The Aussie rockers revamp their axes and slither back with three new albums—following seven others since 2017—of rock ‘n’ roll weirdness.
The king and all of his lizard wizards, clockwise from upper left: Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Cook Craig, Joey Walker, Michael Cavanagh, Stu Mackenzie, Lucas Harwood.
Back in early 2017, Australia’s ever-experimenting, genre-melding, envelope-pushing ensemble King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released Flying Microtonal Banana, their initial foray into the world of microtonal music. The band’s interest in microtones, or those notes that fall in between the keys on a piano, was piqued when Stu Mackenzie—one of the group’s three guitarists, co-lead vocalist, and de facto ringleader—started fooling around with traditional Middle Eastern instruments such as the Turkish bağlama [also called the saz] and Persian setar. Mackenzie asked Aussie luthier Zac Eccles to add extra frets to the banana yellow guitar he was building—dubbed the “Flying Microtonal Banana”—in order to enable the guitarist to play strategically placed quarter-tones in specific, pre-determined keys. Eccles then modified instruments for the band’s bassist, Lucas Harwood, and guitarists Cook Craig and Joey Walker, and they got to work adapting their sound to this new approach.
Despite the extensive effort that the band put into creating Flying Microtonal Banana, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard soon drifted away from their microtonal explorations. They had plenty of other stuff on their mind, releasing four more albums in 2017 alone. After a hiatus in 2018, they returned the following year with Fishing for Fishies, which is a playful, boogie-centric romp; Infest the Rats’ Nest, a brain-splitting heavy metal album; and a cadre of live recordings and archival releases. But microtones were again calling, and 2020 proved to be an opportune time for their return.
“We talked about coming back to it as soon as we finished playing Flying Microtonal Banana, because it was one of the funnest experiences we ever had,” Mackenzie says. “We were experimenting with this new thing—with Flying Microtonal Banana we definitely did not yet feel super at home with what we were doing—but by the time we actually tracked that record, it felt way more intuitive than we thought it would. It just worked, which doesn’t always happen, and because of that we were pining to go back. There are a handful of microtonal tracks scattered throughout a couple of records since then, but we hadn’t taken the time to do a full record like that again. We also wanted to do all those records in between. But then the pull became too strong, and we started writing microtonal stuff again.”
It’ll come as no surprise to King Gizzard fans that this was fertile ground for the prolific group. “It was a free and creative time, and we accidentally wrote two records worth of songs, which was a huge surprise to everyone,” says Mackenzie. Across both of those records, K.G. and L.W., the band dives back into the microtonal deep end to deliver 84-minutes of pounding psychedelia ripe with enough multi-meter grooves and warped tonality to keep your head spinning the whole way through. As a cherry on that double scoop, they’ve now also just released the strongly synth-centric Butterfly 3000, in June, and chances are that by the time you read this article, something else, perhaps even more incongruous, will be on the way.
The band was obviously enthusiastic about returning to their microtonal approach, but they also had their fair share of challenges. For one thing, their instruments created a hurdle. Mackenzie’s custom-build is a well-made, high quality guitar, but that wasn’t true for the others, who initially asked Eccles to add frets to their inexpensive bottom-feeder guitars.
Before modifying his Rickenbacker 610 with microtonal frets, Cook Craig was using a Univox to perform music from the band’s Flying Microtonal Banana album.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Rickenbacker 610 modified with microtonal frets
Fender 60th Anniversary Classic Jazzmaster with Gibson 496 pickups
Fender 60th Anniversary Classic Jazzmaster (tuned C# standard) with Gibson 496 pickups
“I first recorded with a hunk of junk,” says guitarist Joey Walker about the initial instrument he modified with microtonal frets. “It was a $300 AUD guitar [about $227 U.S. today], and that was modded and used for the record. We started playing at festivals in Australia and, as we were playing, that guitar started falling apart. Parts were falling off and the bridge started disintegrating. After two shows it was this crazy piece of crap. I then had to quickly mod another guitar that I already had.”
