{"id":2842,"date":"2025-06-17T18:53:59","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/king-gizzard-phantom-island-tour\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T18:53:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:53:59","slug":"king-gizzard-phantom-island-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/king-gizzard-phantom-island-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"King Gizzard &amp; The Lizard Wizard Hear A Symphony On New LP, Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/Screen-Shot-2025-06-17-at-2.15.01-PM.png\" width=\"1290\" height=\"906\" alt=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>The six Australian music savants in King Gizzard &amp; the Lizard Wizard have twice (!?!) released five different albums in a single year, zig-zagging from thrash metal and epic, heavy prog to rave-ready bangers and bedroom electronica in the blink of an eye. The group is once again in welcome but foreign territory with the companion albums <em>Flight b741<\/em>, which came out last summer, and the brand new <em><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/album\/3koVdFrXznL2PQ8WxTYjt7?si=2Bw4DCAfR4CpwkT7TbX7SQ\" target=\"_blank\">Phantom Island<\/a><\/em>, the latter featuring elaborate string arrangements and heavy orchestration on a Gizzard project\u00a0for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>If <em>b741<\/em> was an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/03\/king-gizzard-and-the-lizard-wizard-feature\/\">allegory<\/a> about the highest highs and lowest lows of life in a touring band, <em>Phantom Island<\/em> (somehow, Gizzard\u2019s 27th full-length) is the hard but beautiful comedown, with songs about desperately missing your family and friends, overcoming overwhelming self-doubt and reframing months on the road as a form of alien space travel. Gizzard worked with British conductor\/arranger\/keyboardist Chad Kelly to adorn the material with symphonic instruments, having first considered the idea after playing their then-biggest U.S. show to date in June 2023 at the 17,500-capacity Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/wilco-sky-blue-sky-festival\/\">Wilco Festival Returns To Mexico With MJ Lenderman, Dinosaur Jr.<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/robert-smith-and-the-cure-get-wonderfully-lost-on-new-remix-album\/\">Robert Smith and the Cure Get Wonderfully Lost on New Remix Album<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/sting-andy-summers-christian-mcbride\/\">Sting, Andy Summers Revisit The Police With Christian McBride<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And while <em>Phantom Island<\/em> retains some of the free-wheeling, lighter-waving boogie and classic rock vibes of its orchestra-less sibling album, it also presents a more introspective, genre-agnostic approach to songwriting and storytelling than on many other Gizzard releases. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I necessarily believe in fate or things like that, but maybe there\u2019s a version of serendipity where if you put yourself in enough situations that are outside of the usual, interesting things start to happen,\u201d muses Gizzard\u2019s Stu Mackenzie by phone from rural Tennessee, just hours before Gizzard\u2019s three performances at the Bonnaroo festival were sadly canceled due to severe weather.<\/p>\n<p>While taking a walk on a trail named \u201cthe Fiery Gizzard\u201d (not kidding\u2026), Mackenzie went deep with SPIN about the process of making <em>Phantom Island<\/em>, his expectations for summer shows backed by local symphonies and how the larger Gizzard ethos is being channeled into their first destination festival, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.meadowcreekco.com\/fieldofvision\" target=\"_blank\">Field of Vision<\/a>, which will be held Aug. 15-17 in the beautiful outdoor setting of Buena Vista, Co.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Am I right that it wasn\u2019t really until that initial Hollywood Bowl experience that there was a spark of, maybe we could do something like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s totally, totally correct. The idea of doing an album or tour or anything with an orchestra was not something any of us ever realistically entertained or ever spoke about. Maybe there was something in making music that felt orchestral in the way that\u00a0<em>Pet Sounds<\/em> feels orchestral, or maybe just involving some mates who play instruments outside of the scope, color and timbre of what we tend to do \u2014 but never something like this. This happened through right place, right time, right people, right conversations. We tried not be too scared, let everything play out in the right way and give it enough time and energy and space to let it get fully formed. I\u2019m sort of speaking in riddles here, aren\u2019t I (<em>laughs<\/em>)?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m following you so far! Had you actually tracked any of the 20 songs from\u00a0<em>Flight b741<\/em> or <em>Phantom Island<\/em> by the time of Hollywood Bowl<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, we would have. Actually, we didn\u2019t. We tracked in October 2023. We must have had those conversations at Hollywood Bowl that were much more casual and then they followed up with some more concrete ideas around the time we making that record. Well, we thought we were making one record but we sort of made two. It\u2019s not the first time we\u2019ve done that either. Initially we were thinking about one orchestral show at the Hollywood Bowl, and then that became, we may as well do a tour, but let\u2019s get some new songs together. We realized, oh, actually, we have this whole set of songs sitting around here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So were those songs fully done and recorded by the time you handed them over to Chad? Or was there still room to futz with them after you\u2019d heard the orchestral arrangements?