This was notable for … And probably is. It had been four years since the last album and no one announces a festival slot, and a world tour, without something new to promote. Occasionally he’ll be bummed out by a calendar reminder on his laptop alerting him to which city Tame Impala should have been playing that night, but overall he’s been in good health and good spirits. I knew I had to do it that way. This was notable for a number of reasons, one of which was the novelty of someone playing a guitar at a music festival in 2019, but also because, surely, it meant new music. But this might be the last album that I do like that. But no, Kevin Parker is almost certainly not Jesus. There’s some bits and pieces on top of it that I played, which was funny because I hadn’t played along to a recording of that song since InnerSpeaker, which was like 2010. Well, 'Is It True', weirdly enough. It's funny, because every night I walk on stage, you know, in the few minutes before I step on stage, I'm like, 'Oh my god, what am I doing?' Despite a recent surge of infections on the other side of the country, Australia has largely had the pandemic under control for months. Then, nothing. Kevin Parker probably isn't Jesus. Your first gigs start soon. That’s all that matters. That’s just what this was. But I didn’t meet him until like a year later, whenever “Fuckin’ Problems” came out. I mean, it's funny cos that that one, the putting the chords on loop and going to sleep, I didn't think of that as an experiment. The scaling up of your live shows has happened in conjunction with you taking ownership of Tame Impala more, accepting your rock star-ness, at least more than you used to. PARKER: He was, he told me he was too — “I’m really happy we’re doing this because I’m a fan.” He’s an extremely articulate guy, extremely. Going on to bands I was playing in when I was 21, even then making music with my friends was still just a time that I relished as time I got to hang out with my closest friends. 'Glimmer', especially, sounds like a house record. And then, when the time came to tour it, he'd teach his mates how to play the songs he'd written. Some people hate doing that and I'm one of them. I still am. It's not like it was explained to you. Which was surprised everyone. For me it’s everything in a song. Not just better for me, this will make it better for everyone. My manager reminded me just the other day, actually, when I was finishing up this album. STEREOGUM: I don’t know that much about the art of production. PARKER: I think someone in my record label or management flagged it. I find that slightly surprising, because there's definitely a disco, dancefloor feel in The Slow Rush. So it just reminded me of all the people that I never got back to [Laughs]. You know? "And so those songs came out and then I just realised that I wanted them to sound different." I couldn’t believe it. But it didn’t show. But it’s the kind of thing where we were always going to be musical buddies. Yeah. He speaks to Esquire about forgiveness and perfectionism. I kind of jam with myself all the time in the studio. They were like, “We wanted a copy of it, so we just did this, and we’re really sorry.” And they paid me whatever I would have normally got paid. But we’re both retrophiles and audiophiles and all that. Something we both care about deeply is making relevant music. Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker Talks Todd Rundgren, Expecting the Unexpected, and Why Being a Tame Impala Fan Takes Dedication Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. We only listened to it at like max volume. When he joined bands later, using music as a way to make new friends, he struggled to draw the lines between fun and work. A new tour is pending. But I know in my heart that the music would suffer. The best beat makers in the world, they have exactly the same software that some kid in their bedroom does. STEREOGUM: Working with Ronson is also what led to the Lady Gaga record you worked on. Have you done work besides, you know, massive international success? That was one of the first big mainstream pop things you worked on. anyway in a lot of settings. And I used to be the biggest Streets fan. STEREOGUM: Have any other covers of your work stood out to you as particularly interesting or changed your perspective on your own song? Which is precisely why Tame Impala is such an astonishing thing to experience in the flesh, ideally shoulder-to-beer-soaked-shoulder with thousands of fellow apostles. The tour was nice and all, but shouldn't Parker be in the studio? How did it change? I was working on some other different pieces too that he didn’t use. When did you hear about that? It just struck me that he was just a regular old person who does shit things sometimes. 'Posthumous Forgiveness', which is kind of the lynchpin of the new album, is about the relationship with your father, right? The communal uplift of 'The Less I Know The Better', or 'Lost In Yesterday', almost makes me understand why people go to those speaking-in-tongue megachurches. Let’s go ’til five in the morning. Kevin Parker's fourth album is his best – and most painful – yet. There's no one telling you to just release it? STEREOGUM: Years ago you guys did some work with SZA, but it never emerged. STEREOGUM: One of your other biggest crossovers into the pop realm was when Rihanna covered your song. STEREOGUM: Where did the concept for that song come from? PARKER: I realized I wanted to have that kind of attitude in the studio, like, “Fuck yeah, we’re doing this!” And not, like, doubting everything constantly, going like, “Let’s not try this,” or, “Let’s not go ’til five in the morning.” Like fuck it! I mean, that's kind of one of the whole things of it, being at peace with the idea of people hating it. I think Gaga too, that’s probably not something that makes her feel artistically fulfilled. He had no producer, no engineer, no session musicians, sometimes not even friends to ask for feedback. Because there’s zero second guessing. And we programmed a bunch of other stuff. I didn’t know what it was, ’cause I knew he had stopped making Streets albums in like 2009 or something? Because it's just them caring about you. And usually you just kind of press a couple buttons and give them whole sections, but I gave them every little bit of it. I was also, I think I was a bit offended by the choice of, like, everything. It hasn't changed my songwriting, but I guess everything else it has. I think that