King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s Stu MacKenzie Explains Why the Band Quit Spotify
There’s a subset of people that continue to grow increasingly frustrated with Spotify — specifically with the high monthly fees, low artist pay, and the fact that CEO Daniel Ek is openly using his money to fund military AI death robots.
That last tidbit was the straw that broke the camel’s back for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard to say enough’s enough and remove their music from the platform all together. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, the band’s frontman Stu MacKenzie said he and his bandmates hadn’t been happy with the digital streaming platform for a while, but news of Ek’s $693.6 million funding round for Helsing, a company developing AI technology for military applications, that was the final straw.
“We’ve been saying fuck Spotify for years. In our circle of musician friends, that’s what people say all the time, for all of these other reasons which are well documented.
“We saw a couple of other bands who we admire, and thought ‘I don’t really want our music to be here, at least right now.’ I don’t really consider myself an activist, and I don’t feel comfortable soapboxing. But this feels like a decision staying true to ourselves, and doing what we think is right for our music, having our music in places that we feel all right about.”
When the band finally decided to remove their music from Spotify, they released a statement to fans explaining why they opted to do that. In their own words:
“A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology. We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better? Join us on another platform.”
While speaking with the LA Times, Mackenzie said the hardest part about deciding to leave Spotify had to do with the fans and making their 27 full-length albums as accessible as possible. Unfortunately, the choice just “felt right”.
“The thing that made it hard was I do want to have our music be accessible to people. I don’t really care about making money from streaming. I know it’s unfair, and I know they are banking so much. But for me personally, I just want to make music, and I want people to be able to listen to it.
“The hard part was to take that away from so many people. But sometimes you’ve just got to say, ‘Well, sorry, we’re not going to be here right now.’ In the end, it actually was just one quick phone call with the other guys to get off the ship.
“As the sizes of everything gets larger, all of the stakes start to feel higher. I grapple with that, because that’s not the kind of band that I like to be in, where it feels like everything is high stakes.
“I do miss the time where we could just do anything without any consequences, but I still try really hard to operate like that. In the past, I have felt tied to it, that we have to be there. But with this band, we have been happy to take a lot of risks, and for the most part, I’m just happy to see what happens if we just choose the path that feels right for us.”
As for whether the band’s decision to leave Spotify will have any tangible effect on Ek’s decision making, Mackenzie is sure it won’t really bother the billionaire at all. But he feels his fans will appreciate the effort in pushing for a better world.
“I don’t expect Daniel Ek to pay attention to this. We have made a lot of experimental moves with the way we’ve released records — bootlegging stuff for free. We have allowed ourselves a license to break conventions, and the people who listen to our music have a trust and a faith to go along on this ride together.
“I feel grateful to have the sort of fan base you’ll just trust, even when you do something a little counterintuitive. It feels like an experiment to me, like, ‘Let’s just go away from Spotify, and let’s see what happens.’ Why does this have to be a big deal? It actually feels like we’re just trying to find our own positivity in a dark situation.”
Regardless of whether they’re on Spotify or not, the band still has a number of live dates slated. You can check out the full list of dates below.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard live dates
10/31 Manchester, UK Aviva Studios (Rave Set)
11/1 London, UK Electric Brixton (Rave Set)
11/2 London, UK Electric Brixton (Rave Set)
11/4 London, UK Royal Albert Hall (w/ Covent Garden Sinfonia)
11/5 Paris, France La Seine Musicale (w/ Orchestre Lamoureux)
11/6 Tilburg, Netherlands 013 Poppodium (Rave Set)
11/7 Den Bosch, Netherlands MAINSTAGE (w/ Sinfonia Rotterdam)
11/9 Gdańsk, Poland Inside Seaside Festival (w/ The Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra)
11/10 Berlin, Germany Columbiahalle (Rave Set)
11/11 Prague, Czech Republic SaSaZu (Rave Set)
11/12 Vienna, Austria Gasometer (Rave Set)
11/14 Copenhagen, Denmark Poolen (Rave Set)
11/15 Gothenburg, Sweden Gothenburg Film Studios (Rave Set)
12/2 Sydney, Australia Sydney Opera House (w/ Sydney Symphony Orchestra)
12/3 Sydney, Australia Sydney Opera House (w/ Sydney Symphony Orchestra)
12/5 Sydney, Australia Enmore Theatre (w/ Party Dozen)
12/7 Brisbane, Australia Fortitude Music Hall (w/ Party Dozen)
12/9 Brisbane, Australia The Princess Theatre (w/ Queensland Symphony Orchestra)
12/12 Melbourne, Australia Sidney Myer Music Bowl (w/ Orchestra Victoria & Folk Bitch Trio)
12/13 Melbourne, Australia Sidney Myer Music Bowl (w/ Barkaa)
