With a fast, chaotic pace and some of the goriest lyrics in the Gizzard canon, “Organ Farmer” is as intense and raw as Infest the Rats’ Nest gets. The song studies a “human laboratory,” where people are genetically grown/modified and then butchered for their organs, which are then sold by the government. It's brutal, but also speaks to something larger including the perspective of the farmer themselves admitting a conflict over their actions. They’re doing what they can to survive. This is their job and in desperate times they need some sense of security. However the exploitation and butchery is so disgusting and inhumane that they feel it may be better to die than to continue. While the song focuses on this one job in particular, Stu recounts a number of ways through which humanity bends nature to its will, drawing a comparison between the cruelty of the organ farming industry to industrial fishing and deforestation from the lumber industry. The lyrics also draw many comparisons to factory farming which adds another layer of realism to the piece.
The song was performed by Stu (vocals/guitar), Joey (bass/backing vocals) and Cavs (drums), and was described in a Flightless newsletter as: “Ferocious and direct, ‘Organ Farmer’ is built on drums that gallop away like a battalion of wild horses over the horizon and a triple guitar attack set to stun. It’s the type of sub-three minute song you wish Hetfield and co. still made.”
In the middle of June, King Gizzard began to take applications for an unspecified event. A message was sent to the winners which detailed what was in store. The event would take place on June 19th, 2019 with specific instructions for attendees. “THIS IS NOT A GIG. NOTHING WILL BE FOR SALE. THIS IS THE DEATH KNELL. THE FINAL BLOW. YOUR FACE HAS NO PLACE HERE. COVER IT.” The entire memo reads like a cult manifesto with mentions of how they will “descend” and mentions that alcohol and drugs “no longer matter.” This turned out to be the video shoot for “Organ Farmer,” and before it had even been released, some vital info was making the rounds online. According to a Reddit user who attended “at the video shoot they told us it was about a ritualistic mass suicide for people who want to leave this planet, and are eager to get to their destination in the next life, because it will be far better than what Earth has become. The destination is Hell.” Regarding the masks, another attendee said “I think it was just to help us get in the mood, the only people not wearing masks were Gizz themselves and Catherine (I think that was her name). At one point it was explained that the masks were there because we represented ‘the people’ rather than individuals in the story of the video, but I'm guessing it also helped that no one had to sign any release forms for that reason.” Another commenter wrote of the experience “they played the song at the start (it was fuckin amazing!) and then played some tunes for us to dance too while filming some clips to get us in the mood.” According to this comment, one of the songs was “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” by Kiss.
Days later on the 25th, a music video for the song by John Angus Stewart would be released alongside a single for the track. Starting with bold pink text reading “ORGAN FARMER,” it cuts to the band shirtless with the song’s title written over their bodies. Zagan (from the other Rats’ Nest videos, played by Katherine Grinlaw) appears in a bright green jacket (studded with teddy bears) and equipped with a fire extinguisher-like device. The band then destroys the Mitsubishi Lancer seen in the previous videos while singing the song. Half way through it cuts back to Zagan, now holding a flare with a crowd of masked people behind her who swarm the band. As they jump around and dance, Zagan appears at the top of a staircase and uses the strapped-on device to release white smoke onto the crowd.
The video would later be referenced on the poster for 2019-08-24 with a signed photo of the band on set being auctioned off in early 2020. A limited print of the video shoot was sold by PHC Films in late 2020. For the “Smouldering Rodent Carcass” editions of Infest the Rats’ Nest released in March of 2023, a poster of the band from the “Organ Farmer” video shoot was included. A number of photos from the shoot were uploaded by Jason Galea in the summer of 2021.
The song made a live debut during a surprise show on 2019-06-26 at Howler in Naarm (Melbourne) alongside many other Rats’ Nest tracks, a day after the single dropped. Throughout 2019 “Organ Farmer” would be played regularly. An early performance from 2019-06-28 would be featured (albeit incomplete) in Live at the Forum Melbourne. Other footage of the song from the year appeared in the documentary RATTY. The song would make a handful of appearances in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic and disappear throughout all of 2021 before coming back on 2022-04-19 after a twenty-five show gap. The rate of appearances slowed down that year and only slowed more in 2023. While still in rotation, “Organ Farmer” isn’t as common as it once was.