King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Hear A Symphony On New LP, Tour

The six Australian music savants in King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have twice (!?!) released five different albums in a single year, zig-zagging from thrash metal and epic, heavy prog to rave-ready bangers and bedroom electronica in the blink of an eye. The group is once again in welcome but foreign territory with the companion albums Flight b741, which came out last summer, and the brand new Phantom Island, the latter featuring elaborate string arrangements and heavy orchestration on a Gizzard project for the first time.

If b741 was an allegory about the highest highs and lowest lows of life in a touring band, Phantom Island (somehow, Gizzard’s 27th full-length) is the hard but beautiful comedown, with songs about desperately missing your family and friends, overcoming overwhelming self-doubt and reframing months on the road as a form of alien space travel. Gizzard worked with British conductor/arranger/keyboardist Chad Kelly to adorn the material with symphonic instruments, having first considered the idea after playing their then-biggest U.S. show to date in June 2023 at the 17,500-capacity Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

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And while Phantom Island retains some of the free-wheeling, lighter-waving boogie and classic rock vibes of its orchestra-less sibling album, it also presents a more introspective, genre-agnostic approach to songwriting and storytelling than on many other Gizzard releases. “I don’t know if I necessarily believe in fate or things like that, but maybe there’s a version of serendipity where if you put yourself in enough situations that are outside of the usual, interesting things start to happen,” muses Gizzard’s Stu Mackenzie by phone from rural Tennessee, just hours before Gizzard’s three performances at the Bonnaroo festival were sadly canceled due to severe weather.

While taking a walk on a trail named “the Fiery Gizzard” (not kidding…), Mackenzie went deep with SPIN about the process of making Phantom Island, his expectations for summer shows backed by local symphonies and how the larger Gizzard ethos is being channeled into their first destination festival, Field of Vision, which will be held Aug. 15-17 in the beautiful outdoor setting of Buena Vista, Co.

Am I right that it wasn’t really until that initial Hollywood Bowl experience that there was a spark of, maybe we could do something like this?

That’s totally, totally correct. The idea of doing an album or tour or anything with an orchestra was not something any of us ever realistically entertained or ever spoke about. Maybe there was something in making music that felt orchestral in the way that Pet Sounds feels orchestral, or maybe just involving some mates who play instruments outside of the scope, color and timbre of what we tend to do — but never something like this. This happened through right place, right time, right people, right conversations. We tried not be too scared, let everything play out in the right way and give it enough time and energy and space to let it get fully formed. I’m sort of speaking in riddles here, aren’t I (laughs)? 

I’m following you so far! Had you actually tracked any of the 20 songs from Flight b741 or Phantom Island by the time of Hollywood Bowl?

Yeah, we would have. Actually, we didn’t. We tracked in October 2023. We must have had those conversations at Hollywood Bowl that were much more casual and then they followed up with some more concrete ideas around the time we making that record. Well, we thought we were making one record but we sort of made two. It’s not the first time we’ve done that either. Initially we were thinking about one orchestral show at the Hollywood Bowl, and then that became, we may as well do a tour, but let’s get some new songs together. We realized, oh, actually, we have this whole set of songs sitting around here.

So were those songs fully done and recorded by the time you handed them over to Chad? Or was there still room to futz with them after you’d heard the orchestral arrangements?

You’re right in that the tracks were there and there was a really solid, muscular skeleton. We needed that much in order to do the orchestral arrangements. It would have been hard had we gone in any more nebulous than we did. There were songs that could have been performed the way they were, but we wound up making a lot of changes as we went back and forward over the scores. It helped us realize what was and wasn’t possible by hearing some of Chad’s ideas and leaning further into that. Of course, in the mix, more radical things happened. A lot of parts we felt at the time were really significant got completely deleted to make room for the orchestra, but there probably were some really significant orchestral parts that got deleted too. We had to be pretty ruthless in the mix. This may be the album with the most collective hours put into it, between all of us and Chad and the orchestra. It was a really hard album to finish with a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but it was nice that a lot of people cared about it and had opinions about the way it should sound and feel. It wasn’t always easy making hard decisions on it, but I did really want to end up with something that everyone was really proud of.

