Few songs in the King Gizzard discography start as ominously as “People-Vultures.” Stu’s slow twelve-string ascending riff leads to an evil sounding jam before sending the listener straight into a heavy, hellish track where the titular “people-vultures” wait to tear their prey apart. While on its own the lyrics are violent, the song actually serves as a metaphor inspired by the band’s heavy touring schedule. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Stu said "I guess I was at a show and it was full of people-vultures. It's not supposed to be negative. We love those weirdo kids, obviously." The people-vultures aren’t merely these fantasy creatures but a representation of the audience ready to take the band in. The song remains a big part of the band’s legacy as the energetic link between “Gamma Knife” and “Mr. Beat”, or it could be a dark standalone song to reckon with. It was the focus of an iconic but dangerous music video. It was even in commercials for the AFL. One of the band’s most well-known and frequently played tracks, it remains a vital part of the Gizzverse.
The earliest version of the song we know of happened on 2015-8-28 at Don Quixote’s International Music Hall in Felton. Like other early versions of Nonagon Infinity songs, its lyrics were hard to make out. These versions of the song contain obscure, if not nonsensical “stream of consciousness” lines such as “noble, faded, that’s just grating, final, useless, what else have we got left to spew down?” Some lines from the final version, such as “God approaches, final hearing,” can be made out in these renditions, but the song is largely different from what ended up on the album. The song’s apparent debut, as well as versions from band rehearsals, would eventually be incorporated into the documentary BOOTLEG HOLIDAY FROM HELL.
“People-Vultures” was one of two tracks from the album to be recorded at multiple studios: Daptone Records in New York (recorded by Wayne Gordon) and A Secret Place in Melbourne (recorded by Paul Maybury) with vocals recorded by Michael Badger in his bungalow. In an article for Audio Technology it was revealed that the intro and outro specifically were recorded at A Secret Place with everything else presumably being recorded at Daptone.
The song was teased as part of their album Nonagon Infinity in February, given a single on April 5th and released on the band’s eighth studio album on April 28th. On vinyl versions of the album it’s the final song on side one and is given its own unique outro that connects to “Mr. Beat.” “People-Vultures”, like many songs on Nonagon Infinity, deals with being on the road in some form. The main riff of “People-Vultures” would reappear on 2017’s Murder of the Universe as the intro of its second story, “The Lord of Lightning vs Balrog” titled “Some Context” while a section of the verse was adapted for the intro of “The Balrog.” It would also be heard in the unlisted YouTube video amb sax as well as Joey’s appearance on The Footy With Broden Kelly.
The story of “People-Vultures” in video form starts on March 8th, 2016 with the release of the “Gamma Knife” music video. At the end of the video, seven cloaked men stab the earth with knives only to reappear surrounding a mysterious egg in the next scene as the intro of “People-Vultures” plays. A month later on April 4th the band released the “official audio” video for the song, which features 3D text and flashing VHS effects which ends with no transition into “Mr. Beat.” When posted on Facebook, the band included a written passage about it. “Our blue planet is parched and cracks are forming underfoot and the sweat drips from our collective temple onto the citrine sand and a feathered doom encircles us from above and there's a pulsing in our breast telling us there ain't nothing any mere mortal can do when the sun retreats and blackness sets in. Call upon God to deliver us from our peril.”
On May 6th, 2016, the music video for “People-Vultures” dropped. Directed by Danny Cohen and Jason Galea and put together by one of the largest crews for any Gizzard video, it featured the band playing their instruments as part of a giant cardboard vulture which attacks a number of enemies. These opponents (Robot Man, Wasp Man and Invisible Face Man) reference three songs from the album. The prize for beating all three men is Stu’s Hagstrom F-12 which floats to him during the final section of the song.
The video was inspired by tokusatsu shows like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, as well as Alejandro Jodorowsky films such as The Holy Mountain and El Topo. In an interview with Cohen he stated his idea going into the project. “I guess with King Gizzard they already had such a, like, strong visual side to them which had been created by Jason Galea who co-directed ‘Gamma Knife’ and ‘People-Vultures’ and so I didn’t want to take it too far away from that world.” Originally the concept for the “People-Vultures” video was meant to fit in with “Gamma Knife”’s spinning camera but the two ideas were split, leading to the idea of the never finished Nonagon Infinity movie.
