King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard frontman Stu Mackenzie has shared more details on why leaving Spotify was the right choice for the band.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have shed more light on their decision to pull their music from Spotify, speaking in a new Los Angeles Times interview about why the move felt necessary despite its drawbacks for fans.
The Australian band first announced their exit on July 26 via Instagram Stories, citing Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s multimillion-dollar investments in AI military drone technology through German firm Helsing.
Frontman Stu Mackenzie told the Times that while he was initially surprised by the news of Ek’s investments, it didn’t take long to connect it to the band’s ongoing discomfort with the platform.
“[I] shouldn’t be shocked. We’ve been saying f*** 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,” he continued. “But this feels like a decision staying true to ourselves, and doing what we think is right for [King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s] music, having our music in places that we feel all right about.”
Mackenzie admitted the choice wasn’t without hesitation, as it meant making their most recent record and catalogue less accessible:
“The thing that made it hard was I do want to have our music be accessible to people… 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.”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s decision comes amid broader criticism of streaming payouts. Spotify reportedly pays between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream, with royalties reportedly only generated for songs that hit at least 1,000 plays in a year.
They’re also not the only band to pull the plug on Spotify recently. Both Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu issued statements in protest of Ek’s investments before embarking on a lengthy process to remove their material from the platform. Due to label deals and contractual complications, this process will be ongoing.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s latest release, Phantom Island, came out June 13 and is available on Bandcamp and Apple Music – you can also catch them in person in Australia this December.
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