Both Walker and Craig decided to commit to reliable microtonal guitar setups, so Walker upgraded to a sturdier Godin Richmond Dorchester and Craig is using a Rickenbacker 610 outfitted with microtonal frets.
On the new material, all three guitarists tune their instruments to C#–F#–C#–F#–B–E and use the bottom four strings as drones while playing melodies on the top two. Bassist Lucas Harwood uses standard tuning, which required some extra problem solving as he and Eccles collaborated on a new bass.
“For a handful of the songs on the new [guitar-driven] albums, K.G. and L.W., Stu programmed the bass using MIDI, and I had to reverse engineer a new instrument,” Harwood says. “That took a few days of me sitting down with him and working out which notes I didn’t have on my current instrument, and then designing a new fretboard that would cover all bases—excuse the pun.” To gain easy access to all of the notes necessary to play the band’s new material, Harwood ended up having Eccles install partial frets into his new bass. He explains, “Some frets cover one string or two or three. It looks really bizarre and more complicated than it is. Some of the songs also had notes that are lower than the low E on the bass, so I got a fifth string as well. That took another relearning. The 5-string bass is like picking up a different instrument compared to a 4-string. Your brain shifts gears when you pick up that instrument. The low B still trips me up now and then, but I am getting used to it.”
When they’re not on the road, King Gizzard spends an inordinate amount of time jamming, hanging out, and crafting songs and arrangements in a warehouse in Melbourne, which they also recently upgraded. “We moved into a new space just before lockdown hit,” Craig says. “We built a new room in this warehouse. It’s sound treated and has multiple rooms. It has a control room, tracking room, and a rehearsal room. We go there most days of the week, hang out, jam, and fuck around.”
Although the band had recently set up a new space to rehearse and record, both K.G. and L.W. were recorded remotely in compliance with Australia’s lockdown rules.
With the lockdown in full effect—and in Australia, as crazy as it may seem, musicians were not considered essential workers—the band was forced to record in isolation, which meant each member contributed ideas and recorded his parts at home, although Craig downplays the challenge. “We’ve made many albums together and know each other’s vibe like the back of our hands,” he says. “It is pretty easy to slot in together now, even though we weren’t in the same room. It didn’t feel too rigid or click-track-y or weird recording it separately.”
K.G. and L.W. have that same organic, loose, improvisatory vibe King Gizzard is known for, but they did use a click, which was unusual for them. “Stu would send the sketch of a song with a drum sample, or Cavs [drummer Michael Cavanagh] would send a groove to Stu,” Harwood says. “He would play something over it, and we would have a Soundcloud where everyone uploaded everything they did that day. At the end of the day, there’d be a bunch of new ideas to sift through. The main difference here, recording in isolation, is that everything was played to a click track, because when you’re sending stuff from one place to another in the virtual world—especially if Cavs just uploads a drum beat—it’s near impossible to play just to that if it’s in free time. With everything everyone would upload, we’d say something like, ‘This track is 120 BPM.’ You can then drag it into your software, line it up in a grid, easily play to that, and send it on again.”
“It looks really bizarre and more complicated than it is,” says bassist Lucas Harwood, who redesigned his Zac Eccles–modified fretboard to use partial frets. This gives him easy access to all of the microtones that are necessary to perform the band’s new songs.
“Stu was like the brain in the center,” Craig adds. “We all sent stuff to him and he organized it. He’d upload a bed and people could overdub on top of that. He chopped that up and did stuff like that. He sifted through the shit I guess. I used Logic a lot to make the new albums, because Logic is really easy to set to microtonal scales. You can play stuff on the keyboard and it is all in that scale. There were a lot more keyboards on this microtonal album compared to the original one. If we hadn’t been in isolation and been actually recording the songs in a studio together, they would have been more guitar-based, I reckon. That’s what it is. The time and the situation informed the music, which is cool and gives it a different sound.”
That sound was informed by other non-musical considerations, too. “I only played on a handful of the tracks,” Harwood says. “I was in lockdown with two kids. I don’t have a home studio, I have my laptop and bass and a MIDI cable at my dining table, and I did that while trying to homeschool and having a toddler running around as well.”
