Melbourne's Stylistically Promiscuous Psychedelic Rockers King Gizzard
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KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD You can hold a candle to them: Melbourne’s stylistically King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard (clockwise, from top left, Cook Craig, promiscuous psychedelic Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Michael Cavanagh, Eric Moore, Joey Walker, rockers King Gizzard And Stu Mackenzie and Lucas Skinner) light up LA, 13 August, 2019. The Lizard Wizard have released 15 albums in seven years and toured almost constantly throughout. Eve Barlow asks main man Stu Mackenzie how they do it. Photography: Victoria Smith The Hardest Working Men In XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Heaaaavy-R86 JANUARY 2019 ock-BusinessJANUARY 2019 87 KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD that’s only interrupted by the ring on his wedding finger. His fellow Lizard Wizards are gathered in an adjacent room, and resemble a University Challenge team, not a globally travelled rock troupe. As Mackenzie explains their history, TV theme tunes boom out from their dressing room. The Simpsons Band of the free, home segues abruptly into Game Of of the brave: (above) Thrones. Mackenzie doesn’t the Gizzard guys stretch bat an eyelid. out; (below) Mackenzie in full wig-out mode, King Gizz arrived yesterday Greek Theater, LA, 2019. from Australia. They’re nervous. The Greek isn’t their usual haunt. It’s seated – not that this will restrict the headbangers among their fans. You wouldn’t think a band who have toured heavily since 2013 with zero breaks would have worries, but Mackenzie offers that they’ve just taken six months off. Unheard of. “It felt like taking stock,” he says. “We’ve been close to burning out in the past. We knew the warning signs this time.” They “I didn’t live were? “You just get tired?” he asks, unsure of how to describe the anywhere or pay effects of playing so many gigs you lose count. “Not like you rent for five years. want to sleep. You feel constantly exhausted. It’s important to All I lived off was appreciate how fortunate we are. In order to do that sometimes gig money. I you have to stop.” King Gizzard never stopped. bought a car and Wizards of Oz: (from top) Stu Here is a band who in 2017 put out Mackenzie mentally prepares; five albums. “I would strive not to backstage bacchanalia; the a Stratocaster. septet get set to dazzle LA. do that again,” laughs Mackenzie. t’s the You question how that work ethic afternoon at The Greek Theater in LA and running around backstage could be healthy. It’s fully neurotic. If Mackenzie got the sense it was That was all are a pack of excitable Australians. There’s something collegiate, even running away with him, he was able to sit down during the first half of adolescent about them. The Greek is a landmark venue. The halls are this year and ask where he wanted King Gizzard to go, if anywhere. “It I needed.” decorated with framed pictures of icons who have headlined. There’s was a spiritual break,” he says. “It’s important to be able to define who a display case in which performers etch their own autograph after you are. To have time to think not just about tomorrow but about Stu Mackenzie shows. They include Liam Gallagher, Billie Eilish, Ringo Starr and what you wanna be. You can’t do that if you’re insanely busy. It Harry Styles. The ludicrously named psych group King Gizzard And becomes like Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs. You only think about The Lizard Wizard will be the most recent – and lengthiest – name. what’s in front of you.” He pauses. “I found myself.” They don’t travel light. There are seven of them for a start. In the production office, their tour manager is fine-tuning the ing Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard have guestlist, which is filled with local LA friends for this first gig of their been on a non-stop psychedelic crusade for tour. Three days after this show a new LP comes out. It’s an absurdist almost 10 years. The time has evaporated thrash metal album and has a tongue-firmly-in-cheek title – Infest The to such an extent that Mackenzie can’t Rats’ Nest. It’s their 15th, and their second of this year (Fishing For remember his age. “I turn 20… fuck!” he Fishies came out in April). They formed in Melbourne only nine years says, eventually recalling that he’ll be 29 ago but have put so much into King Gizzard (or King Gizz, as they soon. The members of King Gizzard are all nickname themselves) that their wide-ranging, bizarre catalogue “country