The Kid from Tame

“Hang on a second, I am just climbing into my bunk,” says Kevin Parker. The mastermind behind Perth stoner-pop troupe Tame Impala is making use of his travel time by ticking off some promo duties en route to Vienna. “We’ve been on tour for about two weeks now. It’s going really well. We are meandering around Europe on our tour bus. It’s really cool. We’ve played Scandinavia for the first time which was great!”

Since the release of debut album Innerspeaker in 2010 the band have been in steady ascent, attracting celeb gig attendees such as Noel Gallagher and Kasabian and support slots to Foo Fighters and The Black Keys. Latest opus Lonerism has seen plaudits multiply while reviews have been for the most part laudatory and eulogistic (deservedly so). The collection is more assured than its predecessor and finds Parker exploring diverse sonic pathways in his lush electro-dream-pop universe.
“I think I was excited to try different things” he muses on his aural departure. “The first album was quite ‘boxed-in’ in the genre. I got new pieces of equipment and wanted to try ways of recording and I was really excited about that.”
As with the debut outing engineering duties were handled by Dave Fridmann.
“He was the best guy for the job really!” exclaims Kevin. “He is my favourite engineer. He can make crazy unlistenable sounds sound listenable!”
As with the previous outing Kevin plays most of the instruments himself, with his band lending a hand on stage.
“Once we play it live it becomes a different thing,” he says. “It is not the song from the studio anymore, it’s a live band playing a song. It’s really important everyone is having fun and connecting too.”
In addition to the aforementioned luminaries the band have also graced the stage with MGMT, who according to Parker have provided a valuable lesson in how to handle fame.
“From those guys we learnt not to take everything too seriously,” he states. “They have had insane success but they know how to laugh at themselves and laugh at everything that is going on around them. I guess that is just the best way to cope.”
We suppose it helps when A-List celeb mates are there to lighten the mood too..
“I think our friend Noel Fielding usually says the funniest stuff about us,” remarks Kevin. “I heard an interview he was doing the other day and he was talking about us saying how none of us has a mobile phone – so when he wants to contact us he has to send smoke signals!”
Keeping things on a celeb note we remind Kevin of his recent revelation that he has a number of songs written for Kylie. Has the diminutive Antipodean pop princess been in touch?
“She hasn’t called yet, I am not really expecting her or her management to!” he laughs. “But if she ever wants to try something new, I have seven songs waiting for her!”
Tame Impala’s own work has been remixed by Erol Alkan (‘Why Don’t You Make Up Your Mind?’) and Todd Rundgren (‘Elephant’). How does Parker feel about these re-interpretations?
“Ah it’s cool,” he says. “It’s such a new experience to hear your music in a different environment and a different genre. I have always felt our music would be more successful in a dance music form.”
On the subject of presenting music in a different contest we note the band’s songs have been used extensively in soundtracking, for example, the Sundance hit The Kids Are Alright and on US TV show Entourage. Some music peeps can be quite sniffy about this. Parker welcomes the exposure.
“Music is meant to be a soundtrack to life so if it suits the material it can work really well,” he enthuses.
In addition to Tame Impala duties Kevin also took some time out to produce the self-titled album by French girlfriend Melody Prochet’s psychedelic dream pop project, Melody’s Echo Chamber. Did romantic considerations hinder the creative process in any way?
“When we’re working music is music and that is the only thing that comes into it,” he states. “In that regard it was like working with one of my good friends or someone that I have the same musical tastes as, which was really good fun. Also, I got to do the things I love like turning delay knobs. Being the studio guy, not the artist was really refreshing.”
As time is winding up we close by berating Kevin over the fact that his current slew of shows doesn’t include any Irish dates.
“It’s never up to us we just get on the bus!” he protests. “All the head honchos decide where we are going! I didn’t realise we weren’t coming to Dublin. That sucks!”
Next time so!

Lonerism is out now on Modular Recordings.