Speaker 1: I spent most of my adult life doing this band,
Speaker 1: and I've spent most of that time feeling like it's
Speaker 1: all about to wrap up, and fuck, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: have to go and get a real job, and like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, isn't that like just the most unbearable thought.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm gonna do, Like, holy fun,
Speaker 2: what am I going to do? This is a disaster,
Speaker 2: like I can't I can't do that.
Speaker 1: And so I think it probably has been like a
Speaker 1: slightly motivating factor and just doing a heuse of stuff.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Midnight Chats. Good evening, folks. Good to have
Speaker 3: you with us tonight. This is the music interview podcast
Speaker 3: for late night listening. I'm Greg and I'm here with Stu.
Speaker 3: How are you doing, Stu?
Speaker 4: I'm good, Thanks mate, Yeah, I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm good.
Speaker 2: I'm good.
Speaker 3: You're serving up a hot and sizzling podcast for us tonight,
Speaker 3: as oh, you've been in the kitchen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I suppose it is quite a hot and sizzling episode.
Speaker 4: This week on the podcast is King Gizzard and the
Speaker 4: Lizard Wizard main man, front man, main guitarist, main songwriter
Speaker 4: Stuart McKenzie. Another Stewart is chief. Yeah, yeah, exactly, the
Speaker 4: king of King Gizzard and a lizard wizard.
Speaker 3: Of all of the famous major music stars that you've
Speaker 3: now met called Stuart.
Speaker 4: Was this your favorite Stewart. I don't like to talk
Speaker 4: ill of the Stuarts because there aren't many of us
Speaker 4: out there. But there's only been one other Stewart on
Speaker 4: the podcast. Yeah, and that is Stuart Breakway from Moguay
Speaker 4: of Moguai, myself of course, Stuart Stubbs, and now Stuart McKenzie.
Speaker 4: Who's the best Maguy or King Gizzard Stewart. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: go I can't say I oh, gop out, I'm copying out.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a great chat. I love King Gizzard.
Speaker 4: They have a reputation for being one of the world's
Speaker 4: best live bands for good reason, such an incredible band,
Speaker 4: so I was really excited to hear Stu talk about
Speaker 4: the band. I don't feel like he talks about the
Speaker 4: and that often, certainly not on podcasts. So this conversation
Speaker 4: went in some really interesting directions. Yeah, this is very
Speaker 4: much one for fans of the band, I think because
Speaker 4: we get into the music, and that is because there's
Speaker 4: so much of it if you are unfamiliar with Kinkizard
Speaker 4: and the Lizard Wizard. I'm saying the whole name every time,
Speaker 4: by the way, Greg, if you're unfamiliar. They are a
Speaker 4: psychedelic rock band from Melbourne in Australia and they have
Speaker 4: released twenty five albums over the last eleven years. The
Speaker 4: prolific nature of this group is that thing. We talk
Speaker 4: about it a lot on this podcast. So obviously there's
Speaker 4: a lot of music to get into. But here's what
Speaker 4: I love about this band. It's not just that they
Speaker 4: make so many albums, it's how considered each of those
Speaker 4: records are. I'm going to let me throw some things
Speaker 4: that you hear, Greg, because every record they do sort
Speaker 4: of has a experiment at the middle of it. So
Speaker 4: their album from twenty sixteen called nonagone Infinity was an
Speaker 4: album that played on a loop paper mache dream Balloon.
Speaker 4: They've got good titles as well. Twenty fifteen that was
Speaker 4: made exclusively with acoustic instruments. Flying Microtonal, Banana, you're.
Speaker 2: Making these up.
Speaker 4: The funny thing is you're not.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a microtonal album. I'm still not really
Speaker 4: sure what microtonal is. To be honest, they've got a
Speaker 4: jazz album called Sketches of Brunswi Kids. There's always something,
Speaker 4: is what I'm getting at. There's always It's not just
Speaker 4: they're like dropping out these albums that all sound the same,
Speaker 4: that they've all been very considered. They've got very different
Speaker 4: things going on. And their current record, at least at
Speaker 4: the time of recording, and there's a very good chance
Speaker 4: a new King is that record will be out by
Speaker 4: the time you're listening to This is called the Silver Chord,
Speaker 4: and that one has been made purely with synthesizers. This
Speaker 4: is a rock band, you know, very much a guitar
Speaker 4: rock band, and this new record they've put down all
Speaker 4: the guitars. There's no guitars on it, and it's their
Speaker 4: electronic synthesizer record. And I just like that they challenged
Speaker 4: them in that way. And as I say, like there
Speaker 4: was just a lot to get into. So there's a
Speaker 4: lot of music talk in this episode. Let us know
Speaker 4: what you think of the episode. We are Midnight Chats
Speaker 4: Pod on the social platforms on TikTok on Instagram. You
Speaker 4: will be able to watch some video clips of ste
Speaker 4: chatting to Stu as well so so do go and
Speaker 4: check those out. Just one thing I wanted to say
Speaker 4: on that Greg actually on the social just a social's
Speaker 4: update because we are new to it here on the
Speaker 4: show Mate, we are doing some numbers, especially on TikTok,
Speaker 4: which I'm brand new to. I know you are as well,
Speaker 4: but I feel it's our calling. Check this out. Thirty
Speaker 4: six people we're following. That one doesn't really count because
Speaker 4: we've chosen that follow us seven likes eighty two. So
Speaker 4: pretty viral stuff going on over there. If you're listening,
Speaker 4: if you're listening as a TikTok person, get involved.
