Artist of the Month for June 2020
Tame Impala is a psychedelic music project of Australian multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker.
Parker writes, records, performs, and produces all of the project’s music. And as a touring act, Tame Impala consists of Parker (guitar, vocals), Dominic Simper (guitar, synthesiser), Jay Watson (synthesiser, vocals, guitar), Cam Avery (bass guitar, vocals), and Julien Barbagallo (drums, vocals).
Parker originally started this project in 2007 after a series of singles and EP’s Tame Impala’s debut studio album Innerspeaker was released in 2010. It was certified gold in Australia and was well received by critics. In 2012, Lonerism was also acclaimed reaching platinum status in Australia and received a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.
The origins of this act can be attributed to the Perth music scene. Parker played in a number of bands and Tame Impala emerged from home recording projects. A number of these tracks were initially posted on Myspace by Parker and this brought the interest from numerous labels and he eventually signed a worldwide deal with Modular Recordings in July of 2008.
To know where Tame Impala got their name, an interviewer from Reddit asked Kevin Parker himself:
INTERVIEWER: Sometimes when you hear a band’s name for the first time it can sort of sound out-of-joint but down the line the name Tame Impala, in an odd way really suits what the group do, though I can’t explain why.
KEVIN : That’s great, and yeah I do know what you mean,…the name ‘Tame Impala’ is just a reference to the African animal really, from a perspective of coming into contact with a live one, one that you’d come across in nature and having this real brief, unspoken moment but with some level of communication between yourself and this wild animal. Then the next minute it’s gone returning to where it came from.
Tame Impala has created a new wave of sound in the music industry and their slow release of EP’s and albums leave their fans itching for more. However, their albums take time and are the product of many different factors for Parker.
In an interview with The New York Times Parker said, “If I could make an album every year I would,” he said. “I’d love to. I hate to sound precious, or to say I can’t hurry it, but it’s true.”
But that wait is ultimately worth it, each album debuting higher than the last and fans being able to discern the meaning behind Parker’s lyrics.
From small staged gigs in America growing to sold out shows in stadiums and Coachella, Parker has taken his tour of Tame Impala impressively far and is still going.
