How TAME IMPALA Makes Music

9:01 · 1,577 words of transcript · watch on YouTube

1. The central fact most listeners miss: nearly every layer on a Tame Impala record is written, played, recorded and produced by Kevin Parker alone, with the live band a separate touring act.
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2. That touring band is largely the members of Pond, another Australian psych group with its own records.
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3. His reason for working alone is specific. Collaborating in a studio means compromising on artistic direction, so he avoids it.
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4. His father taught him guitar and introduced him to the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and also told him to stay out of the music industry because the magic goes once it becomes a job.
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5. He went to university for engineering, switched to astronomy for something enjoyable, and spent lectures writing songs instead.
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6. The name is a deliberate disguise rather than a statement, chosen to blend in with the fashion for band-style monikers instead of using his own name.
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7. He was driving to his final astronomy exam when a label called about a deal, and he turned the car around and went home to write.
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8. His father died of cancer after a year's illness, just as the project was taking off, and never saw his son succeed in the industry he had warned him about.
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9. Innerspeaker is named for the idea that a song arrives so vividly that someone plugging a stereo into your head could hear it, which the cover's recursive image mirrors.
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10. His perfectionism is measurable: thousands of vocal takes on Currents and a deadline pushed back by close to six months over details nobody else would hear.
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