King Gizzard: "Stu captains the ship and whoever wants can be the first mate"

The Australian machine guns (twenty-five albums in about twelve years) have played three concerts so far in Athens and no ticket has been left unsold until today (yes, all three shows were sold out). The first time we met them was at Fuzz Club, while for the second and third time we enjoyed them at Gagarin 205 in a double show where they performed without their coronavirus-suffering drummer. All their performances have created only pleasant memories for us.

We expect the same to happen now, with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard having arranged an ambitious three days at the Lycabettus Hill Amphitheatre. The European Residency Tour 2025 has already passed through Lisbon and Barcelona, goes to Vilnius, comes to Athens and closes in Plovdiv. Three days in each place. A different setlist every night, many pounds of sweat on and under the stage, microtonal tuning, flying crocodiles and much more are included in what we and all the audience can expect to enjoy.

In view of these concerts but also as the new album "Phantom Island" is due to be released on June 5th, we had the opportunity to tune in in Australian time and chat with Ambrose Kenny-Smith, the band's keyboard player. We learned some interesting things and we're quoting them almost in full - the special accents have been removed!

Hi Ambrose, can you hear me?

Yeah. Good. Yeah. Hey, how you going?

I'm fine. My name is Pantelis, I’m calling you on behalf of rocking.gr and I would like to thank you for this conversation. Would you like me to call you Ambrose or Amby?

Yeah, of course. Thanks. Thanks everyone. Hey, you can call me whatever you like, both are good.

Since you have a new record coming and you're visiting us in the beginning of June for three shows, I've got some questions for you.

Yeah, yeah, shoot. Let's do it.

We know of a new record coming out in about a month. It's called "Phantom Island" and you have given us two tracks until now. The title track has a lot of keyboards and "Deadstick" has a lot of horns. They both seem very promising in my ears. What else should we expect? Could you tell us a couple of words about the new record?

So yeah, we've put out the title track, "Phantom Island" and "Deadstick" as well. It's one of my favorite records that we've made, for sure. It's a fun listen. The story goes that we recorded about 20 songs or so back when we were doing "Flight b741". At the time we had this bunch of songs and we were gonna just do a double LP. But, as the songs started to form and we were writing lyrics and recording some overdubs, we were approached by someone about floating the idea of doing a live show with an orchestra in the States.

Just one show?

I'm not sure, it was sort of just an idea. I don't know if it was one or several shows at that point. But then I sort of was like "Oh well, we got these 20 songs" and I got them all together, went through them all and thought that this sort of batch of songs would be kind of cool with an orchestra. Then Stu went through them again and sort of shuffled them around a bit and that's how we ended up with the two albums. So we went ahead and finished off "Flight b741" and just went down that garage, blues rock route that it ended in being, putting the others aside for a rainy day. Stu found a conductor friend of his, Chad, who was keen to work on the project with us and he took it away and wrote a bunch of arrangements. Then he went and recorded that with a bunch of different players and we were lucky enough to sit on in on some of those sessions. Then it just was a bit of a longer mixing process than normal, as you can imagine. But yeah, the record in a whole is really cool, it's got a nice flow and sort of journey throughout it and I can't wait for everyone to hear it.

And it has something new, once again, as you’re collaborating with an orchestra.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just when you think we've run out of ideas, we somehow come up with something.

I don't think that anybody thinks that you will ever run out of ideas!

Maybe unintentionally! That's probably why the albums have slowed down a bit. Now that's just because of lots of different things are happening in our lives over the years. "You get older" things. They're a bit slower. But yeah, we're about to start a really heavy year of touring and we've been really busy in the studio these last few months.

Stu is the captain of the ship and it's just whoever wants to be the first mate

I checked setlist.fm and it seems that you haven't played a live show in about 6 months. Isn't that a long time for King Gizzard and the Lizard wizard?

We've taken the six month break and it's gone so fast. Like, really quickly. I've been in the studio pretty much almost every weekday, whether it's being recording or just lots of tinkering and messing around with stuff.

…rehearsing…

Yeah, rehearsing and lots of things. Lately we've been playing around with a lot of modular Eurorack synths. Everyone's gotten very deep into that world and that's really chewing up a lot of our time at the moment, as is also getting ready to go away on tour in less than two weeks from now. Like a week and a few days. So it's all crept up very quickly.

