King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Latest Band to Pullout of Spotify

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard becomes the latest group to pull their albums from Spotify, publicly slamming the platform and its CEO’s investments.

Aussie psych rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have joined the ranks of Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu, who have publicly announced removing their music from Spotify.

Unlike the slew of musicians like Neil Young, who removed their music from Spotify a few years back in protest of the platform’s exclusivity deal with podcast giant Joe Rogan, these artists have taken issue directly with Spotify. Or more specifically, with Daniel Ek, and where Spotify’s money is going.

These artists have all stated their protest of Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek’s investment firm Prima Materia’s leading $693.6 million funding round for Helsing. Helsing sells software leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technology to inform military decisions on the battlefield.

“A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology,” wrote King Gizzard on Instagram. “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.”

Around the same time, the band also posted an announcement about the release of their new collection of demos, “out everywhere except Spotify (fuck Spotify).” That reinforces their decision to remove their music and not to release new content on Spotify.

Meanwhile, artists have continually criticized Spotify for its royalty payout rates, but rarely has this resulted in an artist pulling their work from the platform altogether. Even those who removed their music from Spotify over controversial exclusivity deals later rescinded that move, with their music reappearing on the service only a few months later. Those musicians included Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, India Arie, Nils Lofgren, and the collective of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.