King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is a modern rock band making new soundwaves not only for the genre of rock music, but for record production itself. Though they haven’t been around as long as the great classics Cash and Presley, their new 2024 album, “Flight b741” marks their 26th record in the past 12 years.
There have been many hardworking rock artist throughout rock history who have stood out for the sheer number of albums they have produced in their time. Until the time of his death, Johnny Cash was continually producing, remastering singles, or creating compilations and released over 160 in his lifetime. Similarly, Elvis Presley was another artist who constantly gave back to his fans in the form of 60 albums in his lifetime and even more since his death in 1977.
Formation of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Formed in 2010 in Australia, their sound plays around with the genre of rock music, utilizing its freedom to give each song an individualistic feel. The original band members Stu Mackenzie and Joey Walker met in school at RMIT University. Later on, mutual friends Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Cook Craig, Lucas Harwood, and Michael Cavanagh joined to form King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, a play on Jim Morrison’s nickname, “The Lizard King.”
Their earliest work was comprised of a combination of garage rock and surf rock and their first album “12 Bar Bruise” was released in 2012. The album was unusually self-recorded, using their iPhones in place of microphones to capture the vocals.
Worried about being typecast in their genre, their next album “Eyes Like the Sky” was released in Feb 2013 and inspired by Western themes and the Rockstar videogame Red Dead Redemption. That same Sept, they released another album “Float Along–Fill Your Lungs.”
In 2014, they also released two more records, one in March (“Oddments”) and another in October (“I’m in Your Mind Fuzz”), the latter of which delved into the realm of mind control and fantasy. Five years later, it would be ranked sixth in the 2010’s 25 Best Psychedelic Rock Albums by Happy Mag. This was also the first album they recorded in the traditional sense–the whole band in the same studio at the same time.
2015 launched a new opportunity for the band as they created Gizzfest in Melbourne, Australia where they were originally from. It became an annual traditional two-day musical fest featuring not only local talent but international bands as well.
That same year, they released two more albums. “Quarters!” in May featured only four songs at 10 minutes and 10 seconds each because of its jazz music influences. “Paper Mache Dream Balloon” was released in November and includes psychedelic acoustic songs that are considered unrelated to each other. It was also the first album to be released in America via ATO Records.
2016 only featured one CD, “Nonagon Infinity,” however, it earned them the 2017 ARIA Award for the Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Album.
In 2017, King Gizzard produced five new albums with genres ranging from dark fantasy to psychedelic jazz to recorded singles that hadn’t been released on any album yet. That December Consequence of Sound named them Band of the Year not only based on the sheer number of music produced, but the quality of it as well.
Over the next eight years, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard continued to steadily produce two or more albums each year, expanding the boundaries of rock music and testing what is possible for the fluidity of the genre. They experimented with thrash metal, electronica, and live recordings of their concerts. But music was not all they dabbled in.
King Gizzard Gives Back
When the Australian Bushfires raged out of control in late 2019-2020, King Gizzard released three live albums and donated all of the proceeds to charities supporting the affected wildlife.
In 2020, when the COVID pandemic started shutting things down, the band took to the studio to utilize the isolated time but also wanted to give back to the Aboriginal Australians in their home country by donating $20,000 raised from views of their documentary “RATTY.”
2021 brought them another $20,000 for winning the Environmental Music Prize which they donated to The Wilderness Society of Australia.
For a band that has only been around about a decade and a half, they sure have made a name for themselves not only in experimentation with album themes and sounds but with their generosity in giving back to their home country.
Their newest album “Flight b741” was released in August. The band is currently on the US and Canada leg of their tour with almost a third of the shows sold out weeks before. The American tour ends in Florida in November giving the band a few months of rest before starting the European leg of their tour in Portugal in May 2025.