Holy tones! When he’s not ripping microtonal riffs, Stu Mackenzie often reaches for his Gibson Holy Explorer, which features a unique take on weight-relief measures. Photo by Debi Del Grande
Photo by Debi Del Grande
As the lockdown lifted in Australia in March, King Gizzard took their microtonal show on the road. It was also the band’s first outing as a one-drummer band. Second drummer and manager Eric Moore left the band in August 2020 to focus more attention on running their label, Flightless Records.
“It’s a little bit different,” Harwood says about the impact Moore’s departure has had on the band’s rhythm section. “But Cavs has always been the main driving drummer, and I am still standing right next to him. Eric used to play off him as well. Sonically, and on stage, it hasn’t changed too much for me. But we’ve all picked up little things to fill that void a little bit. Cavs has been playing double kick for a while, and he’s expanded his playing with sample pads. We have a few more keyboards on stage. We’re trying to fill that void in other ways, not in a rhythmic way, but more sonically.”
“The shows we’ve played, we’ve only played the new microtonal stuff,” adds Craig. “We haven’t really played any of the older stuff, which has two drummers. I think once we start doing that, we’ll probably notice the change. But for now, it’s like everything is new, so you don’t notice as much.”
Effects
The different lineup might not have hit Craig yet, but returning to a live audience has. “We played three shows in Melbourne, which was surreal,” he says. “Just being around that many people. We were in the green room before the show, and socializing with more than 10 people was bizarre. You become like a hermit in lockdown. Playing was so good. It was still a bit weird because normally at our shows there are people moshing and, here, you look at the crowd and it is very contained and everyone is in their own little section. But it was amazing to perform in front of people again.”
Whatever happens as the world pulls out of its COVID haze, King Gizzard will keep learning, growing, and venturing into uncharted waters. “I am a surface-level geek,” Mackenzie says. “I am not the deepest studier ever, but I am an absolute music dork. When we wrote K.G. and L.W., we internalized a lot of new ideas and let them get involved in the music in their own way. In the writing process, we weren’t thinking about all that stuff. We were just writing songs the way we usually do. But with anything you learn, or read, or ingest, it seeps its way in, in this fluid type of way. There’s no particular song on either of the two new records where we’re trying to do some specific thing, but we did learn a lot of things along the way that have infested the music.”
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard kick out a slew of microtonal rock jams in front of a live audience in Melbourne earlier this year. There are plenty of closeups throughout this concert-length video, so keep your eyes peeled for extra frets.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard first embraced microtones about four-plus-years ago, but that’s not the only sonic adventure they’ve taken in that time. Another was turning up the volume with their 2019 release, Infest the Rats’ Nest, which is when they—finally—embraced heavy metal. To do it right, their 12-string Hagstroms and vintage Yamahas weren’t going to cut it. They needed new instruments that were more meaty and ferocious. For guitarist Stu Mackenzie, a Gibson Explorer was the obvious choice, although, being King Gizzard, that meant an Explorer with a twist.
“My guitar is a Holy Explorer,” he says. “Gibson only made 350 of them. When they came out, everyone in the entire world was like, ‘That’s the worst guitar that Gibson has ever made.’ I’ve been looking for an Explorer for years—being interested in heavy metal for my entire life—and when we talked about making a proper heavy record, it made sense for me to do it on an Explorer. They’re cool, and they feel right. I like the shape of them. I like how they feel on you. I looked for ages trying to find something and a Holy Explorer came up in a store when we were on tour. I played it and thought, ‘This is actually really dope. This guitar is awesome.’ But I didn’t buy it because I got scared. It was too bizarre to buy it and all the reviews online were like, ‘Worst guitar ever made.’ But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and about six months later I bought one off of Reverb that was in Malaysia. It’s a beast. It’s all still stock, everything on it, and it sounds amazing. Pretty much every guitar, every overdub, every single guitar sound [of mine] on Infest the Rats’ Nest is that guitar.”
