Multi-talented Australian band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard just wrapped an eleven-date U.S. tour — including a show at Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs — that culminated with Field of Vision, a three-night festival in Buena Vista.
On Saturday, Aug. 16, Indie 102.3 sat down with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard's frontman, Stu Mackenzie, to talk about the festival, upcoming music, the band's decision to leave Spotify, and the biggest question of the weekend — will Field of Vision happen again?
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Indie 102.3: Have you been enjoying your time in Buena Vista?
Stu Mackenzie: I've been dipping into that creek every day [points to the Arkansas River]. It's ice cold, but so clean. It feels... I guess it's a cold plunge, kind of. I don't usually last very long in there. And it's got a good current too. So yeah, it sweeps you away. But there's people, like, surfing. There's like a standing wave, I guess.
Indie 102.3: That is true.
Mackenzie: I'm not used to surfing in the river, but I thought it was pretty cool. But we've been busy here, to be honest, with just festival stuff. We were here a couple of days earlier. We shot some sort of film stuff out on site a couple of days before, which is sort of like an experimental thing. It'll come together over time. And on the Thursday we went out and did soundcheck and just did a whole bunch of stuff around the festival. But the site is so beautiful as well. It's actually just so nice to be out there. So yeah, I feel very connected here, honestly.
Indie 102.3: Why bring Field of Vision here? How many places did you consider, and how did you land on Buena Vista?
Mackenzie: There were a few places that were considered. But this place came from a recommendation from a friend who we trust, and someone who's promoted a lot of Gizzard shows over the years. They said, "You've got to check out the site. It's pretty amazing." And so when we did Red Rocks last year, we had a day off, and we drove here and back in a day just to check it out.
Honestly, I think we'd had a big night the night before, where we kind of fell out of the van and came out here. And I just felt so... I was very inspired by how beautiful it is. That's very obvious when you sit here and you see it, but coming from Australia, we don't have mountains like this. We have different sort of scenery. It feels very exotic to an Australian to be out in these beautiful big mountains that still have snow in them in summer. Just the mountain streams, and the fresh air and everything.
It's a kind of mix of... it feels very exotic, but also just kind of walking around the town and talking to some locals. I feel like I know these people. I grew up in a small town on the coast in Australia, and there's a similarity, I think, with the outdoorsiness and the sort of people trying to escape the city. I know these people. People I grew up with surf, people here go climbing and do river sh*t. They're the same people. So I don't know. It was very obvious when we came out here. It was like, that is just the spot. Let's do that.
Indie 102.3: You've done a couple three-show runs at Red Rocks now and seem to have a pretty large fan base here. I'm curious if any of the decision was market research-based, or if it's all just like, "We like it there and we want to do it there."
Mackenzie: We just do whatever the thing that most people tell us that we shouldn't do. But it was truly that we felt very connected out here. Maybe in saying that, if it was three nights in Alaska, maybe we might reconsider, or maybe make sure that we didn't sell many tickets or something. But it just felt very, very right and very us from the beginning.
Indie 102.3: It's such a phenomenon watching how dedicated and passionate the fans are. My read on the situation is, it's because they get the sense that you all are good people. And you have also touched so many genres that all of these different pockets of people have emerged to follow you. Do you have any thoughts on how that's developed? Was there any intentionality, or was it just kind of like, "We're making what feels right and we're glad that so many people seem to agree?"
Mackenzie: I think for the most part, we've just tried to be the band that we want to be in. That's like a basic way of thinking about it. But it is truly a very fun band to be in. And I don't think I'd ever want to be in a different band. And that's because we have really tried hard to just do what we want to do. And that is kind of to be approachable and nice and just to make it a beautiful experience for everybody. And maybe by the same token, the kind of thing that we were thinking about a lot with this festival was, can we just try to create the festival that we would want to go to? So maybe there's a deeper level as well, but I think that just kind of obvious read on it is where the decision-making comes from.
Indie 102.3: It seems to me like you're sitting with some... climate anxiety, or, whatever you want to call it. I know there's been a move to get away from plastic sleeves on your records and things like that. I'm wondering if, at this point, when you all can pull some weight and be change-makers, are there other things that you have started to do, or would like to do?
