The Ethiopian musicians that inspired King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
The modern rock landscape would be nothing without King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the prolific Australian experimental six-piece with a penchant for exploring as many genres and instruments as they can get their hands on.
Formed in Melbourne, the band started out by making lo-fi garage rock albums such as 12 Bar Bruise, which contained short, fun tracks bleeding with a DIY sensibility. However, since then, they’ve quickly proved themselves to be some of the most innovative musicians working today. Releasing albums year after year, going as far as to release five albums in one year – twice, the band have barely had a chance to catch their breath since 2010.
The beauty of King Gizzard is their ability to evolve constantly, always moving onto the next style or sound while simultaneously maintaining a distinctiveness that marks their music out as their own. Naturally, the band has amassed a large cult following over the years, with fans even coming up with theories such as the ‘Gizzverse’, linking characters, themes and musical callbacks throughout the band’s discography.
2017 was the most important year of King Gizzard’s career. It was their first five-albums-in-a-year run and saw them drop some of their finest works to date. The first was Flying Microtonal Banana, which featured the band experimenting with unconventional tunings. Frontman Stu Mackenzie had his own guitar specially made for the record, an odd-shaped yellow axe that featured extra microtonal frets.
The band also released a prog metal-inspired album, Murder of the Universe, which featured spoken word pieces by Leah Senior, making it feel like a musical sci-fi audiobook. A few months later, King Gizzard shared Sketches of Brunswick East, a collaboration with Mild High Club.
The record is their most jazz-influenced, with the band revealing that they were particularly attracted to old Ethiopian music, mainly Ethiopian jazz while making the record. Talking to The Music, Mackenzie revealed, “Jazz seeped into it, and we were listening to compilations of Ethiopian music from the 1960s and 70s a lot. It was in no way thought out, though.”
That’s not the only time the band has expressed an interest in Ethiopian music. In a ‘What’s In My Bag’ video for Amoeba, guitarist Joey Walker picked out Hailu Mergia’s album Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument, describing it as “him mucking around with some Moogs and some synths and some early drum machines in the early ‘80s”.
Who was Hailu Mergia?
Rising to prominence as a member of Walias Band – a jazz and funk outfit that dominated Ethiopia’s musical scene in the ‘70s – Hailu Mergia is one of the country’s most influential musicians. From a young age, the keyboardist had a penchant for experimenting with his instrument, revitalising the Ethiopian scene with his innovative approach to music.
He released several albums as a solo artist and with projects like the Walias Band and the Dhalak Band. One of the most important was Tche Belew, released in 1977, which can fetch up to $4,000 online as an original vinyl pressing. Talking to The Guardian, Mergia recalled his days of performing with the Walias Band, “We were an equal band. Everyone got paid the same, everyone took turns as the bandleader. Everyone dressed sharp. We each had three suits. We wore black and white.”
While Mergia doesn’t release or perform music anymore, preferring a career as a taxi driver in the United States, he still has a thirst for making music, which is now his hobby.
The influence of Ethiopian music on King Gizzard
In the same Amoeba video, Walker said, “Ethiopian scales are something I find really bizarre, and there’s some kind of X-factor in it that is very, very good.”
On Sketches of Brunswick East, the band includes a song called ‘Tezeta’, which was inspired by the song of the same name by one of the most important founders of Ethiopian jazz, Mulatu Astatke. The musician once collaborated with the Walias Band, donating his vibraphone skills to the album Tche Belew.
It’s clear that a love for music from all across the world – whether that be American garage surf rock, Turkish microtonal tunings or Ethiopian jazz – has inspired King Gizzard to push their creative limits. Subsequently, they’ve become one of the most interesting and unpredictable bands of the 21st century.