Guitarist Joey Walker felt a similar vibe, and chose a Gibson Flying V. “Stu bought that for me when he was in New York about a year ago, just before we recorded Infest the Rats’ Nest,” he says, although there’s more to it. “There’s a picture going around of the Jonas Brothers playing the exact same guitars that Stu and I play—a natural woodgrain Flying V and a Holy Explorer. It’s obvious, and under everyone’s nose, but the Jonas Brothers are doing a tribute to the King Gizzard recipe.”
The smooth string bender from Estonia sits down with John Bohlinger and cover his interesting journey from the Baltic to Broadway. He talks about finding his musical home alongside Sturgill Simpson, touring with Drivin N Cryin, learning about country music a world apart from it, and recording his solo instrumental album. Sit back and enjoy the slide ride!
The southern rockers’ lead guitarist wields some serious firepower on the Crowes’ latest tour.
Known for his shredding ways, Paul Gilbert shows PG host John Bohlinger his robust musical vocabulary that hinges on hummable melodies and creative chord progressions. Oh, and then there’s the whole thing where he wrote his latest album, WROC,around George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation. Another impressive attribbute of Gilbert’s is impeccable music intellect recall for songs and lyrics. He claims to have stolen most of what he knows and plays, but we think that’s just humility. Enjoy the conversation, camaraderie, and jams with PG and JB!
In 1976, the idea behind the Santa Cruz Guitar Company was a fantasy.
At the time, the market was dominated by factory-built juggernauts like Martin and Gibson. Independent luthiers worked on the fringes, Yoda-like in both their wisdom and solitude. Trade secrets were closely guarded. There were no how-to guides for making guitars.
Richard Hoover was part of the movement that changed that. When Hoover started the Santa Cruz Guitar Company—SCGC, for short—he wasn’t just selling acoustic guitars. He was selling the idea of a boutique brand making heirloom-quality instruments that pushed the boundaries of luthiery itself.
The OM Pre War 50th Anniversary Limited Edition
“There was no such thing as a ‘boutique builder’ back then,” Hoover says. “We were not only trying to sell a new brand, we were trying to get people comfortable with a new concept. Someone played one of our early guitars and thought, ‘This really sounds good. I think this is the best-sounding guitar I’ve ever played. But what will my friends think if I don’t buy a Martin?’”
As the Santa Cruz Guitar Company celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, Hoover, now a sprightly 75-year-old with a wise yet playful personality, can look back fondly on half a century of risky bets that paid off, new ideas that had to find their audience, and a community of forward-thinkers that helped shape the luthiery of today.
As part of that celebration, SCGC has built a limited supply of five special edition guitars that represent the company’s “greatest hits” from its first half-century. What ties them together, aside from industry accolades and player endorsements, is that each represents a time when the company experimented, explored, or broke from tradition in an effort to fill a market opportunity—or even just to survive when the universe might have had other plans.
“We’ve seen it all,” says Hoover. “We’ve been through at least three major economic downturns that would have killed anybody. We’ve had wild successes and miracle blessings that have allowed us to last for 50 years in a business that’s volatile and trendy. Every year we survive gives me another tool in my toolkit to take on the next challenge.”
Hoover, photographed on Santa Cruz’s 13th anniversary, in 1989, at their old shop at 328 Ingles Street.
In 1972, a tenacious man in his early twenties moved to Santa Cruz, a college town that sits along the northern shore of the Monterey Bay, about 70 miles south of San Francisco.
Richard Hoover had been tinkering with acoustic guitars since he was a teenager, doing his best with woodworking, design, and fabrication lessons from his father and devouring every piece of literature on violin making that his reference-librarian mother could find. When he arrived in Santa Cruz, Hoover intended to become known as a player, not a builder. But when somebody stole his beloved Martin D-28, it changed everything.
He didn’t have the money to replace it, so he went looking for a loan. As luck would have it, his loan officer was Bruce McGuire, a classical guitar luthier and co-author of Making a Classical Guitar with his own mentor, Art Overholtzer. Hoover invited himself to McGuire’s house and began learning everything he could.
