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6/14/2015 Tame Impala Let It Happen

http://grantland.com/features/tame-impala-currents/?print=1 1/11

MUSIC

TameImpalaLetItHappenStorming Coachella, embracing pop music, turning the charts psychedelic Kevin Parker knows his band is on the brinkof something big. All he has to do is keep writing and stay pissfit.

BY STEVEN HYDEN ON JUNE 10, 2015

Swingers is an archetypal L.A. diner waitresses who look like Suicide Girls, upscale Waffle House fare on the menu. It also happens to be the



unofficial Los Angeles headquarters of one of the most exciting young bands in the world. Surging Australian psych-poppers Tame Impala stayedat anadjacent motor inn on its first trip to L.A. years ago, and theyvebeen coming back to Swingers ever since.

Its cheap and cool, says Kevin Parker, the groups boyish frontman, songwriter, producer, and benevolent dictator in town for an extended stayin April for both weekends of Coachella.

Its kind of like our dining room, Parker tells me as we settle in at a quiet table in the rear of the restaurant. Its like getting out of bed andgoing into the kitchen.

With his shoulder-length brown hair, Jesus beard, red scarf, tight blue jeans, and unassuming manner, the 29-year-old Parker seems more like askinny L.A. slacker in search of some early-afternoon grits than a budding rock star. But talk to Parker for a few minutes and youll find that heslearning to play the part.

In five years since its 2010 debut album,Innerspeaker Tame Impala has gone from being Parkers one-man recording project to a world-conquering rock group. 2012s Lonerismwas Tame Impalas breakthrough,a forward-thinking work of psychedelia that sounds like the Sgt.Pepperera Beatles discovering trance. Its precisely what you want to hear blasting through the tumbleweeds of the California desert, thoughParker is still wrapping his head around his band being one of Coachellas most talked-about attractions.

Its kind of weird for us to see all these big artists playing before us. To me, it doesnt really make sense, he says. [But] Im not gonna complainabout playing too late.

The Coachella shows and Tame Impalas spring U.S. tour set the stage for Currents,the groups transformational third album, due next month.Anticipation for Currentshas been rising ever since the albums intoxicating first single, Let It Happen, appeared in March. With its July 17release still several weeks away, seeminglyevery Currents tidbit has been pored over. When the album was made available for preorder on iTunesin Japan, it was news. Right now, the hype machine is fully operational.

Tame Impala is a great band, different from everything else going on right now, says John Janick, chairman and CEO of Interscope Records,Tame Impalas label.I think Kevin is a genius and theres nothing he cant do.

Over nearly eight swirling, shape-shifting minutes, Let It Happen sets the tone for the rest of Currents,which was written and recorded byParker as Tame Impala toured the world in support of Lonerism.Gone is the jangly acid rock of the first two albums; in its place is an ethereal,



insinuating vibe that feels like dropping in on an all-night rave. The lyrics hint at a journey that has just started Parker slotted Let It Happenas the albums first track and an eagerness to evolve. (Another song on Currentsis simply titled Yes Im Changing.)

For Parker, Let It Happen evokes this chaotic world I want to say party, but that sounds wrong. Its kind of like me on tour.

Whereas Parker previously cast himself as an intense studio auteur in the mold of Brian Wilson he has described the making of Lonerismasagonizing he says Currentsreflects his newly optimistic, extroverted outlook. While Parker didnt set out to write hits, the songs on Currentsare catchier, more danceable, and likelier to reach an audience that has never heard a Syd Barrett LP.

Lonerism is such an insular, detached album. I got that out of the way, and now I want to join the world, he says with a shy smile.

When I met Parker in mid-April, Currents didnt have a release date yet. The band wants to thwart leaks with an aggressive digital strategy, butthat might threaten vinyl sales, which made up almost 25 percent of the units moved for Innerspeaker and Lonerism.



Modular Parker recording Innerspeaker in 2009.