song started out as something completely different that he was working on, which me and a friend programmed the drums for. Which takes a lot of work, and you have to have high attention to detail. STEREOGUM: So it’s a question of how small you want to make the slices? I can't emphasise enough how important it is to me to feel like I'm just outside my safe zone. I’m just rubbish. I think that could be really good. Has success brought more confidence or do you worry about how things are going to be received? That's important to me. ‘Cause his first lyric is like, “You’re calling my phone thinking I’m doing nothing better, I’m just waiting for it to stop ringing so I can use it again,” which I thought was hysterical. I'm not gonna say anyone because I don't want to jinx it, you know? PARKER: No, no. It was almost like karaoke. Silence. Although Parker would rather be touring in support of this year’s grand return The Slow Rush, the Fremantle Harbour vicinity is a good place to be right now. It's taken a lot to drag me out of that. The psych project mastermind made the comments to Australian radio station triple j … It's really important to me to feel like I'm on the verge of it all turning to shit. PARKER: I don’t know, man. From about midnight to eight am was when I completed the rest of the song which was writing, recording and mixing. I just put a lot of care into it. Not just release [it], but let's go to the studio. I guess it was like 2018 or something? STEREOGUM: Nowadays you work with so many famous people, but you mentioned being a shy kid when you were starting out. He developed an almost chronic shyness, for which music became a kind of balm. Exactly. It’s just choosing where to put beats and where not to put them. That might actually just be because he's a softly spoken Australian who's partial to a joint and who's written some of his best songs stoned out of his tree. I always assume that people will enjoy it more if I kind of just don't do anything else to go along with the music. He played me the song he’d been working on, “Sundress,” which had the sample, and we messed around a bit in the studio. There was him, alone. "I've never been able to separate making music with other as a social time from it being a creative time," he says. It’s kind of like ever since then, now I see that as like the ultimate studio environment. So it’s not worth going after.” But no, it was a happy ending. It’s everything. At the precise moment a young man's social world is meant to expand, Parker had his ripped away. Elsewhere in the interview, Parker also clarified whether Tame Impala is considered a band or a solo project. I think someone used that guy’s photo as a picture of me for something like a year later. You have to shake the snow globe up. We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article. I can imagine the squad of writers and producers all working together was a culture shock for someone who famously records his own music in isolation. And that’s not indicative of a regular Australian person. There's a part of me that wants to run back to the dressing room and there's another part that's like, 'Come on, Kev', just dragging myself on stage. Slow Fitness Is The Best Way To Train In 2020, Louis Vuitton's Master Watchmaker, Michel Navas, Netflix's 'The Eddy' Is A Slow-Burn Gritty Drama. What songs are closest to how you first imagined them? It would also make sense of their fervour, which seems religious in its intensity, as though they're experiencing his music as something more than music, something transcendental. It makes me dream, you know? But the biggest thing was as soon as I realised that I was doing people's enjoyment of the music a disservice by being kind of shy and just being severely understated. In the time since that album dropped, with a boost from creative and commercial level-ups like 2012’s Lonerism and 2015’s Currents, Parker has gone from an obscure retro psych enthusiast to one of the gods of the modern festival-scene. Parker has the ability to induce a kind of collective mania which makes you doubt the veracity of your memories. In that same interview, Parker said that his biggest takeaway from making both the previous Tame Impala album, 2015's Currents, and this one was to trust his gut instincts. But it kind of struck me how I discovered something about my dad after he was dead. I really gave a shit. A soundalike is a thing. At the end of the day, I think it was right at the time when SZA’s career was taking off. Thus far hospitalization has not been necessary. I mean, yeah, first TV thing, we were just kind of like “What the fuck is going on?”. I was like, 'I'm not doing an album by myself again'. What's your role when you're in a room with, say, Mark Ronson? It's a song for the sake of the song right, you know? At least to my knowledge. Uh, yes? With Gaga, that’s what drives her is feeling like a true artist. So there was no back-and-forth. Could those unbidden melodies be his mind's way of filling up the space where voices suddenly weren't? But he's definitely been reborn. And maybe the music wouldn't suffer and maybe it would just be better because I wouldn't be – I have all kinds of thoughts like that, with this album at least. But Parker's falsetto and his shimmering synths are gossamer things that seem like they might blow away if you focus on them too hard. I feel like my perspective of being in the studio changed after that. I can’t speak for her, I don’t know. Tame Impala im Interview: Ein notorischer Einzelgänger reift zum Popstar Simon Ackers 14.02.2020 "Bringen Sie die verdammten Impfstoffe JETZT" "Unter uns"-Star Benjamin Heinrich: 2. It turns out that this is how Parker has made every Tame Impala record, since 2008's first eponymous EP and up to his next album, The Slow Rush, which is due on 14 February. There was tons of pressure on him to deliver his breakout album, or his album that’s going to take him to the next level. But, look, he's not Jesus, OK? I hate finding myself in that situation, it makes me uncomfortable. It’s this fuckin’ guilt that I carry around with me. It's a kind of stillness, a preternatural calm that seems to soothe the people around him. Obviously on the scale of things to feel guilty about it’s obviously not something that I should, but it is. ‘Cause I’m not. But yeah, he used that song in his tour video, and we were told he was a fan. Tame Impala Interview: The majestic new album The Slow Rush sees Kevin Parker absorbing sounds and production techniques from everything available to him… The majestic new Tame Impala album The Slow Rush sees Kevin Parker absorbing sounds and production techniques from everything available to him. We were immediately really pumped for it. テーム・インパラ (Tame Impala) は、オーストラリアのミュージシャン、ケヴィン・パーカー（Kevin Parker)によるサイケデリック ミュージック プロジェクトである [1]。