In 2023 King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard launched their 24th album in 11 years, PetroDragonic Apocalypse. The Australian psychedelic sextet’s most recent release, 2025’s Phantom Island, was their 27th. Back in 2023 Prog asked leader Stu Mackenzie how much music might be too much.
PetroDragonic Apocalypse; Or, Dawn Of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless Damnation is King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard’s 24th studio album since their formation 11 years previously. A comment under the YouTube video for their song Hate Dancin’ jokes: “It’s been 5 days since they last released any new music – was starting to think we’d never hear anything from them again.”
But with such a head-spinning amount of music being released in a relatively short time period, isn’t there a danger that the Australian psychedlic rockers are overly challenging their fans to absorb and process an incredible amount of information?
Article continues below“I think we’re primarily challenging ourselves,” counters band leader Stu Mackenzie. “But that’s an interesting way to frame it, because – and maybe it’s something I’ve even really thought about – I do spend a lot of time thinking about our fans. I just feel so grateful that literally anybody wants to listen to our music or come to a show.”
Pondering his ever-expanding output, he continues: “I feel like recording something, collaborating with other people, finishing it, and then releasing it to a point where you can’t touch it or change it ever again, it feels like a purge; it feels really good when it’s done. And it feels like you can clear space. In my mind it’s like emptying trash. And that’s always been my personal way of being able to move on or being able to grow or change.”
And yet there remains a form of self-awareness within the band about applying quality control methods to what gets released and what stays in the can – along with a tip from a seemingly unlikely source.
“My mother-in-law told me this trick,” Mackenzie reveals. “She said, ‘When you’re reading a book, you subtract your age from 100. And that’s how many pages you need to read until you know that it’s worth finishing the book.’ And I was like, ‘There’s something deep in that that I actually really, really like!’
So I still use that specific trick. I think there’s a version of that that applies to any kind of thing in life and I think with making records, I now know a little sooner than I used to about what’s working and what isn’t.”
By his own admission, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard rarely have less than two projects underway at any given time. “We always have a lot of demos going,” he says. “And a lot of them are just super-loose. Sometimes I don’t even know that two of them are going to end up on the same record. But sometimes, two that are going to be on the same record are actually going to be on two different records. Because of the way they evolve and diverge, or join up or whatever.”
Coupled with King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard’s huge back catalogue is their massive touring schedule. So how easy is it to put a setlist together? “It’s become really fun doing that,” says Mackenzie. “When the band started, it was very loose; it was kind of improvised because we just didn’t have very many songs. And that was really fun.
“But we got to a point where that got very boring. We kind of hit this wall where it was like, ‘Oh, shit, we need to learn our back catalogue!’ And we spent the better part of a year with most of our rehearsals dedicated to that, rather than making new music – and that sucked.
“Now the sets are loose and free and changing every night. We’re pulling from about 100 songs and playing 16 or 18 a night. Each soundcheck we’d be running through songs that we just had no idea how to play and trying to remember the chords and stuff. So we’re seriously on the edge of what we can do onstage.
“But we’re having a lot of fun. I think people are vibing on it. And we’re getting good energy from the shows. So yeah, we’re gonna keep playing like this until it feels like we should do something else. The shows have never been so improvised. It’s very fun.”
Fun is precisely what beats at the heart of their oeuvre, alongside an increasing maturity that helps the band navigate potentially choppy waters. “I love the way that the interplay between six people is so complex,” says Mackenzie. “It’s just a great little nucleus for creativity having that many people working together. It’s really cool when it works.”
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