King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have hit out at their apparent AI replacement on Spotify, claiming that “we are truly doomed”.
In July, the Australian garage rock band announced that they were pulling all of their music from the streaming platform due to their opposition to the company’s founder Daniel Ek funding the Helsing corporation.
Ek co-founded the investment company Prima Materia, which has invested over €600million in Helsing, a Munich-based company creating drones and artificial intelligence for military operations, per the Financial Times.
Since their withdrawal, a group of songs have been uploaded to a Spotify page named King Lizard Wizard, with some believing they have been AI-generated. King Gizzard frontman Stu Mackenzie is credited as the composer on the tracks.
In a response to their alleged AI replacement, Mackenzie told The Music: “Trying to see the irony in this situation. But seriously wtf we are truly doomed”.
At the time of their Spotify withdrawal, the band said: “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.”
Mackenzie later explained their decision: “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 went on to explain that while he doesn’t consider himself an activist and was not comfortable “soapboxing”, it felt 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.”
“The thing that made it hard was I do want to have our music be accessible to people,” he added. “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.”
Since their decision, King Gizzard have put their albums up for sale on Bandcamp, allowing fans to name their price. You can access their records here.
They are far from the only band to have pulled their music from Spotify this year – Xiu Xiu made a similar move due to Ek’s “investment in AI war drones”, while Massive Attack, Deerhoof, The Sabres Of Paradise, Hotline TNT and Wu Lyf all removed their music too.
In September, Ek announced that he would be stepping down as CEO on January 1, 2026, with Spotify co-presidents Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström set to take his place.
During his tenure, Ek came under fire multiple times, including when it was reported that Spotify had made profits of over €1billion (£860million), but at the expense of staff being laid off, artists struggling to make any income from streaming, and subscription prices rising.
It became even harder for artists to make money from the platform last year, when Spotify officially demonetised all songs on the platform with less than 1,000 streams.