ケヴィン・パーカーによるソロプロジェクトではあるが、ライブではバンド編成で演奏される。 And she said, 'You fucking said that last time'. PARKER: It’s kind of just the amount of care you put into it, really. When I'm alone, there are just different things that come to me. They taught me so much about storytelling in songwriting and having such a strong personality in your music. On the album, 'Borderline' has taken a new form, one closer to the version that had first materialised in Parker's mind. Like I honestly thought it was hilarious. I've never snapped into it. But I felt like they overstepped. "I … Nothing. Which is wild to think about. The idea that my albums only occupy a small area of the world of music kind of annoys me. Hence, the mellow vibe. When you see Tame Impala live – and I cannot stress this enough, when he hits the road later this year, you must see Tame Impala live – he will be flanked by other men, on drums and synths and guitars. I mean, it's no more uncomfortable than just meeting new people. This dichotomy is encapsulated in his songs, which can feel both intimate and enormous. But you could have that. I think Kanye West said a while ago that people hating you is the same as people loving you. And that might be because it was a song that I spent the least amount of time on, which actually now that I'm thinking about it, is actually quite profound. I didn't actually intend for that to be on the album. It's completely abstract," he says. I really wanted to have [the album] finished for that touring season but it was wrong of me to choose timing over quality. I don’t know. The only thing stopping you is you choosing not to have that. Being afraid of people judging me, which everyone has, but I had it particularly hard. And I hate being stoned in public, right? And, duly, two singles arrived: blissed-out funker 'Patience', and 'Borderline', which sounded like ELO covering Pharrell. Tame Impala、第63回グラミー賞ノミネート作収録楽曲のサイケデリックなMVが解禁 SPECIAL 特集記事 INTERVIEW インタビュー記事 Which is different in how you go about it, but mentally it’s exactly the same. Did you get starstruck back in those days being around celebrities? He bounced between them for a decade, at which point they briefly reunited only for things to fall apart again. STEREOGUM: A few years ago Triple J sent a Kevin Parker impersonator to the red carpet at the ARIAs. I don't just mean on my own, but working that intensely. It was a demo that I'd recorded in about six hours almost a year before. Tame Impala was recently nominated for 2 Grammy awards — “Best Alternative Album” and “Best Rock Song” for the single “Lost In Yesterday.” This marks the third nomination in the Alternative category for Parker, having previously been nominated for Currents and Lonerism . He has a new approach to life, as well, which embraces success rather than fleeing it. Do you feel trepidation when you share something you've worked on alone with other people? There was no working on any music at low volume. I’d love to — that song was fire, so I hope that there’s some way we can. It's usually the stuff that I do in between working on the music that I'm passionate about, like, just fucking around the studio is kind of what I do. He’s not afraid to axe an entire part of a song, which I think is amazing. I feel like there's a kind of a magical, mystical way of me making music that will just be, you know, easy. “The health system in Australia is really good,” Parker reasons. In the last few years, the isolated solo artist has became an in-demand collaborator, who's crafted hits for Travis Scott and Lady Gaga and spent a bunch of studio time with Mark Ronson. We’ve Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc. [pause] Yes. So I just sang the first thing that came to my mind. And then I finished the whole album the next morning. 2020年2月14日、待ち望んでいたTame Impala(テームインパラ)の新アルバム“The Slow Rush”がリリースされた。 2016年度グラミー賞の最優秀オルタナティブミュージック賞にノミネートされ、Tame Impalaがワールドワイドな人気を獲得するきっかけとなった前作“Currents”から5年。 It’s funny because the song, it’s this kind of high-tempo thrash pop-rock, I don’t even know what genre it is. It was quite abrupt.". Can you unpack that a little bit for me? But hey, fuck it, I'd love to work with Daft Punk. I would love to just be lying on the couch the entire time my album is being made and have someone else carry out my wishes. Like, “Oh fuck yeah” — because an American rapper was using my song. PARKER: I think he got him to play on a couple of his songs, and Travis just wanted him to be there. We were particularly closed off. It’s classic Mike Skinner ’cause it’s kind of funny, it’s kind of true and poignant at the same time. In our interview, we hopped and skipped across his career, discussing various superstar collaborations and bizarre twists in the Tame Impala story. And he was really into it the whole time as well. You just forgive them because they're human and they fuck up, you know? His parents – both emigrés, his father a Zimbabwean accountant, his mother a free spirit from South African – divorced when he was four. I was there with the rest of the A$AP gang. For anyone that's a fan of me, to hear that they would probably think that's ludicrous, you know? We have old-fashioned tastes, but care about nothing more than making relevant music. “I think five years ago,” says Kevin Parker, the man who to all intents and purposes is Tame Impala, “the thought of sitting in a room being dissected by journalists would have horrified me.” Not like a beat like a rhythm, but like where to hit and where not to hit. Yeah. [5] In the recording studio, Parker writes, records, performs, and produces all of the project's music. Now, a pop psychologist might see these unbidden melodies as a form of mental self-protection. The hardest thing to do in that time would be to just sit down and finish the song because I just wanted to do something else, or something would take my attention, or I was bugging out about it. In March, when it became clear most people around the world would have to hole up for a while to combat the spread of COVID-19, the Tame Impala mastermind and his wife, Sophie Lawrence, were faced with a significant decision: Stay in LA or make a break for Parker’s native Perth? Which can go