Speaker 3: Exactly, even if it's out of sympathy.
Speaker 4: For now though, here is Stuart McKenzie one of the
Speaker 4: best stewarts we've ever had on the show. I mean,
Speaker 4: do you get completely bored of the sort of thing
Speaker 4: that people want to talk to you about is just
Speaker 4: how many records you make and how prolific you are.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's like very It's always very flattering to
Speaker 1: hear that people notice that shit, to be honest, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm happy to talk about it. It's like
Speaker 1: kind of what I've spent my whole life doing, my
Speaker 1: whole adult life doing.
Speaker 2: Really, it's just mostly that thing.
Speaker 1: It's just like touring and making records and trying to
Speaker 1: keep the rest of my life on track in the
Speaker 1: in between moments.
Speaker 4: It is so unique. There's a few doing it, I
Speaker 4: guess like John Dwyer and the OCS, who I'm guessing
Speaker 4: you know quite well. Having really on castle face. Were
Speaker 4: you always a fan Have you always been a fan
Speaker 4: of artists who have that huge back castlock? Was that
Speaker 4: something that you wanted for yourself, Like we want to
Speaker 4: be a band that makes a lot of records. It
Speaker 4: has this sort of catalog, this that people can just
Speaker 4: live in forever.
Speaker 1: I think with I mean, firstly, shout out to John Dwyer,
Speaker 1: who who definitely did support us in like such a
Speaker 1: massive way, one of the first people outside of Australia
Speaker 1: to get behind our music in any way. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't have too much of a sort of mission
Speaker 1: statement I suppose when we started the band, I mean
Speaker 1: we it was it was none of our first bands,
Speaker 1: and I think we definitely wanted to do a different
Speaker 1: thing to any of the bands that we were currently in.
Speaker 1: King Gis was definitely an experiment right from the beginning,
Speaker 1: and it was sort of like, what would happen if
Speaker 1: we did this, you know, or what would happen if
Speaker 1: we did this? And one of the very few things
Speaker 1: that we did say and think about early was let's
Speaker 1: try and make a lot of records. And I think
Speaker 1: the place that it came from was trying to drop
Speaker 1: any ego easy said than done, not be too precious
Speaker 1: about your songwriting easier said than done, and just learn
Speaker 1: on the go, because I had realized that, at least
Speaker 1: for myself, until I actually had put down a recording,
Speaker 1: and this kind of went for all the things I
Speaker 1: was doing before King years.
Speaker 2: I couldn't stop thinking about it. You know.
Speaker 1: I would work on a song, and I'd be working
Speaker 1: on it late at night in my bedroom, which was
Speaker 1: typically how I recorded at that point, and it just
Speaker 1: would be swirling around in my head until I put
Speaker 1: it on the internet, or i'd burnt it to a CD,
Speaker 1: which is what you did in the olden days, and
Speaker 1: put it in my car, or i'd just done something
Speaker 1: to put a bow on it. I was pretty content
Speaker 1: on putting bows on things and just finishing them and
Speaker 1: just being able to kind of move on and think
Speaker 1: about how to write songs. And learn how to write
Speaker 1: songs and just do it in public, I suppose.
Speaker 4: And it's so rare, isn't it, to like find a
Speaker 4: group of people willing to go with that? As you say,
Speaker 4: meant like it wasn't your first bands, and you sort
Speaker 4: of wanted. But you guys started very young, didn't you.
Speaker 4: Were you still in high school when you started.
Speaker 1: Ambrose was the only one still in high school when
Speaker 1: kids had started. He might have just been eighteen, maybe
Speaker 1: he was seventeen still, but Joe's maybe four years older
Speaker 1: than Ambros. So yeah, we started between let's say eighteen
Speaker 1: and twenty two.
Speaker 4: You went to school in Geelong, right, I did go to.
Speaker 2: High school in Geelong. I went to school.
Speaker 1: I went to high school with Cookie, but I also
Speaker 1: played So I played in a band with Cookie in
Speaker 1: high school. But I also played in a band with
Speaker 1: Lucas in high school, who also went to school in Geelong,
Speaker 1: but at a different school.
Speaker 4: What were those bands?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: The band that I played in with Cookie was called
Speaker 1: Revolver and Son, and we were doing a I suppose,
Speaker 1: authentic to the point of literally being teenager's garage rock thing,
Speaker 1: like like a sixties garage rock thing to the point
Speaker 1: of like, you know, wearing Paisley button up shirts and
Speaker 1: cowboy boots and like and and playing with no distortion
Speaker 1: on our guitars and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Cookie and I played in that band together,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, I also played in a band with Lucas,
Speaker 1: which was I suppose you would say more indie, but
Speaker 1: was definitely still like a rock band, rock band format,
Speaker 1: more indie and probably more psychedelically tinged a lot more
Speaker 1: sort of like bigger sounds and effects and spatial kind
Speaker 1: of things. And that band was called The Houses the
Speaker 1: Calves Drama from the king Is. He joined the Houses
Speaker 1: later and I reckon. That was my first year of UNI,
Speaker 1: and I met Calves through Eric, who was well it
Speaker 1: was part of the part of the band until a
Speaker 1: few years ago. Eric and I went to UNI together
Speaker 1: with Joe as well, and.
