It’s a shock, honestly, that Googling the word “prolific” doesn’t return a picture of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard to help illustrate the concept. Since its founding in 2010 in Melbourne, Australia, this highly industrious six-piece band has released 26 studio albums. Twenty. Six. And that’s not even counting their 39 live albums, four demo compilations, and three EP’s. The psych rock band churns out so much music they even gave one record away: 2017’s Polygondwanaland, hurled into the public domain with no strings attached, meaning any label or individual anywhere could legally sell and distribute copies without paying the band an Aussie cent.
When I spoke with bassist Lucas Harwood back in 2022, he was nonplussed about the prodigious output: “A lot of songwriters write as much as we do. They just don’t release everything. [King Gizzard bandmates] Stu Mackenzie, Joe Walker and Ambrose Kenny-Smith follow through with every idea that they have to the point that it becomes a song. In some bands, people think a song might be too personal to share with the others. In our group, there’s no shame. We encourage each other no matter what, and that’s creatively freeing.”
The interview was shortly before their first ever show in Miami, where a sold-out crowd on a hot summer night at Space Park experienced every strain of “KGLW” there is, from thrash to jam to psychedelia to awkward raps. If you were there, and you’re seeing them again on their first trip back, expect a completely different set and not just because they’ve put out four more albums in between.
King Gizzard do not like to repeat themselves. Harwood told me the band had 90 songs in its live repertoire and, before each show, Mackenzie stresses over the set list. “He’ll look at what songs we’ve played in a city before, then he tries to change it completely,” Harwood said. The only hitch? ”Someone might say, ‘I don’t remember how to play that song because we haven’t played it in five years.’”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and King Stingray play 7pm Thursday, November 21 at Factory Town in Miami. kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com ~ David Rolland
