Kevin Parker revels in his love of disco and the loneliness of the studio for new Tame Impala album

IT HAS been decreed Tame Impala will be the biggest band in the world this year. On the eve of the release of third album Currents, Kevin Parker reveals the album’s secrets.

KEVIN Parker should be dancing. Disco dancing. The Tame Impala creative controller has unexpectedly made their third album Currents a mirrorball-friendly affair, a record one might expect from Daft Punk rather than Australian psychedelic rockers who have become one of the most in-demand acts on the planet with their face-melting jams.

Parker doesn’t think he can dance but jokes he is not ruling out choreography for their upcoming Splendour In the Grass or future gigs.

Dancing man ... Kevin Parker embraces his love of disco on Currents. Picture: Supplied / Universal

“I’m not ruling out dance classes,” he says, chuckling.

“I think there is a theory that people who know how to create grooves are good at interpreting them. But have you ever met a drummer who can dance? Do they exist? Can Dave Grohl dance? I am probably going to get a heap of responses on this. Oh, Sheila E, she could dance.”

It may be the only musically-inclined talent he cannot claim. Parker wrote the songs, played the instruments, recorded, produced and mixed Currents.

In between finishing the world tour for Tame Impala’s acclaimed second album Lonerism, Parker hooked up with his mate, English producer and DJ Mark Ronson to contribute to his Uptown Special album. The Australian musician ended up on three tracks including the single Daffodils.

He also worked on Man It Feels Like Space Again, the sixth album from his friends Pond.

Splendid headliners ... Tame Impala are expected to draw one of the biggest crowds at the Splendour In The Grass festival later this month. Picture: Supplied.

Parker then decamped to his West Australian base to make Currents. The 29-year-old artist has always preferred the isolation offered by Australia’s west coast, recording Tame’s 2010 debut record Innerspeaker in the “treehouse” with enviably stunning 180 degree views of the Indian Ocean. Lonerism sessions also happened back in Perth and Paris, the home of his now ex-girlfriend Melody Prochet of Melody’s Echo Chamber.

He prefers to create in a bubble of his own musical imagination and doesn’t seem keen to explore how Currents rides the dance Zeitgeist.

“I feel more insular about my musical notions, whether that’s true or not,” he says.

“I like to believe that ideas for songs and sounds are internally home ground rather than I heard this sound and I want something like that. For me, it’s all on a subconscious level.

“I have always been a huge Daft Punk fan and disco music in whatever form but I guess I never fully embraced it as something I could stand by. There’s always been that stigma against dance music or disco — I’m a guitar player, you know.

“But this time I embraced all things I love to see what would happen. You get to do that at this point of my life.”

This point of Parker’s life is all over the lyrics. His relationship and breakup with Prochet informs half the album, while the rest appears to be addressing the big questions to be faced by a young man contemplating adulthood in his late 20s.

And like all good late twenty-somethings attuned to this phase of one’s life, Parker did some reading on the Saturn Return.

Saturn Return ... Parker is asking the big questions about “life, love and the universe” on Currents. Picture Supplied/ Universal

For those who missed that chapter in their adult development course, in astrology the first Saturn return is when that planet come back to the position it was in at your birth, which is roughly 29 years, marking the end of youth.

“I came across that term halfway through working on the album and I guess I was going through a lot mentally, revisiting how I think about life, love and the universe,” Parker says.

“I am not astrologically minded, although I was into the zodiac in high school, but I got over that when I started studying astronomy and you can’t believe in both. Maybe there is some science to it, a reason that people in their late 20s have this sudden rearrangement of their perspectives on life.

“I came really close to calling a song Saturn Return because it seemed all too perfect.”

But Parker likes the idea of himself as a musical mad scientist, cooped up in his home studio with every instrument, mic, laptop and recording console within arm’s reach when the muse strikes.

His favourite moment is the initial inception of the song.

Next big thing ... Tame Impala should be spending some time on the winner’s podium for Currents. Picture: Supplied.

“The most goosebump feeling is right at the start of the song. Not that I have tried heroin but it’s like heroin addiction when the first time you take it is the best time,” he says.

He obsesses over the tiniest details of sounds even knowing that he is the only person who would pick up on them in the final mix but then he will happily go with a first take of a bassline which is slightly out of time.

“There are some drum sounds on this album that took me two years. If I removed the amount of time I spend at the mixing desk on drum sounds, this album would have taken two months. I am not exaggerating,” he says.

“At some point I outsmart myself and get someone to tap me on the shoulder. I get lost in what I am doing and will follow an idea all the way down the path no matter how little or big it is.”

With superlative reviews for Currents flooding the internet when the album hit reviewers’ inboxes a few weeks ago, it would seem all that painstaking attention to detail and the lonely existence of the musical creator will amount to success.

Tastemakers from America and Europe have already declared Tame Impala will be the biggest band of 2015 and predict Currents will top album of the year lists.

The laid-back, funny but focused Parker keeps the pressure of expectations at bay. As far as he is concerned, all the world wants from Tame Impala is “cool music”. They don’t need another rock hero and he isn’t the man for the job.

“The pressure or expectations that come from within are far, far, far more heavy and potent and present,” he says.

“Your brain is constantly shifting the goalposts — as soon as you want something, you want something else. The outside world is just going ‘Give us cool music!’ And if it has feeling and groove and meaning, people will appreciate it whether it’s the fans or a new bunch of people.

“Pleasing yourself is a completely different ballgame.”

HEAR: Currents is out tomorrow.

SEE: Tame Impala perform at Splendour In The Grass, Byron Bay, July 24-26 (sold out).

Originally published as Kevin Parker revels in his love of disco and the loneliness of the studio for new Tame Impala album