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re right in that the tracks were there and there was a really solid, muscular skeleton. We needed that much in order to do the orchestral arrangements. It would have been hard had we gone in any more nebulous than we did. There were songs that could have been performed the way they were, but we wound up making a lot of changes as we went back and forward over the scores. It helped us realize what was and wasn\u2019t possible by hearing some of Chad\u2019s ideas and leaning further into that. Of course, in the mix, more radical things happened. A lot of parts we felt at the time were really significant got completely deleted to make room for the orchestra, but there probably were some really significant orchestral parts that got deleted too. We had to be pretty ruthless in the mix. This may be the album with the most collective hours put into it, between all of us and Chad and the orchestra. It was a really hard album to finish with a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but it was nice that a lot of people cared about it and had opinions about the way it should sound and feel. It wasn\u2019t always easy making hard decisions on it, but I did really want to end up with something that everyone was really proud of.<\/p>\n<p>The mix was really hard. I hadn\u2019t done anything like this before. I mean, it\u2019s delicate. That\u2019s not necessarily where my mixing chops lie (<em>laughs<\/em>).\u00a0I feel at home mixing crunchy stuff, and I didn\u2019t really want this to be crunchy.\u00a0The basic tracks were done at a different place to the orchestra \u2014 different room, different mics, different recording philosophy, even. Making all of that gel was a good challenge. I think we got there in the end.<\/p>\n<p>A rock band is so maximalist already \u2014 distorted guitars and double kicks and all of that shit, which we\u2019ve done so much of. I don\u2019t think it was the thing that seemed enticing in this iteration. Doing the symphony.meant that we wanted to lean into different colors. It is so broad \u2014 the range of sounds you can create with that amount of instruments, but also the strings and the horns and the woodwinds and everything. People have dedicated their lives to exploring the gamut of what a symphony can sound like, and it was pretty cool to peek our heads into that and figure out how we could fuse with it. It was enticing to lean into the orchestra just being an orchestra. There were so many unknowns to step into. Even recording the orchestra, we were like, we think this is gonna work? We stripped away a lot of the recordings that we did initially and tried to let the orchestra shine and sit right there with the band.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is there a moment or two\u00a0where you were really knocked out by an arrangement?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There were certain things that surprised me in a good way. Generally, I\u2019ll always lean into the surprise thing, because that\u2019s what I want out of music. I always want the music I make to feel\u00a0exciting and surprising and unexpected. Chad\u2019s treatment of \u2018Deadstick\u2019 was that for me. I really didn\u2019t see that coming. He was so hyped on that one. \u2018Deadstick\u2019 actually was so close to being on <em>b741<\/em>. It totally could have lived on that album, but Chad was like, no, I can really hear this one.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s worth mentioning that there was a real push\/pull time when both albums weren\u2019t finished. We had already started speaking about the symphony thing with Chad, and there where were certain songs that went from one album to the other. \u2018Grow Wings and Fly\u2019 was initially a <em>b741<\/em> song and that was another one where Chad said, I really want to do this one. What I\u2019ve learned to lean into with Gizz is if someone feels like highly motivated by something, you just roll with that. I feel like my role is to get the most out of everyone and help everyone to feel most inspired. I was really surprised by what he did with \u2018Lonely Cosmos,\u2019 which feels really orchestra-forward, but wasn\u2019t necessarily that kind of song when we gave it to him. A lot of the really orchestra-forward parts, they\u2019re like that because we just deleted everything that we did [as a band]. On \u2018Spacesick,\u2019 he surprised me a few times with the arrangement . It felt quite cinematic, which I didn\u2019t expect. Now, when I think about the songs and where they ended up, it\u2019s like, of course \u2018Lonely Cosmos\u2019 is like that. Of course \u2018Deadstick\u2019 is like that. But it\u2019s not representative of what we gave Chad or what we showed him initially. He was able to take them down a new path that we were all very excited by.<\/p>\n<p><strong>These songs frequently change parts and directions. It\u2019s like there\u2019s something totally different happening every eight bars.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There is definitely a big element of that. I think it\u2019s also what probably attracted us, and also to an extent Chad, to doing these songs with an orchestra. These songs had more of this in their DNA than the ones that ended up on <em>b741<\/em>. That\u2019s not to say that <em>b741<\/em> isn\u2019t like that too. If you\u00a0 look at the movement and the structure of that album, there is not necessarily a lot of repeating parts and it does go to a lot of places, but you\u2019re just painting with a different set of colors when you\u2019re limited to the guitars and drums and harmonica. It\u2019s still awesome, but it was also something that helped us separate the songs and split them in half. It\u2019s probably why initially I had \u2018Grow Wings and Fly\u2019 and \u2018Deadstick\u2019 on <em>b741<\/em>, because in my mind they felt a bit more high-energy, fast-paced, more of the punch-in-the-gut kind of thing. Chad heard them differently and he was the one who convinced us to move them across. I\u2019m really glad we did.\u00a0In our minds, it\u2019s a progressive album. We just didn\u2019t do it in the overt way that we have with other records in the past. It\u2019s maybe progressive in a different way to Pink Floyd or King Crimson or something. We actually were thinking about this a lot with <em>b741<\/em> as well. We wanted the songs to feel like they all had their own little mini-arc to them. We wanted to see how many little vignettes and places they could explore in in a shorter time frame without being these really epic drawn-out ones as well. It\u2019s concise. We were interested in exploring that in a way that maybe we haven\u2019t been in the past.