Kevin Parker Accused Of Lifting Drum Sample For Tame Impala's 'Eventually'

Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker has laughed off an apparent complaint from a veteran funk musician over the origin of a drum line featured in his band's track Eventually, as found on their acclaimed recent album Currents.

Parker posted an email he received from (someone at least purporting to be) veteran US musician Samm Culley, of '70s funk outfit Skull Snaps, suggesting that he had, without authorisation, used the band's drum sample from their 1973 track It's A New Day in the outro of Eventually — which, as Stereogum points out, has been a topic of conversation on Reddit lately — and claiming that a musicologist "says it is indeed our sample".

"If we don't hear from you in three days, we will file the necessary papers in court against you and the record company," Culley wrote.

For his part, Parker doesn't seem overly worried, calling the email an "unexpected compliment" before suggesting Culley fire his musicologist (which may not a bad idea - while the first two bars of Tame Impala's drum line are essentially the same rhythm as Skull Snaps, albeit at a different tempo, there are additional bass kicks in the pattern by the time it reaches its third and fourth bars and beyond, so... y'know; it's a pretty long bow to draw, at a glance. But we're no "musicologists").

You can have a listen to both tracks  for your own educational/decision-making purposes below.