Over the weekend (26 July), King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard fans were met with two surprise announcements: a new demos collection would only be available on Bandcamp, and all of their music would be pulled from Spotify.

Taking to their Instagram Stories, the prolific Australian psych-rock band explained that they’d be removing their music from the streaming giant due to CEO Daniel Ek’s position as Chairman of the German defence company Helsing, which invests in AI military drone technology.

In addition to his position at Helsing, it was reported earlier this year that Ek’s investment company, Prima Materia, held a €600 million (£446 million) investment in Helsing.

Making their opposition known to Ek, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard said of their decision to remove their music from Spotify:

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.

Source: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard via Instagram Stories

At the time of publication, all of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s 27 studio albums have been removed from the platform.

Spotify’s ‘This is King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’ playlist, which was billed as “The essential tracks, all in one playlist,” has been reduced from 47 tracks to just four songs—and they’re different renditions of the originals. Some albums were still available for days after the band’s decision.

When approached by The Music on the matter, a representative for the band said: “Their entire catalogue will be coming down from Spotify, it just takes time because of the different labels and distributors.”

Spotify declined to comment when approached by The Music.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard received a mixed reaction from fans on social media, with some labelling the band’s protest against Spotify as “performative” since their music still appeared on the Russian streaming platform, Yandex Music.

However, the band responded to that criticism today (29 July), writing on their Instagram Stories:

Thanks for the heads up about Yandex in our DMs. We’ve never and would never deliver to this platform. It’s up illegally. What the fuck

They also posted an emoji of the Ukrainian flag and a heart.

Source: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard via Instagram Stories

Meanwhile, all of the band’s music lives on Bandcamp. The King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard account contains all of their studio albums, while the bootleg gizzard account is home to the band’s many live shows, which fans can stream and buy.

Bandcamp was sold to Los Angeles-based music licensing marketplace Songtradr in 2023.

In 2021, it was reported that the Australian superannuation fund Aware Super had begun investing in Songtradr. In October 2024, the Australian Institute noted that Aware Super has investments in 16 nuclear weapons companies, totalling over $700 million in holdings in nuclear weapons.