Tame Impala emerges from Kevin Parker’s bedroom

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      From the way Kevin Parker describes things, straight edge isn’t exactly the term one would use to describe the way he approaches his work with Tame Impala. The only problem with that, the Australian singer, guitarist, and psychedelic-rock upstart admits, is that it sometimes makes the creative process hit-and-miss.

      When he was writing the band’s deliciously druggy second album, Lonerism, there were times he was convinced he was coming up with stuff that was nothing less than stone-cold genius. The only problem was that reality would soon set in, usually the next morning.

      “I was really excited about a new way of recording with this record,” Parker says, on the line from a Dallas tour stop. “I did it on a computer, rather than 8-track, so I was blown away by all the possibilities. I was totally into it. But as I was recording it, there were moments where I found myself freaking out, wondering whether it was really great or really terrible.”

      Elaborating on that, he continues: “There are always ups and downs. For the most part, when it’s 3 a.m. and you’re finished recording for the day, and are either really drunk or really stoned, listening to a song that’s only existed for a few hours, you’re totally in love with it. It’s your new baby, the best thing that you’ve ever done. Then you wake up the next morning. Maybe you still love it, or maybe you think ‘Oh, God—what was I doing last night?’”

      For all his worrying, plenty of gold-standard stuff came out of his various altered states. Lonerism is a stellar follow-up to Tame Impala’s 2010 underground hit, Innerspeaker. The approach is, once again, decidedly bong-friendly, with the THC-saturated songs ranging from towering Black Mountain rockers (“Elephant”) to blissed-out pop confections (“Why Won’t They Talk to Me?”). Unafraid to mix things up, Parker shelves his guitar and fires up the retro-sounding keyboards for the hypnotic “Keep on Lying”, and imagines the Flaming Lips frolicking in Strawberry Fields on “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”.

      The guitarist reveals that work began on Lonerism before Innerspeaker was even released. By the time the sophomore effort was nearing completion months later, however, Tame Impala was what he describes as a “band of the world”. That’s a fancy way of saying a project that started as a man with a bunch of recording equipment in a rented house on an isolated beach in Australia outgrew its beginnings, with Tame Impala morphing from a glorified bedroom endeavour into an international-hot-list band.

      Parker got no shortage of time in the spotlight when he rolled out Innerspeaker and then brought the songs to life on the road with a backing band he continues to tour with. Still, all the attention would finally get to him as he got deeper and deeper into the creation of Lonerism.

      “As the weeks and months go on, you start to question and analyze what you’re doing when you’re making a record,” he says. “You pull things apart so much that it can be hard to keep the magic of a song. By the time you get to mixing, you’re scrutinizing every drum fill and every fuck-up on the drums, every note that you didn’t sing perfectly. You scrutinize it so much, it’s almost impossible to remember the magic. It becomes notes and beats and sounds, to where you can’t appreciate the way that other people hear it. It’s hard to keep perspective.”

      There were also other problems, including keeping perspective on what people wanted from Tame Impala. Innerspeaker turned Parker into an instant guitar god. The Aussie became a new messiah for those with an unending appetite for Orange Sunshine acid, kaleidoscopic guitar pyrotechnics, and songs that make you wonder what the hell you ever saw in the Black Angels. Somewhere along the line, Parker lost sight of that.

      “I was kind of in denial for a while—I bought a bunch of synthesizers and started making synthesizer music,” he says. “I realize that this is a narrow-minded way of looking at things, but pretty soon I realized that I wasn’t making Tame Impala stuff. And I realized that the kind of music that I was still in love with was kind of psychedelic rock. It just has a lot more of a visceral space-dream-pop feel to it.”

      What’s interesting on Lonerism is the way that Parker balances that sense of trippy euphoria with lyrics that can read like an epic bummer on paper, but sound like anything but on record. The title “Why Won’t They Talk to Me?”, for example, suggests a lost Smiths song, yet it couldn’t be more joyous and uplifting.

      “I do have a melancholy side, but I really like songs from a different dimension,” Parker offers. “If you have a sad song that’s just sad chords and sad lyrics and sad melodies, that’s kind of one-dimensional. I like something with different layers. I don’t think it’s very interesting to hear someone singing about how much they hate themselves.”

      Based on a conversation with him, the guitarist certainly doesn’t seem to have anything even remotely resembling a self-loathing streak. That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s not happiest alone, getting gloriously fucked-up while the recording equipment rolls.

      “I love what I’m doing, but there are obviously parts of it that are kind of weird for me,” Parker confesses. “I love that we have these fans that I never would have dreamed of. But sometimes it’s weird, and you find yourself dealing with people you normally would never have spoken to if someone hadn’t said ‘Hey, you have to meet this person.’ It can be overwhelming, the number of people you meet every day. Especially because all you’d rather be doing is chilling out.”

      Comments

      5 Comments

      schteeze

      May 23, 2013 at 10:38am

      i highly doubt that kevin would have approved of this article. you turned him into fricken stone man extraordinaire. he probably mentioned that one little comment about being drunk or high while recording and you just ran with it, drenching the entire article with that notion. such a bummer that people feel the need to associate what is simply beautiful music and sounds as "acid-drenched," "stoner rock," "fried," etc. etc. do you think that artists in other genres don't smoke just as much weed? and why doesn't their music doesn't turn into fried psychedelia? because it's not the drugs making the music. don't include yourself in the narrow-minded legion of journalists that proliferate such idiotic stereotypes. fuck, you blow

      Vancouverite

      May 23, 2013 at 10:44pm

      There are so many stoners in Vancouver that I think the writer is simply trying to expand the band's audience of local mind expanders!

      tex wrangler

      May 27, 2013 at 7:17pm

      plus, why slag off black angels like they're 2nd rate? if anything, 'lonerism' made me wonder more about MGMT. then again, describing bands by comparison to other bands is lazy anyway.

      Luka Cinnamond

      Jun 1, 2013 at 9:50pm

      Schteeze you are so right. Shocking article, hugely inaccurate.

      Psychedelic Lover

      Apr 24, 2014 at 6:11pm

      Psychedelia is not about drugs. It is about art that takes you out of the confines of this materialistic world, even just for a little. Having said that, drugs are awesome too and enhance this other worldly experience.