The mix was really hard. I hadn’t done anything like this before. I mean, it’s delicate. That’s not necessarily where my mixing chops lie (laughs). I feel at home mixing crunchy stuff, and I didn’t really want this to be crunchy. The basic tracks were done at a different place to the orchestra — different room, different mics, different recording philosophy, even. Making all of that gel was a good challenge. I think we got there in the end.

A rock band is so maximalist already — distorted guitars and double kicks and all of that shit, which we’ve done so much of. I don’t think it was the thing that seemed enticing in this iteration. Doing the symphony.meant that we wanted to lean into different colors. It is so broad — the range of sounds you can create with that amount of instruments, but also the strings and the horns and the woodwinds and everything. People have dedicated their lives to exploring the gamut of what a symphony can sound like, and it was pretty cool to peek our heads into that and figure out how we could fuse with it. It was enticing to lean into the orchestra just being an orchestra. There were so many unknowns to step into. Even recording the orchestra, we were like, we think this is gonna work? We stripped away a lot of the recordings that we did initially and tried to let the orchestra shine and sit right there with the band.

Is there a moment or two where you were really knocked out by an arrangement?

There were certain things that surprised me in a good way. Generally, I’ll always lean into the surprise thing, because that’s what I want out of music. I always want the music I make to feel exciting and surprising and unexpected. Chad’s treatment of ‘Deadstick’ was that for me. I really didn’t see that coming. He was so hyped on that one. ‘Deadstick’ actually was so close to being on b741. It totally could have lived on that album, but Chad was like, no, I can really hear this one.

It’s worth mentioning that there was a real push/pull time when both albums weren’t finished. We had already started speaking about the symphony thing with Chad, and there where were certain songs that went from one album to the other. ‘Grow Wings and Fly’ was initially a b741 song and that was another one where Chad said, I really want to do this one. What I’ve learned to lean into with Gizz is if someone feels like highly motivated by something, you just roll with that. I feel like my role is to get the most out of everyone and help everyone to feel most inspired. I was really surprised by what he did with ‘Lonely Cosmos,’ which feels really orchestra-forward, but wasn’t necessarily that kind of song when we gave it to him. A lot of the really orchestra-forward parts, they’re like that because we just deleted everything that we did [as a band]. On ‘Spacesick,’ he surprised me a few times with the arrangement . It felt quite cinematic, which I didn’t expect. Now, when I think about the songs and where they ended up, it’s like, of course ‘Lonely Cosmos’ is like that. Of course ‘Deadstick’ is like that. But it’s not representative of what we gave Chad or what we showed him initially. He was able to take them down a new path that we were all very excited by.

These songs frequently change parts and directions. It’s like there’s something totally different happening every eight bars.

There is definitely a big element of that. I think it’s also what probably attracted us, and also to an extent Chad, to doing these songs with an orchestra. These songs had more of this in their DNA than the ones that ended up on b741. That’s not to say that b741 isn’t like that too. If you  look at the movement and the structure of that album, there is not necessarily a lot of repeating parts and it does go to a lot of places, but you’re just painting with a different set of colors when you’re limited to the guitars and drums and harmonica. It’s still awesome, but it was also something that helped us separate the songs and split them in half. It’s probably why initially I had ‘Grow Wings and Fly’ and ‘Deadstick’ on b741, because in my mind they felt a bit more high-energy, fast-paced, more of the punch-in-the-gut kind of thing. Chad heard them differently and he was the one who convinced us to move them across. I’m really glad we did. In our minds, it’s a progressive album. We just didn’t do it in the overt way that we have with other records in the past. It’s maybe progressive in a different way to Pink Floyd or King Crimson or something. We actually were thinking about this a lot with b741 as well. We wanted the songs to feel like they all had their own little mini-arc to them. We wanted to see how many little vignettes and places they could explore in in a shorter time frame without being these really epic drawn-out ones as well. It’s concise. We were interested in exploring that in a way that maybe we haven’t been in the past.

