King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie discusses the band's Spotify withdrawal: “We’ve been saying fuck Spotify for years”

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have addressed their withdrawal from Spotify, with frontman Stu Mackenzie outlining the band’s position in a new interview following their catalogue’s removal from the platform late last month.

The move followed reports that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s investment vehicle, Prima Materia, invested over €600 million in Helsing, a Munich-based company developing drones and artificial intelligence for military operations, per the Financial Times. Announcing their decision at the time, the band wrote on social media, “Hello friends. 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.”

Speaking to the LA Times about his initial reaction, Mackenzie said, “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.” He added, “really consider myself an activist, and I don’t feel comfortable soapboxing,” and that the band “don’t really want our music to be here, at least right now”. “But this feels like a decision staying true to ourselves, and doing what we think is is right for our music, having our music in places that we feel all right about.”

On the implications of the decision, he explained, “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.”

Addressing whether he expects a response from Spotify, Mackenzie said, “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… 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 & The Lizard Wizard follow Xiu Xiu, who are also removing their music from Spotify, and Deerhoof, who have already pulled their catalogue. “We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech,” Deerhoof said in a statement.

The decision arrives amid ongoing debate around streaming. Earlier this year, Cradle Of Filth’s Dani Filth said he “owes it” to other musicians not to have a Spotify account, while Anthrax’s Charlie Benante described streaming as the place “where music goes to die” last November. Spotify has also faced scrutiny after it officially demonetised all songs on the platform with less than 1,000 streams.