Speaker 2: Ambrose played in a band.
Speaker 1: With Lucas at the same time that I played in
Speaker 1: a band with Lucas and that was called Sambrose Automobile.
Speaker 1: So we actually are all connected deeply to like our
Speaker 1: very earlier, earlier years, and we were all living in
Speaker 1: sharehouses like most of us, maybe everybody at one point
Speaker 1: lived in these two sharehouses which were like on a
Speaker 1: corner in Carlton, which is in Melbourne. So and that
Speaker 1: was before the band started, So we were all the
Speaker 1: bands were kind of playing shows together and going to
Speaker 1: shows and going to parties and King Gis was a
Speaker 1: collective of people who wanted to be in the experimental band,
Speaker 1: I think, and the lineup included a lot more people
Speaker 1: in the earlier years, probably for like a two year period.
Speaker 2: It was a fluid membership.
Speaker 1: There was there was technically wasn't members of the band,
Speaker 1: I would say, but over the years most people decided
Speaker 1: it was like either boring or annoying to be in
Speaker 1: the band and bailed. So we sort of just were
Speaker 1: naturally solidified into the kind of the group.
Speaker 4: We also had Amy Taylor on the podcast Yeah last year,
Speaker 4: so we were talking we were talking about about like
Speaker 4: the Melbourne scene. She was about how Amil and the
Speaker 4: Stiffers started out purely to just play that friend's yard party,
Speaker 4: Like that was it, that was like the intention?
Speaker 2: We were the same, like that same.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I'm starting to think maybe that's like a typically
Speaker 4: like sort of Melbourne thing because where you are there
Speaker 4: is like a culture of house parties where bands turn
Speaker 4: up right and people play that mates house pis.
Speaker 1: I do feel like less kind of connected to the
Speaker 1: visceral sort of like house party thing these days, but
Speaker 1: I definitely can say that, Yeah, fuck fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: or whatever, when I started doing that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: It, yeah, it just was what it was like most
Speaker 2: house parties we went to.
Speaker 1: Someone played some form of like live music, and it
Speaker 1: was really dope and normal and like fun. One thing
Speaker 1: that I didn't realize at the time, and kind of
Speaker 1: after traveling a lot and seeing a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of like music cities, I realized it's maybe a little
Speaker 1: unusual and cool about Melbourne is most of the music
Speaker 1: industry is in Sydney in Australia, but Melbourne has the
Speaker 1: majority of the venues and the shows and the bands
Speaker 1: and the artists, like by a good stretch, and it
Speaker 1: does definitely create a different atmosphere because no one's like
Speaker 1: we didn't we weren't even thinking about We had no
Speaker 1: idea how anything worked, Like, we weren't thinking about how
Speaker 1: we would get to the next stage or any form
Speaker 1: of strategy or anything.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: We were just playing shows because like it felt good
Speaker 1: and like we enjoyed playing music together in the sort
Speaker 1: of like wholesome, old fashioned.
Speaker 2: Sort of way.
Speaker 1: It is a beautiful thing about Melbourne and it may change,
Speaker 1: but I secretly hope it doesn't.
Speaker 4: In terms of these twenty five albums that you've currently made,
Speaker 4: do you spend much time looking back at the old
Speaker 4: ones or when they're gone? Are they gone? Because I
Speaker 4: was also thinking, how do you sort of even remember
Speaker 4: them on? Once you're getting into the twenties? Oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: we made that record, isn't we?
Speaker 1: I think I could still very easily name them all.
Speaker 1: I think I might struggle to rattle off track list.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that's where it starts, the memory starts getting hazy.
Speaker 1: I think maybe at ten records that were still pretty
Speaker 1: easy to like do that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: I'm glad you've said this too, because I had an
Speaker 4: idea of something we could do.
Speaker 2: Please don't make me do that.
Speaker 4: This is not going to be This is not going
Speaker 4: to be a test yep, as we've already established. I
Speaker 4: think it's incredible that you've made so many albums in
Speaker 4: such a short period of time. But what I think
Speaker 4: really makes it the next level is that each of
Speaker 4: those albums has got a very different experiment within it.
Speaker 4: It's not like you've made twenty five albums of the
Speaker 4: same album, like, far far from it. I thought, maybe,
Speaker 4: if you're up for this, I could if I could
Speaker 4: just name a couple and you could just tell me
Speaker 4: what you're int what your sort of instinctive memory of
Speaker 4: that record is. Again, let's do it and tell me
Speaker 4: the thing that the first thing that comes up, the
Speaker 4: first thing that comes up. Essentially, I've I've just got
Speaker 4: a few here, okay, not a gone infinity.
Speaker 1: This was very much inspired by playing a lot of shows.
