With the release of their fifth record, I’m on Your Mind Fuzz the psychedelic garage waves of Melbourne, Australia’s with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard continue to reach new ears. The group has just finished up another round of U.S. touring, and played for the first time in the United Kingdom, with three sold-out shows over three weeks in London alone. All three gigs were filled with uncontrollable energy, improvisational jams, and feelings of traveling through galactic starry deserts and far-reaching cosmos. At Rough Trade Records in London we had a chat with creative frontman Stu Mackenzie who discusses the unexpected origins of the band, his musical influences, and the group’s musical mission.
Psychedelic rock has some heavy roots in the 60s and 70s. Has that era influenced you a lot?
Yeah, totally. I grew up on sixties stuff, more like beat and garage, and just classic sort of music like The Beatles, the Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bo Diddley, Little Richard. My parents were sort of into that, and a lot of folk and country. And then when I was a teenager I got obsessed with later sixties, classic garage Nuggets stuff. That’s what I listened to the most in those formative years. I think that’s the backbone of this band.
How did the name come about?
It’s just silly. The band started off as kind of a joke. We were all playing in different bands and we were all friends so we had this band for a party one time. I think it was under a different name and we just kept changing it. It didn’t really matter since it was just a jam. All the songs were one chord and one word. It was just silly, so we had a silly name. It came out of nowhere really. We never thought the band would stick around, and then it did.
Is there anything you feel like you’re seeking to preserve from the psychedelic era?
I think it’s good to let the persona of the band evolve and be left free and take on some kind of form we didn’t expect. We’ve been working on some newer stuff and it’s not how I thought the band would ever be. Starting off as a joke band with one chord it’s already taken on some strange thing and turned into something I never expected, which is kind of cool.
How does having seven members help you achieve your sound?
It’s good having seven people. There’s more people to vibe off of, and more ideas flying around. There’s more color splashing over the canvas so to speak.
Have there been any disadvantages?
Well it’s hard to tour. Doing anything is kind of hard, like getting people together, rehearsing, driving big vans, but we’re all best buddies so it’s pretty easy in that regard. We don’t really fight or anything. It makes touring more fun as well. It’s always exciting, and there’s always someone to talk to.
You recently finished up a U.S. tour, how did that go?
We supported White Fence from California, and toured around with them for a few weeks. It was sort of cool being the support band for a bit. It took the pressure off, and we jammed a lot on stage, and played lots of different sorts of sets. If the crowd was super chill, we would play lots of chill songs, like the weirder songs too. If people were jumping around, then we would rock out more.
What have been your favorite cities to play?
It’s been cool being in London, and New York. They’re kind of special cities-big cities where everyone responds well to music. We haven’t done the West Coast yet for some reason. I think we definitely will try to next year.
Is the psych-rock scene a pretty tight community in Australia?
It kind of is at the moment. Not necessarily just psych-rock, but bands in general. There’s lots of really good music coming out, which is cool.
How did you guys get to know fellow Australian psych-rock band, Pond?
I know Jay [Watson] pretty well. He plays in Pond and Tame Impala too. We spent a lot of time together the past few years. When he moved to Melbourne he kind of reached out to us because he liked our music so we just started hanging out and jamming. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Gum, but that’s his project. I played drums for Gum and we did a little tour mainly around Victoria. So that was cool, and we got to know each other better that way. All those Pond dudes are awesome.
Could you ever foresee any future tour collaborations with them?
I’ll always try to hook up tours with Pond. It would be so fun. Yeah, I would love that. They were touring in the states at a very similar time we were and our dates crossed over a couple times so we got to hang out, which was really fun.
When it comes to songwriting does one of you tend to write most of the music and lyrics?
I guess that kind of changes, but traditionally I write most of it. There are songs here and there that are different. My role is kind of like creative director, overseeing the project. It’s very open, and that’s the way it kind of works best. If you asked me about any specific song I could tell you how it was created. The most common thing is I would have an idea for a song, and then I would show the guys, and we would jam it and record it. Or I would have an idea for a song, record it, and then we would play that.
Does everyone come in and write their own parts?
It sort of depends. Oddments was a record we did, and none of the songs have everyone on it whereas the latest record is everyone on every song, which is weird because we’ve never really done that before, but that’s the normal way to do it.
You guys put out a lot of vinyl, what sort of things have you been adding to make those records a bit different than a classic pressing?
We ended up with three different pressings for our new record. The one here has a glow in the dark sleeve. If you put it outside it charges, and if you look at in the dark it glows. It’s pretty crazy. Then the U.S. one is green on one side and white on the other, and the colors kind of mesh together. The Australian one is green and red splatter.
Do you think it’s important to keep vinyl alive?
Yeah, I put up everything we’ve ever recorded online in one convenient zip file on our page the other day and got yelled at, but I did that because I figure it’s good for people to have the music.
When will you be releasing your sixth album?
Early-mid next year hopefully. We recorded that in New York, and some of it we recorded on our first U.S. tour. We’ve been finishing it off on this tour doing vocals here and there. We did some recording in Brooklyn at Daptone which was mostly kind of soul stuff, but that was cool. We did everything to tape, experimenting with that sort of sound.
What can we expect from the new album?
Well, kind of talking about jam music, it’s super jammy. It’s probably the jammiest thing I’ve ever done. It’s super chill, some of the most chill stuff we’ve done as well. I don’t know how it will fully end up, but the songs are long and jammy, but simple. With Mind Fuzz the songs were sort of complicated and dense. This is simpler in a way, and more straightforward.
What’s your advice to young musicians out there?
Just do whatever you want because that’s kind of what we’ve done. We never really do anything we don’t want to do. Work hard on whatever it is you really like doing, and find people around you who like doing other things as well. Figure out a little team to do everything and have fun.
If King Gizzard had a mission what would you say it is?
Our mission is to see what happens. Just going with the flow, not worrying about to much, and having fun.