You said that you spent a lot of time in the studio and when this band spends a lot of time in the studio… Apart from "Phantom Island", are there any other new albums in the making or even already ready?

Nah… There's always stuff in the making, for sure, there's a bunch of things. This time a few of us were getting pretty heavily into the next record and a few had life things have come up. So yeah, new stuff has sort of been put to the side as we started to get ready for touring and such. We're starting to rethink things a bit, because one of the latest projects was gonna be sort of synth paced, but now I'm not sure… We're getting quite lost in the whole synth thing because it's easy to get distracted on a set goal like that.

You're a multi membered band. How does this work during the writing and recording process for new studio staff? Does every one of you have a role? I mean specific duties or responsibilities?

It sort of varies in each project. I think over the years we've all become a lot more collaborative between us. The last few records have been a result of that, with us either writing lots of lyrics all together or just working with whoever's around when we start the initial recordings of the beds. The doors are always open, so it's sort of a thing for whoever's got enough time to keep up with the pace of the King Gizzard train pretty much.

So maybe one contributes more to one record, the other one contributes more to the next one, etc.

Yeah, it's not ever a set thing. It's just whoever wants to be involved, they can be involved and they can do how much or how little they want. It's up to anyone and everyone. Stu is the captain of the ship and it's just whoever wants to be the first mate.

You have known each other from a very young age. Do you think that this has played a role in managing to keep what seems to be a good relationship between you?

Yeah, for sure. End of this year it'll be 15 years since I joined the band and ruined my high school exams. We get along super well, we're all very close. We obviously spend a lot of time together on and off the road. It’s been quite a while doing this together and it’s just the norm, it’s just everyday routine for us. We always pinch ourselves that we get to do it for a living. And I think that's what drives us to keep doing it and keep getting around each other to make things happen, to make things work. We're sort of like a multifaceted machine, and everyone's really patient. We all work well and like helping each other out if one person lacks in a field more than others or whatever it is. It's a nice brotherhood situation and we keep looking out for each other.

The dedication that people have never ceases to amaze me

You have released some records with micro tonal tuning in your instruments. Does this setup also have to do with the keyboards or is it only the guitars?

Yeah, it's with the keyboards as well. Most of the songs like the "Flying Microtonal Banana" and such were sort of a sharp situation with just two notes recorded, half sharp or half flat. That's why I play the Nord (σ.σ. Electro 5D, Swedish keyboards) for quite a while, for years. Even back then, it was the most functional and practical keyboard to use for tuning notes to be microtonal, so it was a lot easier. A lot of the organ and piano and stuff that we use still to this day are from way back when we first started and we’ve sort of gotten used to it. And I think I've also gotten too lazy to make new sounds, a lot of them are recorded from way back then. Obviously since then we did a ton of songs and I have lots of other sounds that are recorded to different tunings and in different keys. It depends on what the track is and needs, but it's all just samples essentially and then the notes tuned, half sharp, half flat.

Is it easy to blend these songs in your live set?

If they've got the guitars on, then yeah, I feel probably pretty much we could jump around. The guys still blend the microtonal songs into standard tuning songs as well, obviously. When we play acoustically, though, as we’ve done recently, there’s a bit of a different way of looking at for me. I have to play pentatonics and things to avoid those few microtonal notes on the piano.

Given the fact that you already have put out more than 25 records, how many songs do you practice when it's time you're about to go on tour and how do you decide each night’s setlist?

We had pretty terrible time practicing these days to be honest. There's so many songs that it's just too hard to really go through everything. We have to go through a lot, because we change sets every night. I feel like these days when we rehearse, we just make sure our stuff works still, because we're always changing pedals, adding different things, using new or different keyboards and guitars all the time. It's mainly more so like that. I like to play the metal stuff and the "PetroDragonic Apocalypse" songs, these are the go to ones for me. They are the hardest in the repertoire at the moment and they have to be so tight, obviously, that it's a great warm up for Cavs and I guess all the guys as well. So we kind of just sort of touched base on a few of those. Then, the rest, we have a doc like a Google spreadsheet where we can look at all the songs that we've ever played live. And as weird as it sounds, it's sort of a bit more reassuring, relaxing to look at all of them and visualize what we do on each song or how we play them. It's not too crazy anymore. Well, it is, but our brains are also wide, like my mind is. I only pick songs really these days. There’s no point in trying to learn other songs. They just get replaced by get it songs.