catastrophically wrong. I think he loathes and detests that format. But I know that as soon as I do play it to someone my expectations will lower a bit. She’s obviously a busy person, so no, I didn’t chat with her. STEREOGUM: Did you ever talk to her or meet her or discuss the track at all? Let's start with an indisputable fact: Kevin Parker is not Jesus. That song was about one minute long until midnight, 21 November. I didn't watch TV. "It took over almost instantly from me playing with Lego. Nothing was half-baked. I know producers release their stems and say, “OK, remix my shit,” but when you talk about “stems printing” — I didn’t realize that’s something that could be high or low quality. I heard a soundalike of “Someday” by the Strokes on the new Ricky Gervais After Life trailer. So he wasn't going to play them. For Parker, getting high is a way to escape the twanging of his brain, which can get in the way of his creativity. Here's the devastating plot twist: I said everything I've just told you when I finished [last album] Currents. STEREOGUM: With “Sundress,” was that strictly a sample, or did you have some creative input on that track? But I think Travis just wanted him to play. He is a perfectionist, verging on control freak, who thinks his best music is born in moments of unbidden inspiration. It's a little bit daunting because I never consider my music as something that needs to be performed live for it to fulfil its potential. I just have a different, I guess, way of thinking. PARKER: We bonded on everything from like ways to mic a drum kit to weird ’60s songs. We knew who people were. That hook you sing, “I was gonna call you back” — was that something he had already that you built off of, or what? And it makes all the difference. Which was odd, because a year earlier, things had looked rosy. It’s been in limbo for two or three years now. I think I looked away as fast as I could because of how cringey it was. You’ve just got to have some restraint because hip-hop is about making space in the mix, having things behind you but also keeping space. At the time of our call, he’s been more or less in his element, spending his days alone in the studio working on recording projects he’s not at liberty to discuss. When I'm working on something that I've written myself, and no one in the entire world has heard it, I feel like the first person who does is gonna burst into tears of joy and tear off their clothes and run into the ocean. I hate doing stems because you have to send the song out in pieces, basically. Rather than not go outside, I went, OK, I'll go to the shops or try and do some grocery shopping. It’s not the kind of thing I waste my time on or can even stomach. And if they have a nice voice, it’s nice to hear what my songs would sound like if I was a good singer. It's just me telling myself that this is how my journey as a music creator will be better and make sense. He should have been, and he wanted to be. STEREOGUM: When you’re programming drums for a rap record, do you approach it differently than if you’re working on a Tame Impala record? This sounds a very overblown way of saying it, but it took international success for me. So I think it was only ever going to be really homegrown with Mark producing it. And extremely intelligent, which admittedly I didn’t expect. It only matters where you decide to put those kick drums. We’re kindred spirits. "Months later I listened back to it and I was like, ah, kind of sounds like Seventies rock. In December 2018, Tame Impala was announced for the Saturday headline slot at Coachella, which had just been vacated by Justin Timberlake. 'Glimmer' was one of those because it was just me. There's so much more I want to do. I guess it's like artistic fulfilment. STEREOGUM: And then he came out and performed with you at Coachella. Kevin Parker chose wisely. Are those "letdowns" what led to the gap? STEREOGUM: How did John Mayer become involved in the SNL appearance? We were just starting out, young guys from Perth, all fairly socially inept, so everything was pretty intimidating — which I wish it hadn’t been. There’s no bullshit. So I love it when someone’s reinterpreted them as kind of barebones. And then, around the time that Currents was going platinum and being nominated for Grammys and winning ARIAs (the Australian equivalent), Parker slowly began to disabuse people of an assumption that he'd spent years cultivating. Guesting On … Hey r/tameimpala!My name's Austin and I run the website for We Write About Music. It can be extremely lame. That's difficult. I’m joking, obviously. I gave a shit. I'm one of those people that's infinitely curious about things, as well. They were very clear about it, actually. A year or so before this rekindling, Parker's father had discovered he was smoking weed with his friends and banned him from ever seeing them again. He can lean out from the edge of a stage and make tens of thousands of people feel like he's singing just to them. But 'Glimmer' was just something I was messing around with in the studio one day. Oh, no, there's always that concern. Do you know if it’s going to come out? As a record, it bangs. Their ocean-crossing summer tour has seen them play venues from beach-side festivals to muddy British fields; a clear indication of their undisputed status as a formidable live act. PARKER: It was great. But yeah, Rocky came through a few days before, and it was such a good vibe. Is there an art to printing stems? No, that would be my own brain. [Note: These are extra portions of our interview with Kevin Parker, quotes that didn't make it into our main print article on Tame Impala.] But I knew the rewards would be great. I haven't written a single chord progression in the company of another person that made it in the actual song. It’s funny because that’s the song he ended up sampling for “Sundress,” which was like six or seven years later. Not at all. But even at larger scales, you can sense his aura. But it also led to a strange relationship with creativity. It's different every time. PARKER: I saw something. Like, if I just made an album in a week. He likens it to Lego, the idea of "creating something from nothing." PARKER: No, I think she was in quite a hurry to finish her album. I was working on a bunch of stuff, just kind of playing some clips of music that I had. I’m honestly not a great singer, but I do what I have to do to make it sound good. They're not asking for it, but you are able to give it. "There's probably something