Kevin Parker Opens Up On Tame Impala Missing Money Saga

Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker has opened up to theMusic.com.au regarding the saga that took place last week, which saw BMG make allegations against Modular Recordings founder Stephen Pavlovic over missing royalties, speculated to be dangerously close to the million-dollar mark.

Parker admitted he was surprised when he discovered German multi-national music company BMG had taken action.

“When it actually hit the surface, and everyone knew about it, I was as surprised. I didn't know they were going to sue anyone, I didn't know there was going to be any suing going on, so I was as surprised and interested as anyone," Parker said.

"I knew there was some stuff going on, obviously, and we knew it was going to happen, we knew something was on the horizon... We just didn't know what was going to happen with it. As far as I was concerned I'd written off that side of things, I'd heard that some money had gone missing, blah blah blah, that's all I really thought about it.”

Parker himself had alluded to a lack of international sales when he fronted a Reddit AMA recently, where he claimed that “Up until recently, from all of Tame Impala's record sales outside of Australia I had received zero dollars. Someone high up spent the money before it got to me.”

When prompted earlier today as to why he decided to bring it up during the session, he maintained it was for the importance of recognising that artists deserve to be paid for their output.

“Different people have different opinions on whether it should be owned, physically owned, whether you paid for it, [and] if you got it for free it's not as valuable as if you paid for it. I guess all I'm saying is the idea that paying for music is important because the artist deserves money for their work. It made me realise my situation is like - in terms of money, I haven't made any album money, I haven't made any money from album sales.”

Parker also expressed that due to the nature of the case, that so much money has gone missing is something he has to move on from. “It's not frustrating, that's not the word, it's just… that's the way it is. It's one of those things that I accept,” he said.

Admittedly, he also clarified that he found it difficult to understand the logistics of the case.

“To begin with, it's complicated, it's so complicated. Put it this way, I've had it explained to me a number of times, how the money went missing and where it went and why it went missing, but about 30 seconds into the explanation I'm just lost because there's a difference between mechanical royalties and songwriting royalties.

"It gets extremely technical extremely quickly, and that's why I'm not that interested in it. I've been okay, I'm doing fine, you know, I'm getting by, I can pay for my dinner. In the end, I'm lucky enough to travel the world and make albums, and not have to worry about not having a job. Whilst it is naive that I don't give a shit about that much money that's gone missing, I just find it counter-productive to get worked up over it. They're just gonna battle it out and do their thing, I'm a spectator at this point.”

Tame Impala release their third album Currents on July 17.

*This article has been amended. Parker had been mistakenly quoted as referring to loyalties instead of royalties. The error occurred in the subbing of the article.