Just like their records, the Australian rockers’ road gear is eclectic and adventurous, ready to cover ground from metal to microtonal Turkish psychedelia.
You could throw a dart at a board of all the world’s music genres, and chances are fair that you’d hit a sound that Melbourne band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have explored. King Gizz started life as a bluesy garage-rock outfit, but over the past 14 years, they’ve leapt into metal, jazz, folk, electronic, and even microtonal music. They’ve spread their adventures over 26 LPs—five of them released in 2022 alone.
On tour this summer in support of their latest, Flight b741, the band stopped at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater, where Premier Guitar’s Chris Kies caught up with guitarists Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie for a look at how they navigate the Gizzverse onstage. Here’s a preview of some of the goods, but tune into the full Rundown to catch all the details—including Mackenzie’s famed Flying Microtonal Banana, the namesake of their 2017 album.
Brought to you by D’Addario.Turkish Delight
Walker’s Godin Richmond Dorchester has been subjected to a few changes. When King Gizzard entered their “microtonal phase,” influenced by Mackenzie’s travels to Turkey, the guitar was modified by a luthier friend with a fret arrangement (identical to Mackenzie’s Flying Banana) that permits microtonal intervals, like a Turkish bağlama. Walker explains that it’s like adding extra frets between the traditional 12 notes, so there are quarter-tone intervals rather than just semitone steps. It took some learning to figure out how to play, but at this point it feels like muscle memory for Walker.
The Jammer
This H-S-S Novo Idris does the heavy lifting for Joey Walker playing deep into King Gizzard's expansive, extended sets.
Samurai Sword
Mackenzie admits that he’s not picky with his guitars: He likes unpredictable gear, and he’s prone to impulse-buying weirdo axes. He picked up this Yamaha SG-2 in 2013, and it sounds like no other guitar he’s played. The weird, noisy pickups cause interesting microphonic glitches, and while it’s a bit of a pain to keep in proper playing order, Mackenzie knows his way around the guitar and trusts it. The SG-2 is strung with .011s and handles standard-tuning numbers.
Stu Mackenzie's Pedalboard and Amp
While Mackenzie’s guitar selections are rather offbeat, his pedalboard and amp setup are fairly straight-laced; in fact, 70 percent of the set is played with no effects on at all. His signal runs first into a Boss TU-3 tuner and DD-3T delay, then to a Devi Ever Aenima, a Jam Pedals Boomster, a Fender Tread-Light Wah, and a Dunlop Volume (X) Mini. His vocals run into a custom multi-effect pedal by EarthQuaker Devices, which features both overdrive and a gated echo, preventing ambient noise from triggering the effect. A VVco Pedals Time Box helps Mackenzie keep the set from running over.
From the board, his signal runs to a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, an amp he can pick up virtually anywhere in the world. He runs it fairly clean, but adjusts it between every song for varied gain-staging. A Mesa Boogie PowerHouse Attenuator keeps the stage volume in check.
Hefty Hitters
Joey Walker's Pedalboard
The guitarist's stomp station is surprisingly sparse for the melody and mite that swirls in a King Gizz performance. He has five key signal sizzlers: an Electro-Harmonix Flat Iron (fuzz), Wampler Faux Analog Echo (delay), Strymon Sunset (overdrive), Dunlop Cry Baby (wah), and Wampler Mini Ego (compressor). He uses a Death By Audio Echo Master for his vocals, a Boss LS-2 Line Selector & Radial Engineering HotShot to handle amp & mic switches, and the Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner keeps his instruments in check.
- King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's Gear ›
- Microtonal Madmen: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie and Joey Walker ›
- King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Psych-Rock Album Flight b741 ›
The body shape of this 6-string seems surprisingly ergonomic, but that perception changes when you hold its neck!
And so it goes that I pondered this proliferation of Virgos and Libras, and my hypothesis came into focus. Were we all the result of our parents’ Christmas and New Year’s celebrations?! I have to say, there was a camaraderie discovered among my fellow party babies when I presented my findings to them. Now, being born in the early ’70s also had me thinking of the culture of the times. Hippie life was fading as young people started to realize they had to get a job, and alas, long hair and beards were being replaced by staid 9-to-5 gigs that could slowly suck the life out of you. So, given the cultural mores of that era, I thought that this month I should write about the Sorrento Swinger.
“Hippie life was fading as young people started to realize they had to get a job.”
Born around 1967—maybe in September—these Swingers hailed from the “crazy” design period of the Kawai Co. Kawai produced some of the coolest guitar designs from 1967 to ’69, and there were some very creative guitar designers there on the job. Kawai had poached some of the finest employees from the wreckage of the Shinko Gakki factory (Pleasant, Intermark, etc.) and through the purchase of the Teisco brand. In this era, Kawai usually used three different standard pickups and they all sound great, plus the units are always wired in series, which is just awesome.
For a 25-buck, Japan-made guitar from the ’70s, the Swinger has an elite-looking headstock—and, on this example, most of its tuners.
Now, the Swinger (and similar Kawai-made guitars) came from an era where U.S. importers would order small batches of instruments that were often unique and extremely gonzo. The guitars might have been destined for medium-sized music stores or direct-order catalogs, but whatever the case, the importer usually gave the guitars names. In this instance, it was Jack Westheimer who featured this model as an “exclusive” design. In Westheimer Corporation catalogs from the time, the Swinger carried the A-2T model name (there was another one-pickup model called the A-1) and sold wholesale for $25 in 1967! As the catalog mentioned, these were “priced for the teenaged trade.” This particular guitar featured the Sorrento badge, and was sold through some sort of music store that’s probably long out of business, but all the Swingers were the same.
The Swinger’s large mahogany neck (sans truss rod) is robust and beefy in all the nicest ways. Like, when I was a kid, I was considered a “husky” fit. That’s this neck: husky! The striped pickguard is a Teisco holdover and the controls are as simple as it gets. Two knobs (volume, tone) and two pickup selectors is all there is, but the beauty is in the body. That lower bout is shaped like some sort of 1969 lounge chair. The strap pin is totally in the wrong place, but the big bottom swoop is worth it. Yep, the Swinger was ready to bring in the dawn of the 1970s, but alas, the guitar came and went in a blink.
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