Living mainly in the southern United States is a venomous reptile known as the Gila monster (pronounced with a soft j sound like hee-lah, not ge-lah). Taking its name from the Gila River Basin, it is a small lizard with a beaded orange and black pattern. Despite the name and venom, the animal isn’t very dangerous as they are slow creatures that mainly eat eggs and baby animals. Death in humans due to a Gila bite is extremely rare — before a death in early 2024, the last recorded instance of a lethal bite was in 1930. Of course, humans have been more dangerous to them rather than the other way around. A 2018 report showed they face threats due to the destruction of habitat, the effects of droughts spurred on by climate change and other factors stemming from human involvement. That said, with its distinctive coloring, the Gila monster has become an iconic lizard and has seen use in pop culture such as in the 1959 B-movie The Giant Gila Monster, where a massive monster (ironically played by a beaded lizard, not a Gila monster) attacks a bunch of sockhopping, drag racing teens.
In the story of PetroDragonic Apocalypse, this reptile takes a similar role. After the cat Beowulf knocks over a candle (described in “Witchcraft”), a string of events occurs which leads to a ritual going wrong, and a Gila monster transforming into a dragon. Now much larger than before and with newfound abilities, the Gila monster eats the witches and begins a rampage. The song is a description of its bloodlust and violence that also makes references to the natural world, including the Boötes Void as well as the hadal zone — the deepest part of the ocean. The story of the Gila monster is one of hubris: humanity tries to fix a problem but only digs the hole deeper, with catastrophic results.
The song initially debuted three months before the release of PetroDragonic Apocalypse on 2023-03-04 at 013 in Tilburg and would be played thirteen more times before the album arrived. These versions often didn’t feature the name drop heard during the outro.
On May 7th, 2023, the band posted photos of themselves in cloaks with Stu’s Holy Explorer to their social media. The post read “Making music videos is funny.” After an announcement on the 12th and a trailer on the 14th, on the 16th the band released the music video and single for “Gila Monster.” Directed, animated and edited by SPOD (Brent Griffin), it shows Stu adorned with a cloak making his way across a fantasy landscape on horseback, while the rest of the band attempt to summon the Gila monster with Ambrose leading the ritual. At the end of the video Stu removes his cloak to reveal Joey, who plays a solo before showing the silhouette of the monster in the distance.
The video consists largely of green screen footage of the band with 3D animation by SPOD. In a press release for PetroDragonic Apocalypse, he said “I wanted to shoot Lord of the Rings 4 but also make a video game, so I mixed both mediums and came up with this majestic journey for truth and power in a cursed world. I mixed 3D animation, modeling & live footage in a 3D video game program to create this marvelous voyage of man & beast. Friend or foe?” Lucas commented on Ambrose’s appearance in the video in a Gizzymail stating, “Amby’s face is the most evil I’ve ever seen it. It’s actually so fucking scary and it’s already giving me nightmares.” According to an Instagram comment the video was animated in Unreal Engine. “Gila Monster” was well received and would be nominated for an ARIA under the “Best Video” category at the end of the year. The music video was later referenced on the poster for 2024-08-15.
For the release of “Dragon” on June 6th, “Gila Monster” was used as a b-side for the digital single. It was released as part of PetroDragonic Apocalypse on June 16th. On vinyl copies of PetroDragonic Apocalypse the Gila monster’s point of view is narrated by Leah Senior on “Dawn of Eternal Night.” “Gila Monster” received a limited edition 7” with the b-side of “Witchcraft” for the band’s record fair in Los Angeles afterwards.
“Gila Monster” has been referenced on other King Gizzard albums such as The Silver Cord where the riff in Ambrose’s section was reinterpreted into “Gilgamesh,” while the “Gila” chants can be heard in the extended version of that song. The “in the forest of my mind” was referenced on the Flight b741 song “Raw Feel.”
“Gila Monster” has also been seen in other projects, such as when it was released as downloadable content for the video game Paradiddle.
Following the release of PetroDraognic Apocalypse, “Gila Monster” (as it appeared on the album) was in regular rotation. While often played on its own it was also paired with “Gaia” for a sandwich of “Gaia” > “Gila Monster” > “Gaia” (see 2023-09-03 for an example). As for song placement, it would usually appear towards the very beginning or end of sets, especially by August and September of that year. Since then the song has reappeared regularly as part of “Gaia” > “Gila Monster” > Gaia.”