King Gizzard And The Wizard Lizard pull music from Spotify over "Dr. Evil tech bros"

The group is the latest band to pull their music from the service over Ek, and specifically his Prima Materia investment fund, which recently raised more than $600 million in funding for military drone developer Helsing. (Ek is also chairman of Helsing, which started as an AI software developer before moving into creating and manufacturing its own drones.) Previously, bands Deerhoof and Bay Area indie band Xiu Xiu announced they were making similar moves to pull their music from the service. (Xiu Xiu’s statement on their own decision, which they announced yesterday, goes even harder than King Gizzard’s, with the band writing that “Although the financial practices of all streaming services is acutely anti-musician, the actions of Spotify to use the profits they made from essentially stealing music in order to murder people to make even more money is almost beyond comprehension.”)

King Gizzard actually made two announcements on social media today, also announcing that they were releasing a new collection of demos “Out everywhere except Spotify (fuck Spotify),” and adding, true to the spirit of the thing, “You can bootleg it if you wanna.” The band recently released its 27th album, Phantom Island, and is currently in the midst of an American leg of a 2025 world tour.

[via Variety]