Speaker 1: When we really started to tour internationally was kind of
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and that's really when the seeds of nonagone
Speaker 1: were set. And yeah, we were trying to do this
Speaker 1: thing in the shows at that point around twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: where we wanted to start and not stop. And at
Speaker 1: this point we weren't doing like long shows like we
Speaker 1: are now. They might have been sixty minutes felt like
Speaker 1: a very long show in those days. But we were
Speaker 1: trying to do this thing where we'd start and play
Speaker 1: the whole time and every song would kind of like
Speaker 1: blend together and mash into each other, and you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't want it to be like atmospheric and ethereal.
Speaker 1: We wanted it to just like be like freakishly intense
Speaker 1: and like just an absolute assault of like all of
Speaker 1: your senses.
Speaker 4: I saw you on that tour and it was that
Speaker 4: really good to really good to scritch. It was amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was that.
Speaker 1: It probably did take us like eighteen months of touring
Speaker 1: to kind of figure out what was going to work
Speaker 1: in that way, and in fact we did. We started
Speaker 1: recording it. We made a good, good dint on it.
Speaker 1: We actually thought we'd recorded all of it, and we
Speaker 1: got to the end and we realized that it wasn't done,
Speaker 1: and so we took a break and we made paper
Speaker 1: Mashe a Dream Balloon, and that was like this incredible
Speaker 1: palate cleanser because it needed to be the opposite thing
Speaker 1: to Nonegone. It couldn't compete with any of those ideas.
Speaker 4: We should just say to people that maybe don't know,
Speaker 4: not a got Infinity, the record that plays infinitely, it's
Speaker 4: it's a loop, isn't it that records like a loop?
Speaker 2: That sort of it is a loop.
Speaker 4: Cup comes background and then the following Paper Masha Dream
Speaker 4: Balloon is the record that you made completely using acoustic instruments.
Speaker 1: Correct, Yeah, and so non agone has this sort of
Speaker 1: like intense atmosphere and everything is just on Max and
Speaker 1: sped up and there's no downtime and it's just it's
Speaker 1: just it's just like press play.
Speaker 2: And then just go.
Speaker 1: And we were trying to do that, which which did
Speaker 1: which did actually prove to be harder than we thought
Speaker 1: to just insert no breathing space into you know, nine
Speaker 1: songs in a row and make them work and make
Speaker 1: sense back to back. So yeah, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: could go on for I could go on forever.
Speaker 4: I mean it sounds like, you know this a lot,
Speaker 4: a lot better than I certainly would. There's many albums
Speaker 4: in Okay, here's a enough one. Yeah, let's go more
Speaker 4: more recent Infest The Rat's Nest.
Speaker 2: Okay, I remember it being insanely hot. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was. It was kind of we did the main
Speaker 1: tracking in the middle of summer and we're in our
Speaker 1: old studio at this at this point, it was probably
Speaker 1: one of the last things we did there and no
Speaker 1: AC in there. I think we I think we actually
Speaker 1: got AC right after this session because we were just like,
Speaker 1: holy fuck, this is like actually dumb, like this is
Speaker 1: like we're going to die or something.
Speaker 2: Someone's going to get the keystroke in here.
Speaker 1: Because it's like it's like illegally low ceiling and just
Speaker 1: like a very very small compact box that was also
Speaker 1: like never vacuumed or anything and just was like dusty
Speaker 1: and just like disgusting and the middle of Australian summer.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we had talked about making a metal record
Speaker 1: for four years, and I think when we made not
Speaker 1: Ago and actually going back to that at that time,
Speaker 1: that actually felt like us doing a metal thing, and
Speaker 1: in hindsight it wasn't really, but that was us leaning
Speaker 1: into that, but still sort of playing twelve string guitars
Speaker 1: with like you know, like I don't know, vintage fuzz
Speaker 1: pedals and shit, you know, like it was a different,
Speaker 1: different thing. And then Murder of the Universe felt a
Speaker 1: little heavier again, and then I think after that we
Speaker 1: sort of leant into some sort of.
Speaker 2: More metal leaning things.
Speaker 1: You know, Murder of the Universe has like vomit coffin,
Speaker 1: which maybe feels heavier, and then on Gum Boot Soup
Speaker 1: there's like great chain of being which sort of feels
Speaker 1: sludgy and maybe you could actually call that metal maybe,
Speaker 1: And I think we were trying to find this, like
Speaker 1: this niche that kind of made sense to us.
Speaker 4: Shout out to Vomit Coffin by the way. I mean,
Speaker 4: I can't let you just drop that in without a note,
Speaker 4: without recognizing the track title alone. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: come on, well.
Speaker 1: The track title, the track to actually has a backstory
Speaker 1: as well. The backstories of the track title is my
Speaker 1: little brother Lucky and a few of his friends, including
Speaker 1: my cousin Tom McKenzie, and a bunch of other people.
Speaker 1: Actually can't remember the exact line up, but it was
Speaker 1: just a lot of people that were around our family
Speaker 1: house and wood when we were young, like early teenage years.
Speaker 2: I'd say.