By 1976, Hoover’s own small business had earned him enough of a reputation as a guitar maker to attract investment from two talented repairmen from the local guitar shop, Bruce Ross and William Davis. And with that, the Santa Cruz Guitar Company was born.
That year, the three men brought their first guitar to market: the D Model, a dreadnought that used a unique tapered bracing that enhanced the midrange and treble without compromising the bass volume, giving it a more balanced voice than traditional dreadnoughts.
Knowing they wouldn’t be able to successfully market a premium mahogany guitar, which was Hoover’s preference, they instead turned to koa—a wood that was practically obsolete among ’70s-era guitars. From the very beginning, Santa Cruz was going against the grain.
“Bruce Ross came up with the suggestion of koa, because we both loved the old Martins from the ’20s and ’30s,” Hoover says. “We realized that mahogany and koa share that scale of tonality, so we could get the sound that we wanted from mahogany but with a much more attractive, marketable wood in koa.”
They made only a meager living with the D Model—so meager that Davis cashed in his share of the company after two years—but it helped them gain a foothold in a guitar market that was just starting to warm to the idea of boutique luthiery.
But starting in 1978, they began to develop the guitars that would help to firmly establish the Santa Cruz Guitar Company for the next 50 years.
Hoover and Darren Webb, a 30-year SCGC veteran, discuss the perceived differences between saddle slots.
When it was time this year to select five of SCGC’s milestone guitars, Hoover thought they should represent the company’s historic willingness, even eagerness, to change people’s attitudes about acoustic guitars.
“These represent things where I felt we had something unique to offer the market that was sorely needed,” Hoover says. “And even if they didn’t become bestsellers themselves, they would pave the way for future development in guitars.” This year, those five designs—the H Model, the FTC, the Firefly, the OM Pre War, and the 1929-OO—have each received 50th anniversary limited edition builds that honor the original vision with refined, modern interpretations.
In 1978, SCGC introduced the H Model, a small jumbo that challenged the notion that size equals power. Boasting the volume, punch, and responsiveness of a much larger instrument, the H Model initially struggled in the marketplace, but over time, it evolved into one of Santa Cruz’s most popular and iconic offerings, favored by flatpickers, fingerstylists, and rhythm players alike for its comfortable shape, expressive voice, nuanced tone, and versatile playability.
That same year, the company made its first exploration beyond traditional flat-top design. The FTC paired a flat top with an arched back, which gave it an extra level of focus, projection, and tonal complexity. The concept proved difficult to market—it wasn’t until Eric Clapton discovered it in the ’80s that the FTC gained much attention. “It was just pure luck that Eric saw an ad in an old press magazine that was about four postage stamps big, and wrote us a letter,” says Hoover.
With the growing popularity of those instruments, SCGC’s profile rose. Hoover became part of a luthiery revolution, as he and others like Michael Gurian, Linda Manzer, Steve Klein, Jean-Claude Larrivée, Stuart Mossman, Bob Taylor, Dana Bourgeois, and Jimmy D’Aquisto turned a once mysterious and inaccessible profession into a far more visible and collaborative community of respected, high-level handcrafters.
The 1929-00 50th Anniversary Limited Edition
“We didn’t have a 100-year tradition of building guitars, so we had to share information with each other to survive,” Hoover says. “It’s also my personal value. You get more than you give, and the way to happiness is by making other people happy. Sharing information exploded the advancement of the guitar—the knowledge and the consistency and quality of instruments. Within 50 years, we’ve made incredible strides because we’re talking to each other.”
In the late ’90s, with Hoover steering the company on his own following Ross’s departure, Santa Cruz looked to respond to advancements in technology that allowed artists to record themselves from just about anywhere. Wanting to provide a small, light guitar that would travel well but still sound great, they introduced a parlor design they called the Firefly, which became one of the company’s most popular models thanks to its clarity and presence.
