In 2023 King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard launched their twenty fourth album in 11 years, PetroDragonic Apocalypse. The Australian psychedelic sextet’s most up-to-date launch, 2025’s Phantom Island, was their twenty seventh. Again in 2023 Prog requested chief Stu Mackenzie how a lot music may be an excessive amount of.
PetroDragonic Apocalypse; Or, Daybreak Of Everlasting Evening: An Annihilation of Planet Earth And The Starting Of Cruel Damnation is King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard’s twenty fourth studio album since their formation 11 years beforehand. A remark below the YouTube video for his or her music Hate Dancin’ jokes: “It’s been 5 days since they final launched any new music – was beginning to suppose we’d by no means hear something from them once more.”
However with such a head-spinning quantity of music being launched in a comparatively quick time interval, isn’t there a hazard that the Australian psychedlic rockers are overly difficult their followers to soak up and course of an unbelievable quantity of knowledge?
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“I believe we’re primarily difficult ourselves,” counters band chief Stu Mackenzie. “However that’s an attention-grabbing solution to body it, as a result of – and perhaps it’s one thing I’ve even actually considered – I do spend quite a lot of time enthusiastic about our followers. I simply really feel so grateful that actually anyone desires to take heed to our music or come to a present.”
Pondering his ever-expanding output, he continues: “I really feel like recording one thing, collaborating with different individuals, ending it, after which releasing it to some extent the place you may’t contact it or change it ever once more, it seems like a purge; it feels actually good when it’s completed. And it seems like you may clear house. In my thoughts it’s like emptying trash. And that’s at all times been my private method of with the ability to transfer on or with the ability to develop or change.”
And but there stays a type of self-awareness inside the band about making use of high quality management strategies to what will get launched and what stays within the can – together with a tip from a seemingly unlikely supply.
“My mother-in-law informed me this trick,” Mackenzie reveals. “She mentioned, ‘Whenever you’re studying a e-book, you subtract your age from 100. And that’s what number of pages you must learn till that it’s price ending the e-book.’ And I used to be like, ‘There’s one thing deep in that that I truly actually, actually like!’
So I nonetheless use that particular trick. I believe there’s a model of that that applies to any sort of factor in life and I believe with making data, I now know a bit of ahead of I used to about what’s working and what isn’t.”
By his personal admission, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard hardly ever have lower than two tasks underway at any given time. “We at all times have quite a lot of demos going,” he says. “And quite a lot of them are simply super-loose. Typically I don’t even know that two of them are going to finish up on the identical report. However typically, two which are going to be on the identical report are literally going to be on two completely different data. Due to the way in which they evolve and diverge, or be a part of up or no matter.”
Coupled with King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard’s large again catalogue is their huge touring schedule. So how straightforward is it to place a setlist collectively? “It’s change into actually enjoyable doing that,” says Mackenzie. “When the band began, it was very free; it was sort of improvised as a result of we simply didn’t have very many songs. And that was actually enjoyable.
“However we bought to some extent the place that bought very boring. We sort of hit this wall the place it was like, ‘Oh, shit, we have to be taught our again catalogue!’ And we spent the higher a part of a 12 months with most of our rehearsals devoted to that, fairly than making new music – and that sucked.
“Now the units are free and free and altering each night time. We’re pulling from about 100 songs and taking part in 16 or 18 an evening. Every soundcheck we’d be working by songs that we simply had no concept the right way to play and attempting to recollect the chords and stuff. So we’re severely on the sting of what we will do onstage.
“However we’re having quite a lot of enjoyable. I believe individuals are vibing on it. And we’re getting good vitality from the reveals. So yeah, we’re gonna maintain taking part in like this till it seems like we must always do one thing else. The reveals have by no means been so improvised. It’s very enjoyable.”
Enjoyable is exactly what beats on the coronary heart of their oeuvre, alongside an rising maturity that helps the band navigate doubtlessly uneven waters. “I really like the way in which that the interaction between six individuals is so advanced,” says Mackenzie. “It’s only a nice little nucleus for creativity having that many individuals working collectively. It’s actually cool when it really works.”