Speaker 1: They had a band that would rehearse in in in
Speaker 1: the garage, in parents' garage, and it was like a
Speaker 1: parody metal band, and I think they were quietly taking
Speaker 1: the piss out of me and my friends and the
Speaker 1: bands that we were playing in. But but yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like a parody sort of like they were taking
Speaker 1: the piss out of out of out of everything, and
Speaker 1: just that actually, we're having an amazingly beautiful, awesome time
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 4: How much younger than you is your brother two years.
Speaker 4: I'm the younger by two years, and this is the
Speaker 4: sort of thing that I would do to.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the band was called Vomit Coffin and okay, great,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget that because it's just it was
Speaker 1: just so perfect.
Speaker 2: It's like, this is this is amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use that in something one day, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, one day it made it.
Speaker 4: Finally, it finally made it in twenty nineteen. With that record,
Speaker 4: did you get any sort of idea of how sort
Speaker 4: of metal fans like took it, Because you know, like
Speaker 4: all sort of really dedicated fan groups, they probably would
Speaker 4: have had had a thought on this other band who
Speaker 4: are not traditionally in a metal band suddenly making a
Speaker 4: trying to make a metal record.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I have learned to try not to dig into
Speaker 1: that shit very much. But I definitely have noticed more
Speaker 1: black t shirts with like metal band logos on them
Speaker 1: the shows.
Speaker 2: So that's that's a sign, I think.
Speaker 1: I think for me, like, I've always tried to approach
Speaker 1: every record as if it's first album, and that's the
Speaker 1: kind of way I'd like. Obviously, no one's ever going
Speaker 1: to think of it like that besides me, but that's
Speaker 1: the way in my mind, I would like people to
Speaker 1: perceive each record and if they don't, like it's totally fine,
Speaker 1: but it helps me to.
Speaker 2: Have the sort of.
Speaker 1: I just remember like being in a band and making
Speaker 1: your first record and how it doesn't matter, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe it does for some people, but when you sort
Speaker 1: of in your earliest band and a good crowd is
Speaker 1: like six of your mates in backshed, like you don't
Speaker 1: you don't really that concerned about what connoisseurs of the
Speaker 1: genre are going to think about your album. Like I've
Speaker 1: tried to tried to keep that sort of like mindset
Speaker 1: as much as I can. Again, easier than done, but
Speaker 1: like something that I would try to check myself on.
Speaker 2: I think one.
Speaker 4: Last one I wanted to just pick out was poly
Speaker 4: God on Polygond wanna land? Am I saying that incorrectly.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter. It's not a real word, you said,
Speaker 2: Is it not.
Speaker 4: A real word? Okay, Polygond want to land? I'm going
Speaker 4: to go with that. We released this one on a tape,
Speaker 4: oh mad, thank you that we that we that we
Speaker 4: put out and we just like you know, raised a
Speaker 4: little bit of money for a charity. I think it
Speaker 4: was a refugee charity that we did. This came out
Speaker 4: in twenty seventy.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: This was the record that you'd made and you you
Speaker 4: just put out, didn't you just let you? You sort
Speaker 4: of encourage people to release it. Put it wherever you want.
Speaker 4: If you want to put it on your record label,
Speaker 4: put it on your record label. If you want to
Speaker 4: do a tape to a tape, if you want to,
Speaker 4: you know, just share it around. What what? What was
Speaker 4: the thinking behind that?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that.
Speaker 1: To put my mind back in that place. I was
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. We did five records that year, which was
Speaker 1: inside very insane. It was like very fun though, and
Speaker 1: definitely learned a lot over that time. We had started
Speaker 1: like a lot of these songs, and we'd recorded like
Speaker 1: a decent amount of material in twenty sixteen too. I
Speaker 1: think there's probably some stuff recorded for that year in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen as well, and they were all were sketched
Speaker 1: out by at least early twenty sixteen. So it's cool,
Speaker 1: like we didn't make five records and release all of
Speaker 1: them within twelve months.
Speaker 2: We just released them in twelve months.
Speaker 1: But as we started to release all these records, I
Speaker 1: did start to feel uncomfortable about asking people for money
Speaker 1: or asking people to buy shit constantly.
Speaker 2: It's just not why.
Speaker 1: We do it, Like truly, it's really not why we
Speaker 1: do it. And I just would never want that to
Speaker 1: feel like the motivation. I think it would just instantly.
Speaker 2: Crush the whole project.
Speaker 1: And I just felt I was feeling extremely grateful that
Speaker 1: we were playing shows and people were coming, and I
Speaker 1: just thought, I don't know, like I think, I think
Speaker 1: everyone's doing enough. Like we've already we're already selling four albums,
Speaker 1: So it made sense to make the free one Polygon
Speaker 1: Duine Land, and it was the obvious thing to do.
Speaker 1: A free one. Polygon Duine Land was the one we
Speaker 1: chose because out of the five we're doing that year,
Speaker 1: it was the one that felt like, I know, I
Speaker 1: keep saying this word considered, but it's the only it's
Speaker 1: the only word I can think of using. It's the
Speaker 1: word I've used to describe that record since the very start.