in that for sure," Parker says. Like making brush strokes on a canvas and feeling satisfied with them. Pre-order it now here, Styling: James Sleaford | Styling assistant: Rosalind Donoghue, Grooming: Andrea Gomez Anzola using ClarinsMen. Almost like a palate cleanser. Which is what makes it difficult". STEREOGUM: So maybe some of you YouTube strivers out there have been visited by Kevin Parker unawares. That's not to say it wasn't fun and fulfilling. And I met him really briefly at a festival in, I think it was Belgium, just recently, which was a trip because I’d always wanted to meet Mike Skinner. But that's why I desperately wanted to have the album out because I wanted to play new music. Honestly my favorite ones are just like when I’m drunk and listening to people’s ones they’ve put on YouTube. Alongside his own band’s accomplishments, he’s become an in-demand producer frequently tasked with lending his unique sensibility to songs by A-list pop and rap stars. And then fuckin’ two months later he was at my house in LA, shooting a video! "It was around the time I was so inside my own head and just completely lacking in perspective," he says. And I guess it proved to myself that I care that much about my albums, because of how much I wanted to have an album finished by then. And I get really hard on myself. It has to be good, which is what makes it difficult. Everyone was telling us, “Don’t bother going after them because in China copyright law is heaps more loose. I don't think I left my house in LA in about two weeks. All the songs that I've worked on with people have been things that I've started on my own and brought to them. The most important stories and least important memes, every Friday. So if I were the Strokes I might go, “Hey.” But the reason it sounded like me is because it’s the art form, making a knockoff of the song and making it sound as much like the song you’re trying to knock off as you can without it being a copyright infringement. Which is kind of like my M.O. There was no band. The Tame Impala stuff I’m playing the drums, and with hip-hop I’m programming them. 86.0k members in the TameImpala community. "I'll do whatever it takes make music I think is inspired. Fuck yeah, let’s do it!” You know? I met him around the time he released his song “Fuckin’ Problems.” I had heard he used “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind?” in his tour video, which I was pretty impressed by. I was in shock. Her label got in contact and asked if they could have the stems because Rihanna wanted to do something with it — which, I was amazed. My feelings in that song are not how I feel every day. Then again, nothing about Kevin Parker, or his alter ego Tame Impala, is exactly certain. STEREOGUM: Before this Saturday Night Live performance you worked on Travis Scott’s Astroworld album. PARKER: He actually made contact a lot sooner. A couple of his albums were such important albums to me growing up. Exactly. Not if I'm feeling good about it. “I just go to the studio every day and do my thing.”. I wanted people to hear this hilarious version. Choosing what rhythms to play. PARKER: I just did the drums. So 10 songwriters in a room spitballing ideas, I don’t think that’s something she would be into. Him being my father, I worshipped the ground he walked on, I never assumed that he could ever put a foot wrong because he was my dad. It was like a problem to solve, a puzzle to piece together. When I'm kind of uncomfortable, that's when I think of melodies. STEREOGUM: How did you find out about this? From : Tame Impala – Zane Lowe and Apple Music ’The Slow Rush’ Interview Tame Impala – InnerSpeaker (Episode 1) 彼らは美しい景色が見えるマンションで曲を作り終える。 Tame Impala makes music about learning to adapt to life’s changes. I just set up a 707 drum machine and I just hit record because I was testing out this new tape machine that I had. Did I really feel those things? Granted, in the flesh, you might wonder. It was really good. What's the process of turning music you've made on your own into something you can take on tour? What’s the vibe with him in the studio? There was four of us, really, ’cause it was BloodPop. I'd wake up at nine in the morning and go until midnight and then go to sleep. You could probably mark quite clearly where I started learning drums because I stopped playing with Lego. Same emotion. It was. Fuck yeah, I’ll get the guy from Tame Impala and John Mayer on bass and guitar. 'Let's sit down and let's write those chords that you have to write to finish this song.' ‘Cause we played a medley of my song and another song, and the other song was one that John Mayer played on. In hindsight, he even regretted putting those singles out. Exactly. Yeah, he just got in touch and asked me to do something. So yeah, there I was in the studio with Rocky, playing along to my own song for the first time. Oh, and what kind of kick drum you use, obviously. But the awkwardness endures. Like hold up on the distorted guitars, you know? Around the time that he died, I was still pretty young – he died around 10 years ago. It’s this dance between making a rhythm — it’s hard to explain. I was trying to make it sound less like a rock band. Mark is someone I've been super close with for a long time now, so it's much easier for me, but the big difference is because I've never been able to separate creative time from social time, I know that I piss Mark Ronson off sometimes. That’s kind of just how I want to approach it, just not being self-aware. In those moments, I wish I was just a pop artist who had people buzzing around doing all these kinds of things around me. Ahead of the album's release, Tame Impala's auteur Kevin Parker sat down with Zan Rowe and opened up in an in-depth interview about the many aspects of his third full-length album. I hate my voice too much, and my producer brain just immediately wants to flood it with sounds and noises and drum sounds and shit. I listened back to it and it just spoke to me for some reason. I really like the acoustic ones I’ve heard, like acoustic covers, ’cause I’m not capable of doing an acoustic song. “Honestly for me, it’s kind of business as usual because my studio is like two blocks from my house,” he says. Ultimately, they opted to quarantine Down Under. We just have really similar perspectives on music and taste. Tame Impala’s sound has evolved over the years, as have his admirers. Pax Narco: Life and Death in the City of El Chapo, Why Prince Charles Is the Best Dressed Royal, What We