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Grow Wings and Fly\u2019 was teased on stage long before it came out in a studio version here. Was that always meant to be its own song or did it emerge from jamming on the song \u2018Shanghai?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, it really did just come out of the jams. A lot of our songs do, but maybe not always in such an overt way as that one. A lot of the time, we will do some kind of improv jam or move into something, and we\u2019re like, oh, that\u2019s got legs. It might not be because of the riff or the melody. It just might be because of the vibe or the feel or the energy of the thing.\u00a0You think, oh, I want to go there again and explore that more. That\u2019s littered across our discography.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the orchestra shows going to be like? How will you prepare for them?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re home in Australia for a few weeks. We\u2019re working with Sean O\u2019Loughlin, who\u2019s a U.S. arranger and is adapting some of Chad\u2019s scores. There will be some different arrangements, because the things that work on record and the things that work on a live stage are not always the same. We\u2019re also dipping into handful of tracks in the back catalog. We are playing <em>Phantom Island<\/em> in full \u2014 I will say that. That\u2019s a really exciting prospect and not something that we\u2019ve done much really at all. It feels like that\u2019s going to feel very celebratory for us. Apart from that, it\u2019s still very much evolving. We\u2019ve got one rehearsal with the symphony from Philadelphia the day before the first show and that\u2019s it for us. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s crazy or sadistic, but it\u2019s definitely something. We just have to trust the process. It\u2019s gonna be a little bit different doing the same set every night, because that\u2019s what we have to do with the written scores. We\u2019re not really doing that many of these shows though, and then suddenly we\u2019re gonna be like, wow, that\u2019s so cool that we did that. We\u2019re grateful to be able to get these opportunities to do stuff like this. It feels quite surreal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the criteria for which non-<em>Phantom<\/em> songs to include?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At some of these venues, we are working within a time limit, which we don\u2019t love to do all the time. There\u2019s a lot more rules in this format than we\u2019re used to. We\u2019re trying to think of some tracks that maybe complement or contrast to <em>Phantom<\/em>. We\u2019ll throw in as many as we can fit and just have fun with it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Didn\u2019t Gizz <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nftmwl37dqY&amp;pp=ygUSZ2l6emFyZCBzZW5zZSAyMDI1\" target=\"_blank\">play \u2018Sense\u2019 on the synth table<\/a> for the first time during the recent Europe shows?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, we did. We\u2019ve been throwing in a few different ones like that and that\u2019s been a really good experience so far. We did \u2018Down the Sink\u2019 and \u2018Hot Water.\u2019 We\u2019ve done a few other ones. It has been a nice challenge and actually a bit of a liberating experience for us. It\u2019s not to say that we\u2019re gonna throw the guitars in the garbage cans just yet, but it does feel good to be a little bit more in the unknown. To feel a little bit more loose and free of the regular things that we do and get used to doing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Speaking of loose and free, Field of Vision is going to be a first for Gizzard \u2014 your own destination festival. What are you most looking forward to that weekend?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh my god, so much. It\u2019s been really exciting to curate the lineup. We\u2019ve actually been involved in every step of the process. I can\u2019t wait to see it take shape and really happen after all these conversations. We\u2019ve got some exciting things, like music and otherwise, to share with a beautiful little community out there. Hopefully it\u2019s something we can do more than once. We\u2019ll see how we go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Before we wrap, you know I\u2019m going to try to extract information from you about what Gizz is working on now. When we spoke last August, there was talk of doing something synth-y\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I mean, we are always working on stuff, and we have done some recording in that vein. I think we maybe haven\u2019t quite hit our stride with it yet, which happens. It does feel very much like starting again in so many ways, which is actually the best feeling and something that we chase a lot. Sometimes things need just an extra bit of gestation, and I think that\u2019s what this one is. We\u2019ve also been busy with so many other things at the moment. Sometimes I have a feeling like \u2026 not that maybe we have enough songs, but maybe that the frantic energy we put into making new songs may go elsewhere. With touring for us now, it takes more hours than it used to to do the show. It\u2019s the hours on stage, but it\u2019s also the different sets every night and having as many songs in the rotation. It\u2019s ultra-inspiring and creative. I think we\u2019re getting a lot of what we would get out of the recording process there now, which is not bad. It\u2019s just different. The amount of hours we have spent recording probably has dropped a little bit.\u00a0 It\u2019s also just life and keeping the wheels on track. To answer your question, we have been recording\u00a0some electronic music, but it doesn\u2019t feel \u2018it\u2019 yet. So, we\u2019ll keep going until it feels \u2018it\u2019 and then we can show everyone what \u2018it\u2019 is.<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The six Australian music savants in King Gizzard &amp; the Lizard Wizard have twice (!?!) released five different albums in a single year, zig-zagging from thrash metal and epic, heavy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1764,6,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-king-gizzard-and-the-lizard-wizard","category-news","category-pushly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}