Speaker 1: But I think it's because it's less haphazard, and it's
Speaker 1: it's much more it's much more slow brushstrokes and kind
Speaker 1: of just thinking about the whole puzzle.
Speaker 2: Before we started, I.
Speaker 1: Think we thought in our heads it would actually be
Speaker 1: more stripped back than it ended up. But I think
Speaker 1: we realized that you can add, you can eat, you
Speaker 1: can add more layers than you think while still hearing
Speaker 1: each one and making sure they're still serving a function.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we started talking about doing this, doing this
Speaker 1: thing free, and basically everyone we work with, which wasn't
Speaker 1: many people at that point and still isn't a huge
Speaker 1: amount of people, but everyone was like, oh, can you
Speaker 1: just do like band camp, like pay what you want
Speaker 1: or why don't you do you know, why don't we
Speaker 1: just press like, you know, like a thousand copies and
Speaker 1: then maybe like make it a free download or why
Speaker 1: don't you just do this or that? And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: like it's free, Like how free can we make this?
Speaker 1: You know what's it's like literally free, Like it's not mine,
Speaker 1: it's not ours, it belongs to the universe, belongs to
Speaker 1: the world. And so it was sort of like an
Speaker 1: experiment in how truly free can you make something? And
Speaker 1: surprisingly hard and like surprising amount of hurdles to do
Speaker 1: that thing, but we tried our best, and it sort
Speaker 1: of inspired this whole bootleg that we've been doing.
Speaker 4: Have you seen any copies that people put out or
Speaker 4: put together like out and about on tour or have
Speaker 4: you come across the record in these different ways that
Speaker 4: people have distributed it.
Speaker 1: I've seen so many, Like I would have seen at
Speaker 1: least one hundred different ones, like maybe two hundred different
Speaker 1: versions of Polygone to my Land. Occasionally I will check
Speaker 1: discogs and see how many it's gotten up to, but
Speaker 1: it's like several hundred logged separate variants from different labels.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we need to lock outs. I don't think we've
Speaker 4: logged outs on discog. I'm going to do that. I'm
Speaker 4: going to do that to.
Speaker 1: More right, Yeah, do it and take a deep dive
Speaker 1: of like some of the crazy shit that people have made.
Speaker 2: It's like it's it.
Speaker 1: I really can't get it, Like I really can't get
Speaker 1: it around my head, can't get my head around it
Speaker 1: that we actually made that record, because it doesn't it
Speaker 1: truly just doesn't feel like ours.
Speaker 2: And I have all these like really.
Speaker 1: Beautiful and strong memories of making the record, but as
Speaker 1: soon as that was done, it just kind of feels
Speaker 1: like something that's always existed, you know.
Speaker 2: So Yeah, it's like one of my favorite things we've
Speaker 2: ever done.
Speaker 1: I feel very like it felt like an experiment gone right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely absolutely. We should talk about the Silver Cord
Speaker 4: because you know that's that's about to come out. We've
Speaker 4: we've skipped it. We've skipped you know, a whole bunch
Speaker 4: of records here, but we you know, we we'd be
Speaker 4: here all day. So I mean, once again, with this record,
Speaker 4: you've tried something completely new, like set yourself a new challenge.
Speaker 4: This is like an electronic record. You've put down the guitars.
Speaker 4: Have you fully put is it fully? I mean I've
Speaker 4: listened to it. I've got I've listened to both versions
Speaker 4: of it, which I was going to ask you about
Speaker 4: as well. But the I couldn't hear any guitars, but
Speaker 4: I know that maybe there's some hidden in there that
Speaker 4: sounded like simps or is it just you guys are
Speaker 4: playing some emphasizes at electronic drum kit and that that
Speaker 4: is every sound that's coming out of this record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's it. There's no sort of
Speaker 1: guitars or do we say acoustic drum kits? You know,
Speaker 1: drum kits When people think about drum kits. There's none
Speaker 1: of those. There's none of those in there.
Speaker 4: Where did this idea come from? Because you know, every
Speaker 4: record that you've made has had this very unique sort
Speaker 4: of heart to it of we're going to try and
Speaker 4: we're going to make a jazz record, We're going to
Speaker 4: make a microtonal record, and an acoustic instrument only record,
Speaker 4: a metal record.
Speaker 1: I suppose like the few kind of like things that
Speaker 1: converged into leading us here was.
Speaker 2: We did. We did.
Speaker 1: We did want to do an opposing forces two albums
Speaker 1: kind of thing this this year, which was something that
Speaker 1: we had talked about for a while of doing something
Speaker 1: like that again. And with Petrodragonic and with Silver Cord,
Speaker 1: they were like worked on at the same time, so
Speaker 1: we did want to make sure that they didn't interfere
Speaker 1: with each other. But there are actually a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of links between them that felt important when we're
Speaker 1: making them, and maybe like it's more kind of birth
Speaker 1: from the same womb but become sort of two different
Speaker 1: sort of.
Speaker 2: Creatures in the end.
