We catch up with Australian masters of reinvention, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, for their rare rave show, a high-octane electronic set with modular synthesizers replacing guitars, at the finale of a tour oscillating between Eurorack raves and twenty-eight-piece orchestra shows built around their latest release, Phantom Island (p(doom) Records, 2025). We sit down with frontman Stu Mackenzie to discuss navigating these musical poles, the band’s signature genre-hopping approach built on deliberately chasing fear, and their principled decision to pull their music from Spotify, setting an example they hope other artists will follow.
Fresh off an epic orchestral performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall just days prior, Mackenzie is quick to point out that despite fifteen years together, the band’s improvisational instincts remain constant, whether wielding guitars or voltage-controlled oscillators, reading orchestral charts or freestyling in front of thousands.
You've been touring heavily for about fifteen years now. As we start this conversation, what's your main takeaway looking back on it all?
When we started we had a MySpace. A lot of things that seemed important at that time are different. But the through line or the thing that we have come back to is trying to make connections with people in real life. We have prioritised playing shows.
Tonight’s show was a high-energy electronic set, but you're also touring with a twenty-eight-piece orchestra. How do you balance those two extremes?
It’s yin and yang. It feels good to do this and then it feels exciting to go and do the orchestra show because it’s so different. This is about being loose and free and in the moment, being improvisational and trying to feel what to do and listen to each other, watch, be one with the crowd and feel the music. The orchestra thing is about discipline. It's academic. But it's a really good challenge too. Even though I like to be loose and free like this—this feels much more at home—I am interested in the challenge of the orchestra thing too and that satisfies a different need.
The orchestra shows are built around Phantom Island. Can you walk us through the setup and what makes those performances special?
The orchestra show is very hard to pull off. You have to find a venue that will accommodate it, find a local orchestra that is willing to do a show with a rock band, and then you have to make it make sense economically.
So you perform with a different orchestra each time?
Yes, each city has a different local orchestra, they don’t tour with us. We don’t rehearse beforehand either. We have a soundcheck, usually a long one. You spend three or four hours rehearsing with the orchestra, then you have a sandwich, and then you go play the show. It’s a big fucking day. It comes down to having a very good conductor, he’s the link between us. Chad Kelly conducts these shows in Europe and he’s the guy who wrote the album arrangements. The show is very hard to pull off, as I’ve said. Doing a tour, a whole tour for three weeks of that, would be impossible for a band of our size. We could make four shows that make sense in Europe — one in Poland, one in the Netherlands, one in Paris, and one in London.
“You want to feel good about what you’re doing. You want to feel like you're part of something positive.”
The Royal Albert Hall in London had to be incredible.
Yes, it was special because it’s such a famous spot. It’s like a Creedence Clearwater Revival concert I used to watch when I was a teenager. Hendrix played there too. It’s a famous spot and it’s cool to be there. But all of the shows were special in their own way. I know how much work goes into making it happen, to pull the show off is a miracle.
When putting together set lists, what are the opportunities and limitations when touring with both concepts?
For the orchestral shows, we have charts for two fifty-minute halves. The orchestra takes a twenty-minute break in the middle, so we do a fifty-minute set, the orchestra takes a break, and we just jam — we play something and decide on the spot what we’re gonna play, maybe an hour or two before the show. We’ve been trying to do something different in that break for all of the orchestral shows. I think we've done twelve of them now and we have maybe another five or six coming in Australia.
It was so much work to make the charts and to get them rock solid. I have so much appreciation for people in that world now.
With the rave shows it's different. It's a different set every night and we can figure it out as we go. We write a set list right before the show, maybe an hour before. Sometimes in soundcheck we'll try something new. A lot of bands that play the rooms that we play don't soundcheck — they have their crew do it, they just play the show. But we need to soundcheck because we're sort of practicing every day and trying something new. Tonight we played a song that we've never played live before.
It was so much work to make the charts and to get them rock solid. I have so much appreciation for people in that world now.
With the rave shows it's different. It's a different set every night and we can figure it out as we go. We write a set list right before the show, maybe an hour before. Sometimes in soundcheck we'll try something new. A lot of bands that play the rooms that we play don't soundcheck — they have their crew do it, they just play the show. But we need to soundcheck because we're sort of practicing every day and trying something new. Tonight we played a song that we've never played live before.
Your audience is excited about what you’ll do next. After this diverse tour experience, what could be next for you?
We need to explore this more. This feels like there is a lot more to do. I want to do everything all the time. If you ask me what I want, that’s what I want. I see my role in the group as listening to everybody and getting a temperature check of what everyone is interested in, because I’m sort of trying to make everyone happy.
How does your writing process work, and has it changed over time?
