Tame Impala/Pond Member To Launch Debut Solo Album As Gum

The multi-talented Jay Watson, known to the public as the drummer from Tame Impala, the guitarist from Pond, or simply just Gum, has announced the forthcoming release of his debut solo full-length, Delorean Highway.

Management label Spinning Top – who recently launched a new label in partnership with Warner's ADA Australia – has set the ball rolling on the run-up to the release by offering the album's cover of Genesis' Misunderstanding as a free download over on their website.

It's the slightest of introductions to the 10 “paranoid pop” songs that inhabit Delorean Highway's track list, but a particularly fitting one.

Says Watson: “I first heard Misunderstanding at 40,000 feet watching your run-of-the-mill crappy rock documentary on Genesis or Phil Collins, or both; I can't remember. It was the period when they turned from a very English prog band into a very commercial pop band. I only heard a 10-second snippet of it, and had to keep rewinding and listening to it over and over again to try and hear the words, in order to Google it later.

“Anyways, maybe it was just the fact that I always cry on airplanes, but something made that song seem super-heartfelt to me. Of course I then ruined it by putting flanger over the whole thing when I covered it for my album, but hey, I was into Chrome at the time.”

Misunderstanding follows last year's Growin' Up, which is now being re-serviced as part of a dual single released to radio accommodating both songs.  

Delorean Highway is available for pre-order on iTunes from Monday, May 12, and will be released as a digital download and for general release via the iTunes Store on Friday, May 30, with a vinyl pressing due to be released in June.

Have a listen to the original Misunderstanding below, then head over Spinning Top way and get yourself some free Gummy goodness.