You have been around the world with the band. Do you have a favorite venue or country playing? For example, I have watched videos of you playing at the Red Rocks Amphitheater or the Gorge in the US and they seem to be fantastic.

Oh well, I don't wanna sound biased but I do really love Greece. We like playing there and I do really like Athens. I think we’ve got a few days off before we play the shows there now and so I'm gonna try and go to an island or do something else. I really love it over there at the moment. Aside from that, all American stuff is just bonkers and Red Rocks is always a sick time. It does also get a bit like… I've forgotten the word, is it vertigo? When you're looking up, the crowds are so steep that it’s like you’re towering over Red Rocks. I like that amphitheater. It's pretty wild.

I’ve only seen it in photos and videos, but the real thing must be special.

In real life, you can't really look all the way to the back for too long. You actually get dizzy, because it's so steep. Well, all American stuff is being great and each time we are going back, we always treated well. We went to Forest Hills in New York recently as well and had a great time. It's sort of hard to pick one, but yeah, I'm looking forward to this residency tour. There's lots of really cool looking venues, so, I'm sure that this will probably change by the end of this tour.

It's nice to have some bit of space, to be able to unplug for some time

You're going to like our venue, it's on the top of a hill. There's gonna be 3 nights, I believe you are going to play different songs, I have high expectations - and it’s not only me.

Awesome. I've heard such good things about this venue.

You mentioned about going to an island. The previous time you were here, you also went to an island and you filmed the video of "Ice V". How did you come up with that idea? Do you have any special story to share about filming that video?

Yeah, that video…

It was a nice song with a fantastic summer vibe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of worked out perfectly. It was very funny. We had our friend Danny Cohen flying over to film that tour and then Stu got sick when we were in Croatia and he had to go home. We were standing there at the airport talking about everything we just agreed to figure out, and then I thought "oh, no, Danny's on this flight from Australia to meet us in the next spot." We all had just forgotten for a minute, with so many things happening all at once. Then we're like, "well, what do we do?" Stu’s there stressing about 100 other things. I went out to Cook and Joey and I was like, "hey, Danny's flying over to arrive real soon and you two are staying on." I knew that they were gonna be together when everyone else was splitting up and doing different things and I was like, "hey, do you guys can you take one for the team?" This was very last minute. So, I was begging Joey and Cook at the airport to take one for the team and film video clips somehow with Danny, who was coming to film clips fpr a video and for the tour. Well, Danny came and they got to Greece and he just decided that it would be easier to just focus on one person So Cook, funnily enough, got the sort of the slide, he got the sort of green light to not have to go do it. He was still in Hydra, but he ended up watching Joey dance around a few times. Joey just had to really bring it, so, hats off to Joey for that one because he really saved the day for us and it turned out great. It's really a funny, different kind of video clip and a nice touristic advertisement for Hydra.

You mentioned that Stu got sick, but last time you were here, Cavs was sick and didn't play with you. They had a fantastic vibe, I was at both shows and had a great time. I don't know if you remember them, but I do remember them very fondly.

I remember them. I remember them very well as well because it was very stressful. Very. That was also another awkward moment. We were wondering if we had to cancel the tour and I said to Stu that we could do it with a drum machine, thinking that they're all gonna like it. His first reaction was "oh, no way." But then he said "hmm, let's ask Cavs and see how he feels about that." Cavs was like, "obviously, you gotta make this show happen, people bought tickets and if you can pull it off, do it." And obviously we were shit scared, but the crowd seemed to like it.

The crowd loved it.

Yeah. And luckily, everyone in Greece was so friendly, so everyone kind of didn't miss a beat.

I remember there was a guy who had a big green inflatable crocodile from the first show through the second show. After the second show, it had got deflated a bit, because everyone in the crowd was playing with it. So, this was probably a sign that everybody had a good time.

Yeah, these were very special shows for sure.

How come you are so relaxed in providing anyone with the right to print and sell your musical work in physical formats? As far as I can remember, the only condition is that you must receive a part of the batch to sell from your store - whatever the bootlegger feels is fair. Do you feel that this helps you? I do, but most banks are not so relaxed.