‘Grow Wings and Fly’ was teased on stage long before it came out in a studio version here. Was that always meant to be its own song or did it emerge from jamming on the song ‘Shanghai?’

Oh, it really did just come out of the jams. A lot of our songs do, but maybe not always in such an overt way as that one. A lot of the time, we will do some kind of improv jam or move into something, and we’re like, oh, that’s got legs. It might not be because of the riff or the melody. It just might be because of the vibe or the feel or the energy of the thing. You think, oh, I want to go there again and explore that more. That’s littered across our discography.

What are the orchestra shows going to be like? How will you prepare for them?

We’re home in Australia for a few weeks. We’re working with Sean O’Loughlin, who’s a U.S. arranger and is adapting some of Chad’s scores. There will be some different arrangements, because the things that work on record and the things that work on a live stage are not always the same. We’re also dipping into handful of tracks in the back catalog. We are playing Phantom Island in full — I will say that. That’s a really exciting prospect and not something that we’ve done much really at all. It feels like that’s going to feel very celebratory for us. Apart from that, it’s still very much evolving. We’ve got one rehearsal with the symphony from Philadelphia the day before the first show and that’s it for us. I don’t know if that’s crazy or sadistic, but it’s definitely something. We just have to trust the process. It’s gonna be a little bit different doing the same set every night, because that’s what we have to do with the written scores. We’re not really doing that many of these shows though, and then suddenly we’re gonna be like, wow, that’s so cool that we did that. We’re grateful to be able to get these opportunities to do stuff like this. It feels quite surreal.

What’s the criteria for which non-Phantom songs to include?

At some of these venues, we are working within a time limit, which we don’t love to do all the time. There’s a lot more rules in this format than we’re used to. We’re trying to think of some tracks that maybe complement or contrast to Phantom. We’ll throw in as many as we can fit and just have fun with it.

Didn’t Gizz play ‘Sense’ on the synth table for the first time during the recent Europe shows?

Yeah, we did. We’ve been throwing in a few different ones like that and that’s been a really good experience so far. We did ‘Down the Sink’ and ‘Hot Water.’ We’ve done a few other ones. It has been a nice challenge and actually a bit of a liberating experience for us. It’s not to say that we’re gonna throw the guitars in the garbage cans just yet, but it does feel good to be a little bit more in the unknown. To feel a little bit more loose and free of the regular things that we do and get used to doing.

Speaking of loose and free, Field of Vision is going to be a first for Gizzard — your own destination festival. What are you most looking forward to that weekend?

Oh my god, so much. It’s been really exciting to curate the lineup. We’ve actually been involved in every step of the process. I can’t wait to see it take shape and really happen after all these conversations. We’ve got some exciting things, like music and otherwise, to share with a beautiful little community out there. Hopefully it’s something we can do more than once. We’ll see how we go.

Before we wrap, you know I’m going to try to extract information from you about what Gizz is working on now. When we spoke last August, there was talk of doing something synth-y…

I mean, we are always working on stuff, and we have done some recording in that vein. I think we maybe haven’t quite hit our stride with it yet, which happens. It does feel very much like starting again in so many ways, which is actually the best feeling and something that we chase a lot. Sometimes things need just an extra bit of gestation, and I think that’s what this one is. We’ve also been busy with so many other things at the moment. Sometimes I have a feeling like … not that maybe we have enough songs, but maybe that the frantic energy we put into making new songs may go elsewhere. With touring for us now, it takes more hours than it used to to do the show. It’s the hours on stage, but it’s also the different sets every night and having as many songs in the rotation. It’s ultra-inspiring and creative. I think we’re getting a lot of what we would get out of the recording process there now, which is not bad. It’s just different. The amount of hours we have spent recording probably has dropped a little bit.  It’s also just life and keeping the wheels on track. To answer your question, we have been recording some electronic music, but it doesn’t feel ‘it’ yet. So, we’ll keep going until it feels ‘it’ and then we can show everyone what ‘it’ is.

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