed between genres with insufficient musicality, extracted from Scuzz, Regal Soul, Krautrock, Electro-Funk and Psychdelia. These LP come to a crazy clip, sometimes up to five in one year, 27 so far. Their Freewheeling live shows made them a coveted act of sand, when few new rock bands can aspire to that.
Two weeks ago, more high profile became the band to get their music from Spotify following the investments of executive director Daniel EK in a weapons company promoted by AI. The autonomous band on their own labels: they did not need anyone's permission.
King Gizzard returns to Hollywood Bowl on Sunday, this time backed by the Hollywood Bowl orchestra for a live reading of his new album “Phantom Island”, an outstanding LP that adds skilled orchestration to its tools kit. The band leader, Stu Mackenzie, spoke with the Times about giving Spotify the boot, how the Phil inspired the arrangements of the new album and what they have discovered about staying afloat while the artists are squeezed from all sides today.
What was your initial reaction to Daniel EK's investments in an AI weapons company?
A little shock, and then feel that I shouldn't surprise me. We have been saying F— Spotify for years. In our circle of musicians, that is what people say all the time, for all these other reasons that are well documented. We saw a couple of other bands that we admire, and we thought: “I really don't want our music to be here, at least now.” I really don't consider myself an activist, and I don't feel comfortable of soap. But this feels like a decision to stay faithful to ourselves, and do what we believe is suitable for our music, have our music in places we feel good.
Did you choose to leave a complicated decision for the band?
What made it difficult was that I want our music to be accessible to people. I really don't mind making money with transmission. I know it's unfair, and I know they are banking a lot. But for me personally, I just want to make music, and I want people to listen to it. The difficult part was to take that away from so many people. But sometimes you have to say: “Well, I'm sorry, we won't be here right now.” In the end, it was actually just a quick phone call with the other boys to get out of the ship.
As everything becomes larger, all bets begin to feel higher. I take that, because that is not the type of band I like to be, where it seems that everything is at stake. I miss the moment in which we could do anything without any consequence, but I still try a lot to operate like this. In the past, I felt linked to it, that we have to be there. But with this band, we have loved to run many risks, and for the most part, I am happy to see what happens if we only choose the path that feels adequate for us.
Do you think Spotify noticed or does you care what you left?
I do not hope that Daniel Ek pays attention to this. We have made many experimental movements with the way we have released albums: free smuggling things. We have allowed a license to break the conventions, and the people who listen to our music have a confidence and faith to follow this trip. I feel grateful to have the type of fan base you will trust, even when you do something a bit contradictory. He feels like an experiment for me, such as: “Let's see Spotify and see what happens.” Why does it have to be a big problem? Actually, it seems that we are only trying to find our own positivity in a dark situation.
“Phantom Island” is a really different record in its catalog to use so much orchestration. I heard some conversations with the l.TO. Phil planted the seed for it?
We played this Hollywood Bowl show just over two years ago, and being the homemade stadium of the Phil, we naturally talk with them in the show. He planted a seed to make a show backed by the orchestra. We were halfway to make a record at that exact moment in which we were not really sure how to finish. When we start talking about making a program backed by an orchestra, we think: “Let's make an album with an orchestra.” We reorganize and rewrite these songs with a composer, Chad Kelly. We knew that the songs needed something, and we ended up rewriting the songs to work for a rock band in a symphonic medium.
Was there any record that would look for how to make this approach work? I listen a lot elo there, Isaac Hayes, maybe “to Day De Los Beatles Yon life “.
To be completely honest, I don't think there is a model for it. I think we landed in something that we could only have done because we wrote the songs without knowing that there were going to be orchestral parts. When you ask me what the touch stones were, well, there was none. I was probably thinking of a lot of music from the early 60s, a lot of music from Alma and R&B at that time, which had often had orchestral arrangements. Etta James, for example, was in tone and sensation. This is not the perfect way to do it, but it was a really fortuitous process.
Your live shows are quite strident to say the least; How did you adapt to maintain that feeling with orchestras behind you on this tour?
I was quite anxious, to be honest. We only had an essay the day before the first show. We had to enter and cross our fingers, such as: “Okay, I think that will work. I will wait for it to translate.” Our essay was the most intense of two and a half hours, but for the show, you say: “It's fine, this is all.” You just committed to what is on the page.
We have had some really incredible people who collaborated with us: Sean O'Laughlin made the arrangements for live shows, and Sarah Hicks is an incredible director. We are only a garage rock band from Australia; We are very lucky to work honestly with the best of the best.
At the other end of the spectrum of the place, how was it playing? A residence In a Lithuanian prison?
It was a real prison until very recently [Lukiškės Prison 2.0 in Vilnius, Lithuania]. The story is very dark, as, very, very dark. But now there are artist spaces, and it is a culturally positive force. They are the things that make you restore your faith in humanity. You spend much of your life losing faith in it, and then you go to places like that, and you say: “Yes, humans are fine.”
Speaking of threats to humanity, I believe that his band agrees the idea that artists need to use AI to make enough music to succeed in transmission. You are proof that you can do a lot of music quickly, with real people.
Making music is fun as F— especially to make music with other people. That is a deeply motivating factor, and we have fun making music together. He feels human, feels spiritual, feels social. It is deeply central for those who are all as human beings. And it doesn't feel hard. We do not seem that we are fighting a trend of AI or anything. We simply make music because it feels good.
You are an act of sand with your own seal, and quite autonomous as a band. Do you think you have discovered something important about how to succeed in the modern musical economy?
I think we have been good to ask internal questions and question what everyone else does and if we need to do that or not. Sometimes we do the same as everyone else. Sometimes we do something completely different because it makes sense to us. I think we have been quite good to be faithful to ourselves and be safe, or perhaps reckless enough to do so.
I think there is some serendipia and destiny in the personalities of the other types of the band, and the people we work with, who have also been on a rather unconventional trip and have faith that, in the least pretentious way possible, that other people dig him and do not care too much about the other things.
Do you expect to see more and more bigger bands that take into account on their own, since the big music business institutions have once again demonstrated their values?
I only know what has worked for us, and I am not sure that it means that it will work for other people. I don't know if there is a model in it. If there is a model, it does not have to follow a path if you do not want. The well -treated path will work for some people, but it does not have to stay in that.
I think one thing of this band is that we have all been in peace with the failure. That if all this collapsed and return home and we have regular jobs, I think we would say: “Well, we are proud of ourselves. We had a good time.” We did what we wanted to do and suffered the consequences on the road. We are probably reckless enough to make potentially selfish decisions again and again. But people, for some reason, want to go out and see us that, and we are very grateful.