Speaker 1: And we were very keen to do like another metal
Speaker 1: leaning record, so we wanted to make sure we were
Speaker 1: doing something else that was not that. But I think
Speaker 1: thinking about Butterfly three thousand, which when we made that record,
Speaker 1: that was the most electronic thing that we'd done at
Speaker 1: that time. But that was made during COVID and it
Speaker 1: was mostly I mean it was it was almost entirely
Speaker 1: made without being in the same room as another person
Speaker 1: really at all. And so we kind of leant into
Speaker 1: that with that record, and everything is just overdubbed and
Speaker 1: you know, laid one thing at a time and sending
Speaker 1: files around to each other and just kind of leaning
Speaker 1: into that as a vibe.
Speaker 2: And it was for us at that.
Speaker 1: Time, very electronic, but you know, because of the way
Speaker 1: that it was constructed, when we got together and tried
Speaker 1: to figure how to play these songs, it was just
Speaker 1: like a fucking nightmare. It was just it was so so,
Speaker 1: what's the what's the opposite of intuitive? Whatever that is
Speaker 1: is what it was.
Speaker 2: It was just it was just, yeah, counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: Maybe not even that that doesn't quite feel feel right either,
Speaker 1: But and I feel like I've got a fair amount
Speaker 1: of discipline in my life in certain areas, but when
Speaker 1: it comes to rehearsal, I'm hopeless.
Speaker 2: Like I just I just hate it. I just can't
Speaker 2: wait for it to be over.
Speaker 1: And so with Butterfly, unfortunately it felt like a bit
Speaker 1: of a casualty, you know, like Butterfly Live. Maybe it
Speaker 1: just felt like in order for us to just move
Speaker 1: on and just like make the next record and just
Speaker 1: like not spend all of our time like thinking about
Speaker 1: this Synthipeggiator in thirteen eight, like we need to just
Speaker 1: like put this to bed. So that was just that
Speaker 1: felt that kind of hurt, you know a little bit,
Speaker 1: and sort of maybe didn't feel like we'd done that
Speaker 1: album justice. And I do feel like we do need
Speaker 1: to spend some time on it and go back there.
Speaker 1: And I think, well, I know eventually we will. I
Speaker 1: don't know how long that's going to take, but eventually
Speaker 1: we will play a lot more of those songs live.
Speaker 1: But anyway, since then, it's just been a nagging feeling
Speaker 1: to make something that's electronic leaning but also just made live,
Speaker 1: like made by us in a room.
Speaker 4: Did you all have simp skills? Was everybody turning up like, actually,
Speaker 4: you know, I know, I know I'm that basis, but
Speaker 4: actually I'm actually very good on keys or were you
Speaker 4: all figuring that out?
Speaker 1: We've like everyone the band plays keys at least a bit. Actually,
Speaker 1: Lucas is probably the best piano player, and he's a bassist,
Speaker 1: so you know, it is it's sort of Yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: in the band's a multi multi instrumentalist in their own way,
Speaker 1: so that that helps to at least kind of have
Speaker 1: the the architecture of the of the of the notes
Speaker 1: sort of like working. But none of us are Shredders
Speaker 1: in that way at all, and that's not what this
Speaker 1: record is. But the way I wanted to approach it
Speaker 1: this time was for it to feel like to us
Speaker 1: as much like it does at a show when we're improvising,
Speaker 1: like we're in we're in that space, which is much
Speaker 1: more of the show now than it used to be,
Speaker 1: where it's just completely spontaneous and we don't know where
Speaker 1: we're going and we're just making music on the spot,
Speaker 1: and that was where the record was made. So we
Speaker 1: tried to find that same niche and I think think
Speaker 1: I did say this in the press release, but we
Speaker 1: were talking about playing our instruments.
Speaker 2: Like they were guitars and like they were drum.
Speaker 1: Kits, and and you know, Lucas, for instance, who's the
Speaker 1: bass player in in Gizzard, He played the bass like
Speaker 1: keys like he played the bass synth. You know, he's
Speaker 1: still he's still in that space. And I think the
Speaker 1: way it came together was when it worked, And it
Speaker 1: did take us several days of like making music together
Speaker 1: in this way before we made anything that felt like
Speaker 1: we should keep it. When it worked, it was us
Speaker 1: in those same niches that we are on stage and
Speaker 1: that we know well, and we're kind of listening to
Speaker 1: each other and feeling it in the same way that
Speaker 1: we are on stage without guitars that we know how
Speaker 1: to play and we feel comfy on.
Speaker 4: And there are two there are two mixes of it.
Speaker 4: There's like a twenty eight minute version and there's a
Speaker 4: one hour twenty eight minute version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was that was not something that was
Speaker 1: initially planned. Well, one thing we were thinking about when
Speaker 1: we recording was we wanted to find those moments that
Speaker 1: I suppose we call endless boogies, but those moments where
Speaker 1: you feel like you're just in it and you could
Speaker 1: kind of play the same thing over and over again
Speaker 1: and just just be in it like it's you just
Speaker 1: it's very hard to kind of like write something like that.