While Galea came up with the ideas in the video, the vulture’s wooden frame and cardboard body were made by Box Wars with another team for the exterior. The costumes seen throughout were created by Phoebe Taylor and Ash Pierce. It was a gargantuan effort by the crew that ended up being dangerous. According to Cohen the vulture was six meters tall and weighed a tonne with all of the necessary people inside of it. The filming was rough due to the hard to navigate landscape and large scale cardboard figure, which was made all the more nail-biting as the band had their 2016 US tour a week later. Stu remarked half jokingly, “What a crazy day. 18 hours in a mammoth 20 foot avian Frankenstein monster made of cardboard, pine and latex. 13 people inside the beast at any one time — seven Gizzards, one stabilising my head, two puppeteering the wings and three to push our friend along the rocky terrain. I think I permanently injured my spine wearing that awkward, bulky burdensome head on a backpack and every night since, I've had nightmares about that claustrophobic cavity. Everyone is severely traumatised by the ordeal — Joe has been left mentally scarred and Ambrose sadly passed away. We buried him at the You Yangs. RIP my friend :(” The entire creative process behind the video took three weeks in total. The video was also the first to be labeled as part of the Nonagon Infinity film which would have been composed of music videos for each of the songs. While it never materialized, it’s one of the few remnants of the project.
Only a few days after it was released, Alejandro Jodorowsky tweeted about the video saying “¡Qué divertido!” (“what fun!”). The videos for “Gamma Knife” and “People-Vultures” would be combined into one and released on June 5th, 2016. “People-Vultures” was later named Triple J’s “Music Video of the Year”. The video’s iconography has appeared in a few places since its release. In 2017 unused footage from the video was played behind the band with a live version of the song being used in a promotional video for Gizzfest III. That Gizzfest also had a cutout of the vulture which you could take photos with as part of the festivities. The Wasp Man and Invisible Face Man appear in the video ПАДАЮЩИЙ СНЕГ. The poster for 2019-08-16 depicts the music video’s vulture with other vultures replacing the band and 2021-12-22 depicts the People-Vulture (sans band) as a kaiju. Even the fighters have gotten some love, being depicted on posters for 2019-07-05, 2019-08-28 and 2023-06-07).
As for the fate of the actual People-Vulture, it made a few appearances after the music video was published. Eric said during King Gizzard’s KEXP interview on 2019-08-19 “we first took it on a boat to Tasmania and we set it up at a show at a festival there; it’s kind of like an arts festival and they asked if we can bring it, so we worked out— cause it’s massive, it’s really hard to carry — worked out, put it on a van and then traveled in on a boat over to Tazzy and got it back.” This would have been for the Dark Mofo Festival on 2016-06-18. It made a final appearance on 2016-11-26 at Gizzfest 2016. Eric said “...we took it to Gizzfest and I think we just put it in the crowd and, like, all the fans, like, grabbed it and used it and then apparently it’s in a fan’s, like, basement or something. Or it’s in their garage, that’s what we heard, but we haven’t seen it since, it just got taken after…” Photos from the day posted to the band’s Facebook page show that the head, feet, wings and feathers were there. A Reddit post indicates that at least one of the people who worked on the video kept some remnants of the vulture as well.
In early 2016 the song appeared near the end of the sets before moving to the front in its album placement in May. At this point “People-Vultures” was usually connected to “Gamma Knife” but would sometimes be cut off and teased. These moments were labeled as performances of “Some Context” by fans. In 2018 the song stuck with its fellow Nonagon songs and usually served as the closer for festival gigs. As sets became more unpredictable in 2019, the song began to move around and detach from “Gamma Knife” and “Mr. Beat” although it would sometimes reappear in that form. While “People-Vultures” was now free to be played wherever the song was played close to the album. This wouldn’t change until 2023 when the band would begin to extend the song with a quieter section early on, leading versions of the song like from 2023-08-29 to reach over ten minutes in length.