Know And Can Agree On: Wikipedia At 20, Jessie Buckley And Charlie Kaufman In Conversation, Welcome To The Age Of The All-Electric Hypercar, Josh O'Connor On 'The Crown' And Prince Charles, How Rubber Bullets Kill, From Belfast To #BLM, styling by James Sleaford | Photographs by Danny Lowe, ESQUIRE, PART OF THE HEARST UK FASHION & BEAUTY NETWORK. We would literally be hanging out in our backyard listening to old music constantly. Which may be this pot of gold at the bottom of the rainbow that I'm chasing. When I reach Parker over Skype in early May — him starting off his Friday morning, me wrapping up my Thursday night — it is not yet fully clear what a prescient move he made by getting the hell out of California. PARKER: I guess I was just using all my producer power to make us, a rock band, not sound like a rock band. How different was the creative process from your own? And the more albums [I make], I realise how important that kind of shaking it up is. My main regret in those days was that I was the opposite of a brash young kid not giving a shit. Is it tough to collaborate when you've got that urge towards solitariness? PARKER: We met by chance on a festival circuit in Australia. It's an eight-minute psych-rock wig-out, driven by a military drum beat that frequently judders apart like a scratched CD. He wrote every chord, recorded every hi hat, mixed every vocal line. But we’re also both into the way that old music could be used in a modern sense. He is, admittedly, on earth to spread a kind of salvation. Because with programming things, it has nothing to do with how good you are at playing the drums. There's no one in the world that I've been around with where I've felt as creative as I do when I'm alone. Just appreciating myself as an artist, which is something I didn't do. Watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon highlight 'Tame Impala: Borderline' on NBC.com “So we were like, if we’ve gotta go to a hospital, let’s go to a hospital in Perth.”. That’s why I like hip-hop so much, and that’s why I find hip-hop so intriguing, the way it’s made. PARKER: At the end of the day, it’s the same. In December 2018, Tame Impala was announced for the Saturday headline slot at Coachella, which had just been vacated by Justin Timberlake. Converting something that I do by myself into something that five people stand on stage and perform in front of people is fun. PARKER: Mark was producing the album, so he’s not into that as a format anyway. Has that changed anything for you? And then when I would be on my own, that's when I could finally start being creative.". He’s been doing his thing for a good solid decade now; Tame Impala’s debut album InnerSpeaker reached its 10th anniversary a couple weeks after our call. Apple Music's Zane Lowe speaks with Tame Impala frontman, Kevin Parker, about their new album, The Slow Rush. Tame Impala seem to buck that trend, instead using the studio to help widen their scope, revealing new vistas and propelling the listener further into a sun-stroked, dream like state. I've always just checked myself to not make Tame Impala that. In a decade, the psychedelic rock torchbearer and musical flagship of Perth, Australia, polymath Kevin … But it has to be on my terms. How tough was it touring with only two new singles? Matt Fink ( Under the Radar ): The last time I talked to you, you explained that your songwriting process eventually breaks down over minute details that most listeners will never even be able to hear. Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker explains his secret source of inspiration and how standing in front of a really really big crowd keeps you anything … Everything we were doing was a new experience. The Number Ones: Genesis’ “Invisible Touch”, The Number Ones: Simply Red’s “Holding Back The Years”, Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best And Worst Comments, Eve 6 Guy Is Spilling The ’90s Alt-Rock Tea On Twitter, Boy Band Why Don’t We Sample Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” On New Single “Slow Down”. That kind of search, the quest — we were both on this quest to recontextualize old music and make it relevant. Like it came from a part of me that wasn't calculated, where I don't know where that came from. And he does occasionally withdraw from the world for extended periods of painful self-examination, after which he drafts a group of acolytes to spread his message. It's one of the parts of everything that I do that is just unabashed fun. I like to think that if I could make Tame Impala music with other people I would. Everything. To be honest, this is another thing that I dragged myself kicking and screaming into doing. "I thought it was totally slamming hip hop, boom-crack drums," he says. It was still just like all he wanted to do was make an awesome album. He is perhaps Australia's most famous rock star, but has spent most of his career hiding behind a band that doesn't really exist. So I think in Travis’ sort of grand vision of everything, he’s like, “Oh we’re doing SNL. So he ended up taking the drums from a different song and using them in that one. It’s about making the choice of where to put a beat. And you know what? I think the label got in touch with them, or maybe because I put it online and it became this kind of public thing, they got in touch with us and they were super apologetic. Tame Impala have covered Edwyn Collins’ 1994 single “A Girl Like You” for Australia’s Triple J Radio in Perth. Oh, and he does write songs like 'Posthumous Forgiveness', the centrepiece of his upcoming fourth album, The Slow Rush, in which he laments the failings of an absent father before offering him exoneration (although unlike the Biblical Son, Parker's comes backed with pillowy synths). Hopefully one day, but I’ve been saying that now for years. STEREOGUM: Mayer’s a big fan of yours. It was more just like, 'I'm just gonna do this because it seems like a good idea'. Which is different to making music that I think is good. