The idea to colonize space is nothing new and for as long as this idea has existed, Mars has been one of the planets of choice. Not only is it relatively close to Earth, the surface conditions of the planet are much more hospitable than most. While humans would have to live in enclosed settlements due to the dangerous environment, and would have to deal with a number of threats such as radiation and dust storms, Mars is a dream for many futurists and billionaires. The wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, is one of the biggest advocates for a Mars colony, although his plans reveal a bit more than a new age of humanity as it’s impossible to separate the issues of class struggle from his vision. While the majority of all people on Earth will never escape poverty even after a lifetime of work, Musk (and others like Jeff Bezos) are only able to scheme at leaving the planet by hoarding unfathomable amounts of wealth and resources. Putting aside how Musk’s planned Mars colony is continuously pushed back, a hypothetical Musk Mars is worth some scrutiny. In the scenario where a rocket to the red planet is feasible, the price to leave Earth would be inaccessibly expensive.
King Gizzard’s view of what a Mars colony would be is far from the sci-fi wonder presented by someone like Musk. While the poor suffer on Earth, working in crop fields and enduring climate change, they must watch the rich flee to Mars to live extravagant lives instead of addressing the inequality and global warming that degraded the planet in the first place. The one way ticket is so expensive that there is no choice. There is no Planet B, unless you’re a millionaire.
Two demos for the track have been released. The first (shown on the band’s unannounced demos live stream and later released on Demos Vol. 1: Music To Kill Bad People To), is an instrumental jam that doesn’t feature Rats’ Nest’s thrash tendencies. Starting with bass and delay guitars, the song features a different key, a completely different form, a synth solo and a motorik beat towards the end. The second demo (released on Demos Vol. 3: Music to Eat Pond Scum To) is much closer to the final version but still has a few differences. After the main riff is the chorus proper rather than an instrumental chorus. The second verse is just a repeat of the first while the second has lyrics resembling “red Mars, because, sing us, red Mars for the rich.” The freak out after the second chorus is missing and instead leads to the bass solo, which itself is more frantic than the final version. The final chorus goes “red Mars, because, live large, red Mars for the Rich.” The final studio version was played by Stu (vocals/guitar), Joey (bass), Cavs (drums), Cook (guitar) and Ambrose (harmonica).
On August 13th, 2019, a Unity game titled MARS FOR THE RICH (later referred to as Rat Game on the band’s website) was launched to promote Infest the Rats’ Nest. Developed by nuevodisco.systems, MARS FOR THE RICH is a low-poly 3D first person shooter inspired by games like Quake, even taking sound effects from it. After the lighting of the rat skull altar seen on the cover of Infest the Rats’ Nest, you must kill a horde of rats while grabbing health in the form of fruits, as well as bullets to survive as long as possible. While defending yourself from the enemies, “Mars For The Rich” plays. The game also features an unnamed chiptune composition on the title screen. While the game is mostly promotion for Infest the Rats’ Nest, it features an easter egg for the debut Bullant album Tyson, Crying, containing the song “VIEWBANK” and a distorted version of the album cover. The same day of the game’s release, Jason Galea, Stu and Cavs played the game on an Instagram livestream while on tour (they played a gig at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles that very day).
After the 13th and the discovery of the Bullant easter egg, a small community of speedrunners on YouTube decided to give the game a shot, creating the “Tyson%” run to see who can get to the secret in the shortest amount of time. As of writing, the current world record is held by Abstraxt who holds a 46.99 run, uploaded to YouTube on August 29th, 2019. MARS FOR THE RICH would later be referenced on Jason Galea’s poster for King Gizzard’s show at the TivoliVredenburg on 2019-10-16.
The song debuted on 2019-06-26 during a surprise show at Howler in Naarm (Melbourne) and joined the band’s regular rotation that year like many other Infest songs. It has remained a prominent song since, never deviating far from the studio version. A performance from 2019-10-01 was released as a bonus feature for the tour film Chunky Shrapnel. During the Reddit AMA for the movie, Cavs mentioned that it is one of his favorites to play live.