Prolific Australian psych-rock powerhouse King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard recently joined a growing wave of artists protesting Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's business dealings — specifically his involvement in a $693.6 million funding round for Helsing, a company developing AI technology for military applications.
Ek helped raise the money through his venture capital firm, Prima Materia, which he co-founded. The move sparked outrage from a number of musicians, including Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, and others, who responded by pulling their catalogs from Spotify in protest.
The streaming giant was already under fire for its notoriously low payouts to artists, despite generating billions in profits. King Gizzard initially made a casual jab on social media — simply posting "fuck Spotify" — but fan curiosity over missing albums pushed them to clarify their stance.
On July 25, the band issued a full statement: "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"
With a sprawling catalog that includes 27 full-length albums, plus countless live and bootleg releases, the decision was no small blow to Spotify's 1.1 million monthly King Gizzard listeners.
In a newly published interview with the Los Angeles Times, frontman Stu Mackenzie opened up about the reasoning behind the move. On their initial reaction to Daniel Ek's investment:
"A bit of shock, and then feeling that I shouldn't be shocked. 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."
On whether leaving was a difficult choice: "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."
On whether Spotify noticed or cared: "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."
King Gizzard's experiment now leaves fans seeking the band's massive discography on alternative streaming platforms, as the group takes a firm — if risky — stand on where they want their music to live.
Spotify has also faced criticism for its low pay rates to artists, with many musicians earning fractions of a cent per stream. On average, Spotify pays around $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, meaning an artist would need hundreds of thousands or even millions of plays to make a sustainable income (unless they're in a Taylor Swift-sized bracket).
And then there's Spotify's Perfect Fit Content (PFC), which was an internal initiative — first piloted around 2010 and widely deployed by 2017 — designed to populate mood-based playlists (like ambient, lo-fi hip-hop, classical, and jazz) with inexpensive, generic tracks commissioned from production-music companies rather than featuring real, independent artists.
If you wanna support King Gizzard, at least go see 'em on tour and buy some merch. Tickets are available here.
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)
