King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard remove nearly all music from Spotify over CEO’s controversial investments

The Australian psych-rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has announced the removal of nearly their entire catalogue from Spotify, pulling a number of studio albums from the platform. The move comes in protest against Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s financial involvement in the military tech industry.

Ek, through his investment firm Prima Materia, recently helped fund a €600 million investment round for the European defense-tech company Helsing. The company develops AI-powered systems, including autonomous drones and software that analyzes data from military vehicles to create real-time battlefield insights.

The band shared their decision via a blunt Instagram story and reinforced the message by releasing a new demo collection on Bandcamp with the tagline “fuck Spotify.” In their post, the band criticized Ek’s ties to warfare tech and urged fans to switch to more ethical platforms, calling out what they described as “Dr. Evil tech bros.”

Because King Gizzard operates independently and releases most of their music through their own label Flightless Records, they were able to swiftly pull their catalogue. Still a number of albums and a slew of singles remains on the platform. These were originally released together through Heavenly Recordings.

They’re not alone in taking a stand. Other artists including Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, and Damon Krukowski of Galaxie 500 have also removed their music from Spotify in recent weeks. These artists have voiced similar objections to Ek’s role in funding military-grade AI and expressed concern that their art is being used to indirectly support the weapons industry. The movement is gaining momentum, particularly among indie and experimental acts who value ethical alignment over algorithmic exposure.

Ek, for his part, has not backed down or publicly addressed the backlash from artists, maintaining his stance on supporting European defense initiatives.