That song was about one minute long until midnight, 21 November. There was no band. It's taken a lot to drag me out of that. But yeah, he used that song in his tour video, and we were told he was a fan. But we’re also both into the way that old music could be used in a modern sense. He still can't really write with other people, can't split fun time from creating time. 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. ‘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. Hey r/tameimpala!My name's Austin and I run the website for We Write About Music. 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 STEREOGUM: Nowadays you work with so many famous people, but you mentioned being a shy kid when you were starting out. 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. They were very clear about it, actually. I hate doing stems because you have to send the song out in pieces, basically. There was him, alone. My manager reminded me just the other day, actually, when I was finishing up this album. Watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon highlight 'Tame Impala: Borderline' on NBC.com I can't emphasise enough how important it is to me to feel like I'm just outside my safe zone. This dichotomy is encapsulated in his songs, which can feel both intimate and enormous. Which is different to music that is good". When I'm alone, there are just different things that come to me. PARKER: Yeah, we did a studio session together. KEVIN PARKER: He just got in touch and said he was doing this project. 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. For me, the music I imagine making is for people listening to by themselves. "From the moment I think of a song, it's a series of let downs. I haven't written a single chord progression in the company of another person that made it in the actual song. Some of this sheen could be attributed to the I mean, that's kind of one of the whole things of it, being at peace with the idea of people hating it. It's a kind of stillness, a preternatural calm that seems to soothe the people around him. Did you get starstruck back in those days being around celebrities? Being the best thing he's ever made, it's a lovely Valentine's Day gift to the world. Is it tough to collaborate when you've got that urge towards solitariness? PARKER: Mark was producing the album, so he’s not into that as a format anyway. Now Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker has weighed in, and he’s a fan. On the album, 'Borderline' has taken a new form, one closer to the version that had first materialised in Parker's mind. That's not to say it wasn't fun and fulfilling. STEREOGUM: How did John Mayer become involved in the SNL appearance? There was four of us, really, ’cause it was BloodPop. I just suggest something on a whim and it happens. And that’s not indicative of a regular Australian person. I'm not gonna say anyone because I don't want to jinx it, you know? At least to my knowledge. "In a way, from the moment I think of a song, it's just a series of letdowns.". He knew early, too, that he wanted to do everything himself. PARKER: Yeah. Tame Impala’s sound has evolved over the years, as have his admirers. STEREOGUM: Years ago you guys did some work with SZA, but it never emerged. Hence why, though I'm fairly confident that he's not actually the Messiah, it's hard to be sure. And probably is. But none of them, really. It's always the most exciting when there's risks being taken. In our interview, we hopped and skipped across his career, discussing various superstar collaborations and bizarre twists in the Tame Impala story. 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. 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. It's an eight-minute psych-rock wig-out, driven by a military drum beat that frequently judders apart like a scratched CD. Hence, the mellow vibe. Like, if I just made an album in a week. We would literally be hanging out in our backyard listening to old music constantly. Could those unbidden melodies be his mind's way of filling up the space where voices suddenly weren't? But yeah, Rocky came through a few days before, and it was such a good vibe. Kevin Parker's fourth album is his best – and most painful – yet. I’m honestly not a great singer, but I do what I have to do to make it sound good. I just put a lot of care into it. 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. When did you hear about that? ‘Cause you know, John’s a good interview, and he’s obviously a great guitarist. I don’t know. You have to shake the snow globe up. Kevin Parker probably isn't Jesus. Just appreciating myself as an artist, which is something I didn't do. We were immediately really pumped for it. And you know what? And extremely intelligent, which admittedly I didn’t expect. Because we get together and I can sometimes just be in a giggly mood because I'm hanging out with Mark. STEREOGUM: Like you were willing to try more things? But hey, fuck it, I'd love to work with Daft Punk. 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. Elsewhere in the interview, Parker also clarified whether Tame Impala is considered a band or a solo project. 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. How long does it take before you're comfortable enough to just snap into it? It's different every time. Pre-order it now here, Styling: James Sleaford | Styling assistant: Rosalind Donoghue, Grooming: Andrea Gomez Anzola using ClarinsMen. PARKER: There’ve been some really nice ones. We love drum sounds. "It was around the time I was so inside my own head and just completely lacking in perspective," he says. “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.” What’s the vibe with him in the studio? It’s about making the choice of where to put a beat. Because it's just them caring about you. And she said, 'You fucking said that last time'. Meanwhile Los Angeles County continues to set new daily records for confirmed cases. And then, when the time came to tour it, he'd teach his mates how to play the songs he'd written. And the more albums [I make], I realise how important that kind of shaking it up is. I got the awesome opportunity to talk to our boy Cam all about his new EP! That sounds depressing but it's not". 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. Apple Music's Zane Lowe speaks with Tame Impala frontman, Kevin Parker, about their new album, The Slow Rush. And also trying to find some way to harness that and use it as an energy. But, look, he's not Jesus, OK? Yeah. And usually you just kind of press a couple buttons and give them whole sections, but I gave them every little bit of it. And we programmed a bunch of other stuff. So it is somewhat ironic when a member of security demands Parker’s … I kind of jam with myself all the time in the studio. 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. Being afraid of people judging me, which everyone has, but I had it particularly hard. 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. Like hold up on the distorted guitars, you know? I mean COME ON guys at least put some effort in. [Laughs] I don’t know, I don’t know. We have old-fashioned tastes, but care about nothing more than making relevant music. But it didn’t show. So I did the best damn fuckin’ stems printing I’ve ever done. 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. If you play that, there’s a soundalike of “Someday” in there. That’s just what this was. So I've been coaching myself to embrace the idea of people thinking something that I do is trash. Does it just differ from song to song? But no, Kevin Parker is almost certainly not Jesus. It's a song that makes the blood pump and stills the heart, all at the same time. 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 … Not at all. Which may be this pot of gold at the bottom of the rainbow that I'm chasing. I think he loathes and detests that format. It’s this dance between making a rhythm — it’s hard to explain. STEREOGUM: With “Sundress,” was that strictly a sample, or did you have some creative input on that track? Because there’s zero second guessing. He bounced between them for a decade, at which point they briefly reunited only for things to fall apart again. Fans got edgy. That kind of search, the quest — we were both on this quest to recontextualize old music and make it relevant. STEREOGUM: Working with Ronson is also what led to the Lady Gaga record you worked on. Then, nothing. It only matters where you decide to put those kick drums. 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 … Not like a beat like a rhythm, but like where to hit and where not to hit. What's the process of turning music you've made on your own into something you can take on tour? It’s funny because that’s the song he ended up sampling for “Sundress,” which was like six or seven years later. 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. We knew who people were. I was working on a bunch of stuff, just kind of playing some clips of music that I had. 964 votes, 25 comments. Like it came from a part of me that wasn't calculated, where I don't know where that came from. Which is different in how you go about it, but mentally it’s exactly the same. 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. I really gave a shit. 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. Are those "letdowns" what led to the gap? But I knew the rewards would be great. It has to be good, which is what makes it difficult. Yeah. 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. Exactly. 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