That conundrumspeaks to the disparate factions of Tame Impalas fan base this is a band that appeals both to younger listeners whoexperience music via their phones and sprawling music festivals, and to aging music fans who fetishize physical media and new bands that fit oldmolds. These same futurist/retro impulses are embedded in Parkers songs, which come out sounding like record-collector rock but areassembled by a solitary polymath who sees himself more as an electronic artist than as a Jack Whitestyle classicist.

Theres a lot of talk about, Isitaguitarorisitasynth? I dont even see the difference, because for me its the same thing. Its just one has aslightly different texture, Parker says. Usually its just what the closest thing was to me when I thought of the song. Theres a guitar there sweet. Plug it in and do it.

Whether by design or consequence, Currentshas a pronounced lack of guitar or at least recognizable guitar sounds. Theres nothing likeElephant, Lonerisms heavy-riffing single and a fixture in commercials and TV and movie soundtracks. Parker seems embarrassed by theempty-headed bluesy swagger of Elephant now. (Its a little bittersweet because, like, that song paid for half my house, he says.) Instead,Parker put more emphasis on the musics bottom end on Currents, stripping down the other layers of sonic window dressing to give the rhythmsmore prominence.

There was so much top end sonically [on Lonerism] that sizzling guitar, sizzling synths, the drums are blasting. I realized you cant turn it uptoo loud before its just burning your ears, he says. I wanted to make an album that you could just turn up really loud, with a throbbing rhythmto it.

After Let It Happen, Tame Impala released three more singles from Currents:Cause Im a Man and Eventually have a silky, vaguely R&Bfeel, while Disciples is the albums zestiest space-age power-pop number. So far, Parker has presented Currentsas his mid-80s Prince record,

playing up the lysergic balladry and Todd Rundgren hero worship.1 Meanwhile, the poppiest tracks have thus far been kept under wraps likeThe Moment, which skips along joyously on syncopated drums and chiming synths to an ecstatic climax, and The Less I Know the Better, afinger-snapping summer jam with a jazzy bridge teleported from Side 2of OfftheWall.

1.TameImpalahascoveredRundgrensInternationalFeelandinvitedthe70sstudiowizardtoremixElephant.

Michael Jacksons one of my favorite artists of my whole life, Parker says. In fact, I think he ismy favorite. Its one of the first things I fell in



love with before I learned about genres and before I knew what was cool to like.

While Currentshas the occasional prog-rock curveball on Past Life, a menacing slo-mo vocal is set against a sci-fi keyboard lick most ofthe songs are emotionally direct and musically immediate. Its the kind of music that Parker has long kept himself from making, in part becausehe thought indie-music snobs would turn their nose up at it. But on Currents,he proves himself a natural at crafting highly addictive ear candy.

Ive always liked pop music. I love what it does to my brain, and Ive shut it out for a long time, Parker says. The more I question myself aboutwhy I think pop is taboo, the more I realize its not.

Born in Sydney and raised in Perth, Parker began playing guitar and then drums by age 10. (Its no coincidence that Tame Impala songs typicallyhave tremendous drum sounds.) Parkers music teacher hooked him up with three other students and they became a cover band, jamming onLenny Kravitz songs. By the time he was 12, Parker was already experimenting with recording equipment, and he found that he no longer neededother people.

I thought it was amazing that I was able to layer myself many times, he recalls. Nothing has really changed since then. Ive just gotten slightlybetter at recording.



Modular Tame Impala, still a trio, in 2008.

As Tame Impala has become more popular, Parker has made the band less collaborative. Outside of Tame Impala, Parker has enjoyed playingwith others, most notably super-producer Mark Ronson, who featured Parker on this years UptownSpecial.(Just having him around madeeverything a little bit cooler and better, Ronson told TheGuardian.) But within the confines of Tame Impala, Parker is the unquestioned king.While bandmate Jay Watson received cowriting credit on two Lonerismtracks, Apocalypse Dreams and Elephant, he and the rest of the bandwere kept out of the creation of Currents. From the beginning, Tame Impala has essentially been a solo project on record that becomes a bandonstage, mostly because Parker can no longer play all of the instruments himself. But no matter the context, the essence of the music comes

directly from him, and hes bolder about expressing that now.2

2.Fortherecord,theothermembersofTameImpalaareWatson,DominicSimper,CamAvery,andJulienBarbagallo.