It's obviously something that not everyone's doing or everyone would agree with. There's some sort of ethos to it in that it sort of brings all the fanbase together to try and have a way to be creative and artistic in their way of making their own products and standing around. The files and sharing helps the community flourish and grow and it's a great way to just keep the whole beast of Gizzard evolving.

We have a nice brotherhood situation and we keep looking out for each other

It's just a nice way of spreading the word of mouth.

Yeah. It's a nice freedom to have for our fans to just have fun with.

I listen to recordings like this a lot and I like it if they become available, even at a price. I like to listen to live shows, especially if each show is different, as are your shows. So I think what you do is very good.

Yeah, I think it's great. I've seen a few record labels and things kickstarted by this, which is great. And yeah, you know, what goes around comes around.

Rock music has diminished and is not very famous nowadays as it used to be in the last the previous decades. You are a famous rock band. How does it feel to be one of the not so many rock bands that have emerged during the last years?

Super lucky, that's for sure. I still just can't believe it. Like you said, rock comes back in different forms and it's sort of always there. But yeah, it feels very lucky to be able to still be doing it and for people to still be enjoying it as well.

You definitely have to be special in order to have a career as a rock band nowadays, and you are very special. It's not like everybody listens to rock music and that's why they listen to you. You do something different and something good.

Yeah, cool. That's what it's all about, isn't it? I’m just glad that it resonates and people are still listening.

There is a very big community circling around the band. Do the members of the band keep in touch with fans personally and how critical do you think that this relationship is?

We see certain fans that have been coming to shows for quite a while or at the front quite often. We have a friendly relationship with obviously all our fans, but we're super appreciative of those super die hard fans that come to stars or travel around the world to see us. It's quite overwhelming and we're super grateful. And I just hope that they continue to do so and it doesn't get old for them because it's nice to see these familiar faces.

A big motive, I think, is that every show is different. I think that it's a motive for you too. If I was a musician and played the same and the same songs every night, I would be bored. And if I was a fan of such a band, I would also be bored. But in your shows there's always something new and that's a reason for someone to follow the band.

Yeah, it's great. Even down to the tours I do with my other projects like Murlocs and recently the one I did with Gum, it was wild to see fans from different parts of the world rock up on those shows. This dedication that people have never ceases to amaze me.

Is it difficult to be based in Australia and to be a musician of international fame and having to tour all over the world? Have you ever thought of maybe relocating somewhere more centrally?

Yeah, I've always thought about relocating, but I think we've just gone so long without doing it that we probably won’t do it now. If we had done it, it would have been quite some time ago. There's so many of us and everyone has all our different commitments and things that it just makes the most sense at the end of the day for us to all be here in Melbourne. We grew up here and in the surrounding areas and we kind of need that support from our families, partners and friends of course to stay connected when we come home. And as I said, we all feel really close to each other, and we all have a similar friend group, and I think it's really important to touch base with those people when we're home. It's nice, it's grounding, I like it. I feel that if I lived in the United States, it'd probably be a bit more intense, maybe just because of our popularity is a lot bigger there than here. But it's nice to have some bit of space, to be able to unplug for some time.

We're fully appreciative of those super die-hard fans that come to stars or travel around the world to see us. It's quite overwhelming and we're super grateful

What kind of music do you listen to? Do you have any favorite bands or artists that maybe shaped you as a musician?

Oh, shape me as a musician is a pretty big one. I get a lot of stuff, probably going back to the 60s. It's a wide range of things and it's always sort of forever going growing. I listen to the Australian scene, to 70's rock and stuff. I also listen to a lot of hip hop as well, crooners and some orchestral things. So, it's always changing, I’m always trying to find new music and try and go out to shows as well.

I believe this happens to all the members of King Gizzard. You listen to a lot of different things!

Yeah, we try and keep an open mind and put ourselves out and listen to all types of music and appreciate it in all different forms.

Would you like to close with this conversation with a message to your fans here in Greece? We are more than expecting you!

Ohh yeah, I can't wait to play. I hope to see everyone for a drink or two after the show. It's gonna be a sweet time in Athens, as always.

I wish you have a great time in the concert and in Athens in general. I'm very glad that that you gave us the opportunity for this conversation. Thank you very much Ambrose.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are playing three (!!) shows at the Lycabettus Hill Amphitheater on June 3, 4 και 5. Tickets here.