Speaker 1: You just have to do it, you know, And sometimes
Speaker 1: you have an idea or a riff or a coord
Speaker 1: progression or something that you are so sure is going
Speaker 1: to be an endless boogie and until you play with
Speaker 1: everyone you realize that it's not. But anyway, we spent
Speaker 1: the whole recording session really trying to find those moments
Speaker 1: and then when we're in them, to just live in
Speaker 1: them and be in them and like, you know, occupy
Speaker 1: that space. And so that was sort of like I
Speaker 1: guess that nugget of what we're trying to come back
Speaker 1: to when we're recording, But you know, we still I
Speaker 1: still wanted to experiment, well experiment sounds like a funny
Speaker 1: way to put it, but experiment with like traditional song
Speaker 1: song structure too. And it became pretty obvious like even
Speaker 1: when we're recording that we should make two albums here,
Speaker 1: like this is a we should we should still do
Speaker 1: this kind of like quite condensed everything to the point
Speaker 1: no meat sort of version of the album, and then
Speaker 1: like let's let's like occupy that space and let's do
Speaker 1: like a longer version where we just let this ride
Speaker 1: and like be in it.
Speaker 4: It's cool because there's two that there two there very
Speaker 4: sort of different experiences whilst being the same song, like
Speaker 4: sort of stretched out and like the short versions sort
Speaker 4: of just like all the hooks crammed in completely lean,
Speaker 4: and then the other one is something that you can
Speaker 4: sort of just completely get lost in. I think I
Speaker 4: probably know the answer to this now, having spoken to you.
Speaker 4: Tell me not that I want this to happen. I
Speaker 4: should say, I'm going to prefix it with that. But
Speaker 4: is there any sort of idea of how King Gizzard
Speaker 4: comes to an end? Because one, I've got an idea
Speaker 4: for you, but also because everything's everything feels so sort
Speaker 4: of purposefully planned, you know, I know, like there's a
Speaker 4: big element of the band that is improvisational and you're
Speaker 4: seeing where it goes and where you are now is
Speaker 4: I can't imagine you imagine that would ever be the
Speaker 4: case when you started ten years ago. But because all
Speaker 4: of like the records are so sort of thought out,
Speaker 4: I feel like when it ends, whenever that is one
Speaker 4: hundred years time, whenever it is like there needs to
Speaker 4: be I can't imagine you being a band basically that
Speaker 4: just sort of go oh, you know that record like that, Okay,
Speaker 4: that's going to be the last one.
Speaker 1: Hard to answer the question, truly, I think in the
Speaker 1: in I want to say the earlier years, but honestly,
Speaker 1: like I still sort of feel I still sort of
Speaker 1: feel like this.
Speaker 2: I do feel like this when I search my soul.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've.
Speaker 1: Spent most of my adult life doing this band, and
Speaker 1: I've spent most of that time feeling like it's all
Speaker 1: about to wrap up and fuck, I'm just gonna have
Speaker 1: to go and get a real job, and like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: isn't that like just the most unbearable thought. I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm going to do? Like, holy fun, what
Speaker 1: am I going to do?
Speaker 2: This is a disaster, Like I can't. I can't do that.
Speaker 1: And so I think it probably has been like a
Speaker 1: slightly motivating factor and just doing heaps of stuff while
Speaker 1: it feels like it's working, and and so in that,
Speaker 1: in that way, I feel very extremely grateful that I'm
Speaker 1: able to do it, and like people turn up to
Speaker 1: shows and.
Speaker 2: And like buy our stuff.
Speaker 1: That's just allows us to do this, you know, full time,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, I just feel extremely grateful for I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people would kill to have that opportunity.
Speaker 2: So I guess what I'm saying is that.
Speaker 1: I still feel like I feel like if people are
Speaker 1: coming and if people are taking interest in.
Speaker 2: What we do.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure we're just going to keep doing it.
Speaker 1: I think I'm not really one hundred percent sure about that,
Speaker 1: but and I might not have said that a few
Speaker 1: years ago, but it's starting to feel like something that
Speaker 1: will just continue until something causes it to stop, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's feeling like that thing probably won't be me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure about that. But that's where I'm
Speaker 1: at right now.
Speaker 4: Because my idea is, let's say you get to one hundred,
Speaker 4: you make a hundred albums, which, let's face it might
Speaker 4: be five years away at this rate. You then play
Speaker 4: you do one hundred nights somewhere, and you play an
Speaker 4: album a night for one hundred straight nights, and then
Speaker 4: then that's.
Speaker 2: And then I jump off a twelve story building.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's not think about the end right now. One
Speaker 4: final question for you is how long do I have
Speaker 4: to get this podcast up before the silver Cord, which
Speaker 4: is still a week away at the point of recording,
Speaker 4: is no longer the album you're promoting and the most
Speaker 4: recent kin gives a record.
Speaker 2: I truly don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 4: So I've got a bit of time I don't need
Speaker 4: to rush.
Speaker 2: I think you'd be fine. I think you'll be fine. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Midnight Chats is a joint production between Loud and Quiet
Speaker 3: and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs
Speaker 3: and Greg Cochrane, mixed and mastered by Flow Lines, and
Speaker 3: edited by Stuart Stubbs. Find us on Instagram and TikTok
Speaker 3: to watch clips from our recordings and much much more.
Speaker 3: We are Midnight Chats Pod.
Speaker 4: For more formation, visit Loud and Quiet dot com. MHM