The more confidence I get with making music, the more I feel like I can just rely on myself to fulfill me, Parker says. [Before], I didnt reallyhave any self-confidence. I would rely on my friends going, Oh yeah, sick track, man. I guess as long as its not Tame Impala, I could work withpeople. The longer Ive been in Tame Impala, the harder it is for me to split up the roles. Its like my brain is just all over everything. Im thinkingof a hundred things at once. To suddenly not think about one of those things takes some getting used to.

When Tame Impala appears as a band in front of tens of thousands of people, Parker looks at it as playing a role just like everything elseoutside of making records. Sometimes this rock-star playacting requires a lot of grunt work thats the opposite of fun, like the recentlawsuitabout unpaid royalties filed against the bands former labels Modular Recordings and Universal Music Australia. And then theres theglad-handing that happens backstage at high-profile events like Coachella, a magnet for every music-industry barnacle within 1,000 miles.

Coachella is 90 percent people saying hello, Parker says sardonically, just people that work for, like, the style department of your record label.Hello,nicetomeetyou Thats most of what Coachella is.

The upside of realizing that youre playing a game is seeing how much fun rock stardom can be. After all, you want to enjoy yourself because itsCoachella, Parker says. So, Tame Impala rolled into Coachellas opening weekend with a big entourage and immediately commenced boozing inthe bands trailer. (Parker is partial to gin.) The revelry didnt taper off until about an hour before showtime.

You have to try to balance the whole day between being too sober and too drunk, Parker says. Were all pretty pissfit. Do you say pissed in



America for drunk?

Some people do, but its not common nomenclature, I say.

We have this term called pissfit if you drink a lot regularly, you become pissfit, so you can be drunk but youre able to function. Except forbeing able to sing in tune.

Parker admits that he resumed drinking heavily immediately after Tame Impalas Coachella set to wash away the sorrow of what he viewed as alackluster performance. The band was delayed by five minutes, forcing Parker to cut all the songs short. And since Parker rules all in TameImpala, the mistakes weigh heaviest on him.

Sometimes its things that only I know how to fix, because our stage set is quite complicated, he says.



Interscope Parker in 2015.

Back at Swingers, Parker is killing time before heading off to a rehearsal for an appearance the next night on Conan. He already has some newsongs knocking around his head. Parker is a dabbler, always writing and recording something new over time, those songs coalesce into albums.He records so many demos that he doesnt always remember making them for instance, he knows he worked out a rough outline for the newalbums gorgeous, introspective slow-dance number Yes Im Changing at some point on the road, but all other details of the songs genesis haveevaporated from Parkers pissfit brain.

Ill write songs wherever I am, he says. Last night I was thinking of something but I forgot it. I had something this morning, but I dont thinkits very good. I think of multiple things every day, but I dont always get to record them. If Ive got my phone these days, its easier. Ill just whipout the voice recorder.

I mention to Parker that he ought to consider releasing his voice memos as bonus tracks, like Taylor Swift did for 1989.Im not sure how truethat Taylor Swift thing is, he says, adding: Didnt Max Martin write all her songs?

Its Parkers comfort zone to be inside his head working out new melodies, figuring out how to play different sonic textures against each other,creating what he calls an orchestra of sounds and emotions. But hes changing. His lifestyle is poised to get appreciably more interesting in thesecond half of 2015. His days of sipping coffee in an L.A. restaurant unrecognized may soon be over. Hes even throwing some lighthearted shadeat the worlds biggest pop singer. Stardom awaits and Kevin Parker is ready.

I used to smoke weed and I dont even smoke weed anymore, he says, because, its like, the worlds intense enough as it is.

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