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. [Laughs] I don’t know, I don’t know. "There's so much more I want to do but it has to be good. PARKER: Yeah, something like that. Just to see what happened. ‘Cause you know, John’s a good interview, and he’s obviously a great guitarist. Tame Impala have risen to become one of the hottest alt-rock bands of the moment. A band, in the time-honoured meaning. But in terms of people who were big on Fallon — I didn’t know who Jimmy Fallon was. "From the moment I think of a song, it's a series of let downs. He is a sought-after collaborator who literally cannot write music with anyone else in the room. So the last bit of the song is meant to suggest this idea that when you forgive someone who's dead, you don't forgive them because they were suddenly able to explain themselves. “The music sounds like a band, which I … I really, really hope that we are given an opportunity to finish it and release it. I wasn’t posting it because I was like flagging it for everyone, like trying to rally up support. New music is here. I thought that was cool. Those songs, those rapturous, transportive songs, were his, the fruits of his mind and his fingers and nothing else. So 'Posthumous Forgiveness' is one-sided in that way. Music had already saved him once, in the wake of his parents' divorce, first when he discovered drums at the music school they sent him too and then when he started dabbling with the guitars that littered his father's house. He knew early, too, that he wanted to do everything himself. I know it’s ruining my hearing, I’m damaging my hearing because I work at high volume, but it’s worth it because it carries you to the finish line of finishing music, loving the music more. "When I was 14, playing in a rock band in high school, I was more excited by the fact that I was hanging out with my friends than I was about being creative. I guess that’s how Kanye works, he just takes bits and puts them where he wants. Take 'Let It Happen', the breakout single from his breakout 2015 album, Currents. I mean COME ON guys at least put some effort in. 964 votes, 25 comments. “I was gonna call you back, I swear.” [Laughs], PARKER: Around that time everything was new. Meanwhile Los Angeles County continues to set new daily records for confirmed cases. Just super big energy, you know? But this wasn’t that. PARKER: He had most of the lyrics done, and he was like, “Can you sing something over it?” So I just sang the first thing — and it was funny because it’s such a cheeky thing for a song. I got the awesome opportunity to talk to our boy Cam all about his new EP! Tame Impala ‘s Kevin Parker thinks Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion ’s hit track ‘WAP’ is a “perfect song”. Which at the end of the day is the same whether you’re playing drums or programming them. Because he had such a big pressure. At the beginning of this decade Tame Impala were a beardy psychedelic rock band operating out of Perth, Australia, one of the more isolated cities in … I played some kind of synth on it, I think. "There's no one in the world that I've felt as creative with as I do when I'm alone". The Slow Rush is released worldwide in 14 February. I was like, 'You're fucking worthless, you're pathetic', but I guess the fact that it is me doing it all, there are more ways that it can grind to a halt. PARKER: No, they were just doing a soundalike. Parker's childhood was, let's say, non-linear. Tame Impala's Kevin Parker on His Pop Ambitions: 'I Want to Be a Max Martin' Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker used to prefer solitude. Some of this sheen could be attributed to the He also informed their parents. It was still fun, though. It was lonely work at times, but it was his work. I didn't go out to dinner. For me, the music I imagine making is for people listening to by themselves. But none of them, really. Tame Impala is the psychedelic music project of Australian multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker. So it is somewhat ironic when a member of security demands Parker’s … Yeah. But the thing is I'll do whatever it takes to get to a spot where I feel like the music I'm making is inspired. PARKER: Oh, many, many have been visited. Now Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker has weighed in, and he’s a fan. Last December, Parker released 'Posthumous Forgiveness' as an album single proper, but before that there'd been a nearly seven-month gap when fans had heard nothing new. You know what, I'm running out of people that I haven't worked with that I would like to, just because of how it's worked out. That sounds really depressing but it's not. But it won't stop me trying. I just suggest something on a whim and it happens. That sounds depressing but it's not". He still does. No, I'd love to say there was an enlightening, 10-day silent meditation trip, but it really wasn't. Because he wasn't courageous or he was only looking out for himself in a particular situation. So when I was recording this album, I intentionally did that. Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker Kevin Parker’s Approach to Tame Impala’s Drum Production The Earth Is a Drum 9 Reasons to Love Narada Michael Walden Jerry Granelli Aynsley Dunbar Nick D’Virgilio – An Invisible Touch Joe Wong That’s the difference it comes down to. Did somebody send you a completed track and say “What did you think?”. Because we get together and I can sometimes just be in a giggly mood because I'm hanging out with Mark. In our interview, we hopped and skipped across his career, discussing various superstar collaborations and bizarre twists in the Tame Impala story. Fans got edgy. It was so much fun. He is a festival-headlining pop artist who makes dense psychedelic rock music. I can’t work on music at low volumes — it’s like, why am I doing this? Was this one tougher than the previous ones? And also trying to find some way to harness that and use it as an energy. When I became a teenager I got the shyness thing pretty hard. You hear it all the time. the AU review sits down in the Austin Airstream at Austin City Limits (ACL) 2013 with Kevin Parker from Perth's Tame Impala. You've talked before about experimenting in the studio, things like putting chords on as you go to sleep and then waking up with a melody in your head. And then I walk offstage feeling like a pop star in the best possible way. PARKER: Yeah. He still can't really write with other people, can't split fun time from creating time. It’s been attempted many times before, so it’s kind of a challenge: “We gotta try and do this, and do it well.”