At the beginning of the new millennium, Hoover and his team were redesigning their OM model—first re-introduced by SCGC in the mid-’80s—to achieve an antique pre-war sound with extra volume and bass response. But as the American economy tightened in the early 2000s, they wanted to make it more affordable, so they took up a mantra: simple but elegant. They built it with all of their usual attention to quality components and craftsmanship, but with fewer of the fine details. That way they could reduce the labor time, and therefore the price.
The OM Pre War was marketed as a professional boutique guitar at an affordable price, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. The model won industry awards and became one of SCGC’s most popular guitars, even during a time of economic uncertainty. More importantly, though, Hoover says the OM Pre War made the idea of investing in an heirloom-quality instrument like theirs more attainable to the average player.
“We were getting blocked from being introduced to people because they were afraid of the price,” Hoover says. “If we could make a guitar that was just under $2,000, people might not be able to afford it, but at least they’d play it, and they’d realize what they’re missing in a real sophisticated-sounding guitar. So, we were laying the groundwork for selling that guitar 10 or 20 years later to the same people. That worked really, really well.”
During the recession of the late 2000s, the prospect of selling expensive, finely crafted guitars took another turn for the worse. During the economic crisis, Hoover saw an opportunity.
At the time, mahogany was relatively inexpensive. Hoover’s idea was to make a model inspired by the all-mahogany guitars that were popular among players enduring the Great Depression, 80 years earlier. That guitar—the Santa Cruz 1929-OO—became one of the company’s signature models, receiving rave reviews from guitar publications around the world, becoming a major seller during a challenging economic downturn, and helping to spark a mahogany revival in luthiery.
For Hoover, it was a gratifying full-circle moment. “When we started in 1976, I would have liked to make guitars out of mahogany, because I preferred that tone, but people were convinced that rosewood was better,” says Hoover. “It was a chance to get people to suspend their disbelief and give it a fair shot. One of my career goals was to get [mahogany] the respect that it really deserves.”
Hoover ensures that a Moon Spruce top will meet the expectations of a VIP client.
Across five decades, the Santa Cruz Guitar Company has attracted thousands of players willing to pay a premium for their guitars. Along the way, Hoover and Co. have developed signature models for artists like country superstar Brad Paisley, bluegrass pickers Tony Rice and Scott Law, blues icon Otis Taylor, folk singer Janis Ian, and fingerstyle jazz player Eric Skye.
Today, SCGC employs 23 people, and the company has made more than 20,000 guitars—small numbers by factory standards, but an impressive output for a boutique brand. With each one handcrafted and custom-tailored for the player, it’s been a labor of love for Hoover.
Now, as age catches up with him, Hoover is planning for the future. The master luthier has always invested in new talent, training employees in the Santa Cruz school of luthiery and taking a collaborative approach to guiding the business. Over the last 10 years, Hoover has turned that into a more formal succession plan. Recently, he’s been delegating more of the daily operations to others while he remains nearby to consult and advise. “I’m headed into my luthier emeritus days as we speak,” Hoover says.
While he hasn’t cited a retirement plan, that stage of his life seems to be approaching. “I love what I do,” he says. “But it’s not physically possible. My ability to use my hands accurately and efficiently is challenged. To be honest with myself, I’d like to be the one who questions my relevance and adapts accordingly, before someone else suggests it. And it’s only right to care for the people here and not wait till it’s too late. And by that, I mean inform them, empower them, and let them be as engaged as they want to be, so that they can carry it on with their own vision beyond me.”
But that’s the future. Here in the present, Hoover looks fondly on a community that has worked together to make innovative, quality instruments and continually improve upon them. A lot of things have changed in 50 years, but that shared passion for acoustic guitars has not.
“All in all, it’s been really gratifying,” Hoover says. “People come here happy, and they leave even happier. We make a tool for people to go out and change the world. I’ve got it good.”
What an empty calendar teaches you about yourself.
Here’s what happened in my so-called professional life in the last 30 days: A lucrative TV gig fell through, my three weekly club dates expired, and the one online session I booked stiffed me after I spent five labor intensive hours on their crap track. This may sound like complaining, but it is not. These are the standard professional musician/entertainer landmines we inevitably encounter while navigating this career path that has no path.
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