kids”. Mackenzie himself never (record titles include Flying Microtonal Banana and Nonagon Infinity, stood still in his childhood. “The first few and span jazz, prog and soul) reflects a band three times their age. years of my life I lived in a VW. I was Frontman Stu Mackenzie answers for it. He’s as prolific a writer as he is probably naked constantly. I had the a player. Mackenzie is a guitar shredder, but will get behind the keys freedom to do anything and not feel like I too, and has often brought a flute out mid-performance. was gonna die.” He and his parents lived in In person, Mackenzie is meeker than you’d expect. He’s more tiny towns; populations of 200. “That created a picture in my head of verbose on record than off. “How you going?” he greets, chirpily, an what the world was like. It’s not real – the world is urban. I don’t think ensemble of mad scientist long wiry hair, grey pipe jeans, a ripped K I understood that until I moved into Melbourne and lived in a shared T-shirt and Doc Martens. He’s rail-thin with a boyish agelessness house under my friend’s staircase. I lived in poverty for years.” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 88 NOVEMBER 2019 JANUARY 2019 89 KING GIZZARD AND King Gizzard’s THE LIZARD WIZARD Wizard Handbook “There was a screening process without With 15 LPs, here’s an introductory made so we needed to make the heaviest, anyone realising. We’re also best friends. guide to the catalogue… fastest, loudest record we’d ever made.” There’s an unsaid pact. If someone said, That’s when Mackenzie’s in-studio learning ‘I don’t wanna do this any more’, we’d 1. Best To Dive In With First bug kicks into gear. “It’s always felt natural,” seriously reconsider the whole thing.” Nonagon Infinity (2016) he says of the band’s diversity. “It’s never As soon as King Gizzard started gaining Recorded as an been, ‘We need to make a record like this.’ traction, Mackenzie realised he could use the infinite loop, the My favourite records all exist in a place in my band as his audio engineering education. “For psychedelic rock of mind. They have a little world attached to me, making records is living out my fantasy,” Nonagon Infinity is them.” Significantly, too, when Mackenzie is he says. “I love recording music. If I did that as designed so if played considering what to do next he has nobody to a job I don’t think that King Gizzard would on repeat, its end transitions perfectly answer to. The band put out all their records on exist. Because I wanted to do that as a job into its beginning. Bold yet cohesive. their label, Flightless, run by Moore since 2012. and no one would let me, I had to make my He doesn’t consider having to sell a metal own micro industry.” 2. Best For Horizontal Flight album to any boss. “We do it all ourselves. It couldn’t survive in Australia alone. Flying Microtonal Banana (2017) We don’t have anyone to show.” Melbourne was a supportive environment, rich King Gizzard Tonight they have thousands of people to with venues and scenes. In recent years, Aussie created microtonal show. The fans are a psychedelic mafia; all with success stories are abundant; from Tame instruments to work hair to armpits and matching beards, a hippy Impala to Pond and Courtney Barnett. “Tame with on their ninth LP mass of metal-heads. Many are members of the showed us that you could tour the world, and recorded in LA alt scene, including Mac DeMarco stood playing trippy psychedelic rock music,” he says. quarter tone tuning, splicing garage near the sound desk. King Gizzard begin with “Courtney’s success has been ultra-inspiring. rock and Middle Eastern music. the twin drumming of Moore and Cavanagh She’s made incredibly Australian music. [It (who sport matching orange boiler suits). proved that] we can just be fucking dickhead 3. Best For The True A contained moshpit is reserved at the front Australians and it’s cool. So it became apparent Gizzard Head of the Greek’s traditional seated basin for the that we had to get the fuck outta there.” Paper Mâché Dream most rampant acolytes. Inside it, everything’s Balloon (2015) a bit Neanderthal, growing more erratic as the n December last year, after a Their least electric band play their heaviest, fastest, loudest music run of local shows in Australia, album leans on folk to date against a backdrop of rainbow-coloured King Gizzard decided to down and acoustic sounds, visuals, which fly across the screen like tools. Before long they were in resulting in an album that shows psychedelic Star Wars credits. each other’s pockets, hanging off their ear for melodies and Throughout the set, Mackenzie sticks out.