. The only people we knew were, like, Noel Fielding and, I dunno, Kings Of Leon or something. The last sort of two or three weeks of making the album was just nonstop. So I've been coaching myself to embrace the idea of people thinking something that I do is trash. Could I ever feel those things again? It's this, I guess, self-confidence thing that plagued me. Distorted guitars and hip-hop sometimes go well, like Kanye and Mike Dean, and they can also be a disaster. And that was that. And then a short while after that I just decided to not get hung up about it. PARKER: There’ve been some really nice ones. But it took me a long time. Which is obviously never true. PARKER: Yeah, we did a studio session together. He has this energy, or perhaps, a lack of energy, that bequiets a room. https://belongmedia.net/2020/02/08/tame-impala_the-10-songs Like when A$AP Rocky got in touch the first time, I didn’t know who he was. He’s just really into what he does and is so dedicated. KEVIN PARKER: He just got in touch and said he was doing this project. Does it just differ from song to song? They come to me when I mentally just want to kind of escape, or mentally fill a void. PARKER: What’s funny is I didn’t know who anyone was. So I did the best damn fuckin’ stems printing I’ve ever done. “Because if we were going to go back to Perth we were going to have to fly — two flights, three airports, which were all potentially coronavirus areas.” Faced with the prospect of borders potentially closing, the couple figured they had to move quickly or not move at all. It just does. He wanted to have new songs to play, but they weren't ready. He had his own room set up, and we’d be writing lyrics in one room and recording some music, and we’d send bits of music in to BloodPop’s thing, and he’d chop it up and sort of play around with it. I'm not going to tell them to ram it. There was so much pressure on him to deliver an album that was going to perform the way it did after Birds In The Trap. I spend by far the most amount of time on drums and rhythms of my songs than any other part. If I made an album in one week, some of my fans would consider it my best album. STEREOGUM: Like you were willing to try more things? Which is something very close to my heart because I’m rubbish at getting back. It didn't occur to me that he actually made decisions that were because he was weak. "There's no song that sounds exactly like I imagined it, because when you imagine it, it doesn't really exist. It's always the most exciting when there's risks being taken. We did a bunch of stuff, but as with all things, I’m not sure if any of that will surface. And he is a self-confessed anxious, self-critical loner who's rarely happier than when he's stood on stage in front of thousands of people. He has amazing insight into things. I just thought it was hilarious. Being the best thing he's ever made, it's a lovely Valentine's Day gift to the world. And in that way it's always a letdown but that's part of it. ", Back to the studio it went, to be reworked, polished, remixed and remastered, until he got it close enough to the platonic version that existed in his brain. So playing my music other people is kind of a process of bringing the song back down to earth. Yeah. I never have. It's a song that makes the blood pump and stills the heart, all at the same time. I was writing lyrics up until the hour that I finished it. STEREOGUM: You have a writing credit on this song, but as with so many Kanye tracks, there are so many people credited that it’s hard to know who did what. Which is kind of like me now. If I'm feeling good about it, I can't wait for people to hear it. We didn’t know who anyone fuckin’ was. I guess it was something that I got from growing up, too, realising that adults aren't necessarily any better than children. I always saw being solitary as a necessity, because I didn't know how to make [music] with people. Which is different to music that is good". For years, it was assumed that Tame Impala was a collective noun. And he has that hair and those warm eyes and the little beard, which combine to make him look like he should be sat at the centre of Leonardo's Last Supper. But like I said, me playing my music to other people is a time of the sun coming back down to earth. PARKER: No, they voluntarily compensated me. Hence why, though I'm fairly confident that he's not actually the Messiah, it's hard to be sure. Like they found a picture of Kevin Parker and it was that guy. It's how he writes all his music: first, inspiration; then what can seem like an endless process of reshaping until the corporeal thing is close enough to the imaginary thing. How long does it take before you're comfortable enough to just snap into it? That’s especially true for a notorious studio rat like Parker. It’s one of those things that… I literally can’t deal, or whatever it is. Is that part of that? Not always taste-wise as in being into the exact same artists, but we just think the same things are sick. “We were like, what do we do, what do we do?” Parker recalls. So he was probably stoked to be there with Kevin Parker. @sonyatvaustralia #Lawsuit #nowitsmyturn, A post shared by Tame Impala (@tameimpala) on Apr 27, 2017 at 8:01pm PDT. STEREOGUM: What are some things you saw eye-to-eye on or connected on? "In a way, from the moment I think of a song, it's just a series of letdowns.". The idea of me writing pop songs that I didn't sing was extremely alluring to me. He posted a few years ago about Currents being his favorite album of the past few years. Although if he was, it would explain all the Kevin Parker-as-Christ art his fans make, and why they self-identify as 'Disciples', and why they caption selfies taken with him as their "lord and saviour". So I always wanted to make music with other people. What’s the determining factor on how you approach it? I’ve caught that bug. What was your contribution? Which is what I fuckin’ love about him. That's seven months after your Coachella slot. And so the difference between the best person in the world and a total novice is just where you decide to put those kick drums and those snares. Did you see that clip? They have exactly the same software. This content is imported from YouTube. We love drum sounds. There was a song, 'Is It True', that was only half-finished at about midnight. Is it important to have that sense of chance when you're writing songs? Do you actually feel this way, or is this just the post-album emotional hangover? I mean, I don't tell them to fuck off. I honestly believe that. PARKER: We did “Sundress” and his song “LSD,” which was really fun because we got to practice just doing that, just taking a hip-hop track and doing it in a live band sense. If you play that, there’s a soundalike of “Someday” in there. It's important that they disagree with it. 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