The writing process has changed a lot. I would like to go into a record and not feel confident; I want to feel scared and challenged. For that reason, the writing process has deliberately changed. Sometimes we'll go into a record and be like, let’s write all the words first, because we haven’t done that before. Let's do that hard thing. We try to do a new thing deliberately with each record. If you're asking me how a song usually comes together, well, by default we have to do something different every time. I feel like we have tried all of the combinations. That's why we're doing this — this feels exciting and scary. It is one of my favourite things that we have done, it is a really fun show to do.
Some records have been made primarily on tour, others have been made entirely off tour. It varies. Right now we are still in a phase of bringing in ideas from the universe. It could still go a lot of ways. We've probably got more material written now without having a finished thing than we ever have. I'm not sure that's good. I think that's actually bad.
Some records have been made primarily on tour, others have been made entirely off tour. It varies. Right now we are still in a phase of bringing in ideas from the universe. It could still go a lot of ways. We've probably got more material written now without having a finished thing than we ever have. I'm not sure that's good. I think that's actually bad.
Tell me about working with Eurorack synthesizers. How does it compare to playing the guitar?
Eurorack is the format, it’s the type of synth invented by a German guy. Eurorack is good at improvising — it’s what it's made for. It's very good at generating ideas and patterns, at playing with randomness. You can send some voltage out to some sequencer. You're playing with voltage, control voltage, CV — basically minus five to plus five volts. Being in a band with these guys for twelve, fifteen years — that’s education. As rock musicians on guitars, we've learned to listen to each other and improvise. When we pick up this stuff, it's about learning the gear and translating what's in your head into the sound — that's work. But the instinct is the same. I know what Joe is going to do and I know what the Cavs is gonna do because what they would do on guitar is similar to what they would do on a synth — maybe not in sound, but the instinct and the flow. We know each other very well and we couldn't do this if we hadn't played together for a long time.
What do you get from each extreme?
I feel different coming on stage, I get a different thing out of it. But we're using what we've learned — what we already learned how to do, just with different instruments. It sounds probably nothing alike but the instinct and the way that we can play together is similar. I'm eye level with Joe, we're standing this far apart, and the tables in front of me are close together and we're looking at each other. It's intense. Sometimes Joe will do something, look at me and just give me that look and I'm like, yeah.
“I want to feel challenged. I want to be able to feel like we can do anything that we want.”
Your Spotify removal was an interesting move. Can you tell me about that decision?
There are quite a few good reasons to take music off. For us it was a pretty easy decision. We have to get together and make music, it's vulnerable and intimate, you want to feel good about what you’re doing. You want to feel like you're part of something positive. The last thing for us was all of the military AI drone shit. We don't have to do that. Sometimes when you're a musician and you are part of a larger ecosystem as we are, you feel like you have to do this and you have to do that, and you don't question why. But that's our decision. So it was simple. We thought, we don't have to be in that place or do that.
It has been interesting to see how much talk has been around it. At the time it felt not that radical, but hopefully it will inspire more people. You don't need to. You just have to feel good about what you're doing.
It has been interesting to see how much talk has been around it. At the time it felt not that radical, but hopefully it will inspire more people. You don't need to. You just have to feel good about what you're doing.
Tell me about the Bootlegger Program.
We give all of our music for free and let people online download the individual live recordings. They can make their own mixes or anything they want. If you look online, you'll find hundreds and hundreds of different people making King Gizzard records. They're like record labels, they sell thousands of copies. There are quite a lot of record labels which have started by pressing King Gizzard records and eventually they go on to sign bands and turn into other things. We often ask for folks to send us something. Sometimes we'll do a record fair and sell some things that people sent us and maybe pay back a few of the bills. But for the most part I've always just seen that as building an inclusive, wholesome, nice community of people who feel welcome and part of the music.
In terms of the band's versatility and genre-hopping, is this something that comes organically or something you consciously need to do?
I want to feel free and scared of things. I want to feel challenged. I want to be able to feel like we can do anything that we want. Sometimes we have made a rock album and sometimes we're going back to certain things. I want us to do what we're interested in. If people want to analyse it and try to understand it, that's okay. But we mostly get together and talk about what we want to do and then we do it. I would always want to treat whatever music that we make with a lot of respect. I am also a big fan of music history. All of us are music fans first. We don't approach it from some virtuosic angle; we’re not trying to be shredders or anything.
After years of touring, how do you manage to maintain that energy and balance it with your personal life?
When we're home, we have families. I have kids and a lot of the guys do as well, and we find life balance. But I think we genuinely like being around each other. These guys are my best friends. When I'm home I still want to be around them. We make music together because we like it, we like to work, the studio, and writing.
