Avoiding Electrocution And Conquering The World

And what an album it is. Not pigeonholed by his fandom’s love of the psych-rock-guitar leanings of yore, Kevin Parker has gone deep into heart and mind within, exploring loops and electronics in his inimitable, mesmeric way. 

While being granted near guru-like status, Parker remains unaffected and cheerfully willing to talk about his work and creative process.  What’s even more exciting than what’s been already released is what no doubt lays ahead.

Kevin Parker guests with Mark Ronson at Metro City on Wednesday, July 22. Tame Impala will tour Australia later in the year.

This would be a rare moment at home for you so far this year, am I right?

Yeah, it feels good. I’m savouring every moment.

Or as much as you can while trying to do interviews...

Yeah, but it’s okay I’m just sitting around literally about 50 metres from home at a pub. I’m arguably soaking up more home time here doing interviews than if I was just sitting in my studio, because my studio is nowhere.

You’re not long back from the last of your shows in the States, how were they what with playing the new material?

They were great; they were amazing. I think they were some of the best shows we’ve done, and I mean that honestly, especially in America. It was a long tour, put it this way, I expected to get sick of touring a lot quicker than I did because with America it’s so big you could play a show in a different city for a year and not go to the same place - its mind-bogglingly big. 

But they were all good shows. It was weird, each one was kind of different in itself, which is also weird because shows in America can quickly become repetitive.

Yeah, well you’ve become sort of a big festival band, you’re on a lot of them and the band clearly works well in those festival situations.

I’m not so sure, does it?

Well they keep asking you to do them, I guess that’s a barometer. 

Yeah, true. 

So there’s obviously a lot of demand for the band to play, what are your personal preferences, these days, between headline shows as opposed to those mega festival appearances?

It’s a constant game of tennis, sometimes I’m like ‘Yeah! Festivals! This is where I wanna fuckin’ be’. But then you play a festival and no one gives a shit and you’re like, ‘Yeah, fuck this’, and the same with headlines. You either have a good headline or an amazing headline. Because everyone’s there to see you so it’s going to be fun either way. Festivals, it can swing any way. They range between an absolute labour and the best time you’ve ever had. And there’s absolutely no way of knowing until you’re on stage. 

In fact, we played this festival in Cincinnati last week and we got totally rained out, completely rained out. The rained started coming in sideways, on top of us, it was like we were standing in the shower playing the gig, and of course all the crew guys just ran on and started covering shit with plastic and we just decided to play on anyway. I was delirious with excitement because it was so different to anything that had happened at any other festival. It was like a weird dream, it was like I was standing in the shower playing a gig, so another part of me took over and it became this tribal experience. 

And the crowd was instantly four times as more into it, they were suddenly just loving it. Up until then it was a pretty ordinary gig, once the rain started pissing down there was a connection between us and the audience, we were both in the same boat. That was one of the best festival experiences I’ve ever had, we only ended up playing for 20 minutes because they literally told us to get off stage because there was an electrocution danger. I was standing in the same puddle that the power was, next to my pedal board.

Well that’s pretty good really, I don’t think the Beatles played gigs any longer than 20 minutes back in the day.

Yeah, well they just turned it off on us! But up until then it was perfect.

Download the X-Press App Magazine to read the full interview