"Kill or Be Killed" was debuted in live format at the 4 June 2022 show of the Will of the People World Tour, at the Rock am Ring music festival in Germany, during which the previous single "Will of the People" also received its live debut. "Kill or Be Killed" was played as the first song of the encore, before the closing song "Knights of Cydonia", and without any official prior announcement from the band.[1]
"Kill or Be Killed" was subsequently played at every following show of the tour, emerging as a fan favourite. On 14 July, Muse confirmed through social media that "Kill or Be Killed" would be released as the fourth single ahead of Will of the People two weeks later on 21 July 2022, with a thirty-second snippet of the studio version of the song becoming available to preview through TikTok later that day.[2]
For the guitar solo, Bellamy combined a tapping technique with a DigiTech Whammy, a pitch-shifting pedal, to shift rapidly between octaves. He said, "I'm plainly cheating in that solo ... It sounds like I’m doing insane arpeggios. I'm not a shredder at all. I've never been a very good shredder, but I found ways to cut corners."[9]