Garage rock

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard break boundaries

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Virgin Music (2))

What happens when you mix ZZ Top, the Beatles and eight pigs on an airplane? You get an album like "Flight b741" by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. It is the 26th album by the six musicians from Melbourne, Australia, in 15 years of band history - a high output that both satisfies fans and leaves room for creative experimentation.

"The last few records we've made have been deep, expansive and somewhat intellectual," Gizzard frontman Stu Mackenzie is quoted as saying in a press release from the label. From thrash metal to digital synth soundscapes to Greek musical modes, pretty much everything was included at one time or another. This time, with "Flight b741", the band ventures into the terrain between blues, country and psychedelic rock.

Recording in the chill base
The ten songs sound as if King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard had pressed record during a euphoric session in the rehearsal room, between worn-out sofas and cigarette smoke. Classic blues guitar alternates with psychedelic choirs and rustic harmonica howls. It can sometimes happen that a track like "Daily Blues" lasts an impressive 7.42 minutes.

"The album is like a really fun weekend with your mates, you know?" says Mackenzie and couldn't have summed it up better. In fact, "Flight b741" was created within two weeks in the band's studio.

Room for transistor amplifiers
Even if garage sound sounds like a simple task at first - if you want to record it in a professional studio, you have to get creative. "We didn't use nice tube amps," says Mackenzie, "but wonderfully cheap little transistor amps that were turned up to 11 and were just really loud". They also used an out-of-tune piano and a second-hand National KX-88 - the garage rock beast of the 60s and 70s.

To make the authentic garage rock mix perfect, the musicians simply passed the microphone around during the recording. For the choirs in the background, all six of them gathered around the recording device. "We wanted to have as many lead singers as possible," says Mackenzie. "Everyone contributed songs and ideas."

A big mess
The result was a wild ride - as you can guess from song titles such as "Rats In The Sky", "Le Risque" and "Hog Calling Contest". The guys from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard seem to have won the "Hog Calling Contest": Because on the album cover, a whole eight pigs gather on a wooden airplane. To quote the lyrics from "Le Risque": "Let's ride!"