Mackenzie: We do tons of stuff. I know carbon offsetting is not perfect, but we carbon offset all of our tour for all of our band crew, everybody. There's a local, very cool charity in Australia that plants indigenous forests with carbon offsetting, and you can go and visit the forest. They usually just turn open, sort of grassland or farmland, basically back into native forests. I feel good about that.
It's not lost to me that we fly around the world constantly playing music and create records out of plastic. But I think I've softened being a dad as well. And I think as you move through life, you try really hard to be a good person, and you try to make the best decisions that you can along the way. Make some mistakes. You do your best.
I don't think I'm a natural activist. I have said before that I don't particularly like to soapbox, actually. But I do feel good about doing what we think is right, even if sometimes it's expensive, or even if sometimes it feels counterintuitive. Or even if it's less convenient for our fans, sometimes. I'm actually completely at peace with that.
I think at this point, if you don't have some climate anxiety, you're probably just not paying attention. Right?
Indie 102.3: You're not trying to be outspoken, but you're not afraid to call a spade a spade, either. That makes me want to ask about the Spotify decision. We've all read the headlines about why that choice was made. (Or, if you haven't, it was Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's investment in AI military drone technology.) Is that a conversation you all have been having over months? Or was it just one day that someone was, like, "All right, I feel really bad about this and we gotta talk about this right now?
Mackenzie: It was a little bit more like that. It was a little bit more... there are tons of things that are problematic about Spotify. And they're well documented. Everything moves so f*cking fast, and we're so busy, and we try to actively think about what we're doing along the way. And sometimes you just have your music on streaming and you're like, "Never consider that." I could actually not. It actually doesn't have to be there. For some reason it was never something that we considered, it not being there. And even though we would complain about the X, Y, Z with stuff with Spotify, I think when the latest AI drone military sh*t kind of became public, it was like, "Let's just walk."
It was kind of a conversation after a few other bands walked away, to be fair. Other bands that we admire and respect. And we just thought, cool. I mean, that feels right to us right now. And I would be excited to see other folks do the same thing. But also, I don't judge people for staying as well.
I'm a pretty soft guy. I feel like I think about things deeply from our impact and perspective.
Indie 102.3: I was out polling the crowd yesterday. One thing that a lot of people wanted me to ask was: Are we going to see a Gizz streaming service? And, where should we go now, if, much to all of our chagrin, we are Spotify people?
At this point, we're still on all of the other platforms. Go anywhere else. I didn't even realize until someone was speaking about it the other day that if you pay for YouTube that you already have the YouTube Music subscription. But, yeah, we're on all the others.
We are not going to make a streaming service. I am sorry, but that's not in the near future. If there was some reason to do it, sure. But I think if we did that, it would be so deeply un-user-friendly. It would be the worst app you've ever used, I'm pretty sure.
Indie 102.3: If that is not next, is it back to writing? Is it back to recording? Do you already have things that you're sitting on?
Mackenzie: We are always actively writing and recording a little bit. I feel like we are in a bit of an experimental phase at the moment. We're doing a lot of electronic stuff. The stuff, if you were there last night [Friday, Aug. 15], that we were doing on the table thing is probably where our heads are at the most at the moment, and we need to get a lot of that on record. We've done some recording like that, but that's where my mind's at at the moment. So that's probably the next thing.
Indie 102.3: As I'm sure you've heard, there's been some commotion around, "Will we see Field of Vision happen again?" And if so, would it be here again?
Mackenzie: I mean, we are having a very amazing time and it is honestly surreal to be here. We've been talking about it for so long and there's so much work that's gone into it from so many different people. And to see it actually all come together in quite a beautiful way is surreal. I think as far as I know, we haven't locked in doing this again here, but we should is where I'm at. I would really like to do it next year. And I think even being here for the day yesterday and the couple of days before setting up, you already kind of have ideas about ways to make it, I don't want to use the word better, but different and make it a unique experience for folks who might want to come again next year. I feel like the size is really nice. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to make it any bigger, but I think we could make it different and that would be an exciting thing to work on.
