Chapter 1

Desire Be...

It feels like Tame Impala have always been popular.

From the moment Kevin Parker's early MySpace demos caused a stir in 2007, they've always attracted a lot of attention. Despite being forced to meet expectations since their formation, they've still been able to deliver music of such an impeccable standard throughout their career.

I'll start a song and love it and be like 'this is the best song I've ever done' and then a week later I'll be like 'oh, this is pretty ordinary'. Kevin Parker

Tame Impala's self-titled EP in 2008 featured five tracks of woozy, almost transcendental psychedelia.

It spawned a couple of minor indie hits in 'Desire Be, Desire Go' and 'Half Full Glass Of Wine' and proved that the hype surrounding this mysterious Perth collective was justified.

For Kevin Parker, it was a way to excise some tracks that had been sitting on his hard drive for some time.

"A lot of the songs are from a long time ago," he told triple j TV in 2009. "We chose those songs from around 25 we had on the EP. 'Half Full Glass Of Wine' is from 2005."

The hype might have helped Tame Impala gain an audience quickly, but they still had to do a lot of the hard work expected from emerging indie acts.

"I feel like I'm in the Army Reserve," Kevin Parker told triple j's Scott Dooley in 2009. "Like I'm a weekend warrior."

Tame Impala were living at home, working day jobs and spending the weekends out on the road playing pubs and clubs along the east coast of the country.

"You get used to [touring] like two or three days into a tour. But with these tours, by the time you get used to touring you're back home, sitting on your bed doing nothing," then bassist, now guitarist, Dom Simper said.

"I'm going through this stage at the moment where I'll start a song and love it and be like 'this is the best song I've ever done' and then a week later I'll be like 'oh, this is pretty ordinary'. So now I've got like 50 general outlines of songs that I'll go through phases of loving and hating them."

The power of spontaneity is a common thread through the whole Tame Impala story. For a band that relies on such beautifully constructed, epic sounding music, they rely on those initial flashes a hell of a lot.

Chapter 2

Innerspeaker

The full scope of Kevin Parker's brilliant musical vision and his ability to capture it, often alone, became blindingly evident on Tame Impala's 2010 debut album Innerspeaker.

They were the great hope of 2010 for their record label and probably could have recorded their album in just about any studio, with anyone, in the world. They chose to go it alone, in a "ginormous beach cottage" a couple of hours south of Perth.

"For us to suddenly start writing and rehearsing songs as a band and go to a pro studio in LA or something probably would have been the biggest leap from what Tame Impala is used to," Parker told triple j in 2010.

"Also the fact that we do almost all our recording at home means that getting in a producer and other outside professionals to tell us how to make a recording is a pretty absurd idea to us."

It didn't end up in one massive party though, as some may have feared.

"We were pretty focussed (focussed but lazy) most of the time so there was little debauchery," Parker said. "It was only a couple of us for most of the time and it was only when our friends and the rest of the band came down that we had it large, even then it was pretty chilled."

The dynamic of it being a band, but it also being an almost solely Kevin Parker-led project was beginning to make sense.

We all have our own bands and side projects and solo projects and other collective nouns for making noise of some sort. Tame Impala is just my little baby and is just one piece of the puzzle, it's not the most important or even the most talked about amongst us. Kevin Parker

"It's more about how it's always been with Tame Impala and all the rest of our bands," Parker said.

"There are lots of us and we all have our own bands and side projects and solo projects and other collective nouns for making noise of some sort. Tame Impala is just my little baby and is just one piece of the puzzle, it's not the most important or even the most talked about amongst us."

Tame Impala in 2010

Innerspeaker was mixed in New York by long time Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev producer Dave Fridmann, with Parker by his side. The young Aussie was excited to work with such a revered and inspirational figure, but it didn't exactly go to plan.

"I thought I was going crazy the first week I was there. I was so jet-lagged and overwhelmed, I was like a confused zombie," he told triple j. "Wayne Coyne's random fluorescent spiral murals on the wall didn't help either. I barely left the cabin and only really slept in the mornings before Dave arrived."

In an interview with triple j's The Doctor later that year, Parker admitted that it took a while for each of them to understand where each other were coming from.

"I thought we'd instantly connect and be able to ramble to each other – but it took a couple of days to get a communication thing," he said.

But, when things clicked, the two had a clear personal and musical connection that helped make the album shine.

"Dave was my pillar of sanity actually," Parker said. "He's a genuine scientist more than a mad scientist. Imagine a NASA worker who's grown up dealing with mental patients and enjoys music in his spare time."

Chapter 3

Lonerism

There can't have been too many people concerned about Kevin Parker suffering from second album syndrome, or the sophomore slump, as it's known.

Even so, few would have expected a record as well-formed and mature as Lonerism.

It won the 2012 J Award, album of the year gongs from Rolling Stone and NME (among others) and scored them three ARIA Awards – including album of the year – and a Grammy nomination. Tame Impala were already popular, but Lonerism took things to a new level.

Tame Impala in 2012

"It definitely feels like it's taken a step up this time around," Simper told triple j's Zan Rowe in 2012. But Parker pled ignorance.

"I actually have no idea how further spread we are this time around. The only thing we have to go by is people at shows and whatever we see on the internet, which isn't always accurate anyway. No one ever talks to us about Tame Impala."

From the propulsive, claustrophobic opener 'Be Above It' to the plain but pretty 'Sun's Coming Up', the album felt like a modern interpretation of classic rock, complete with that haze of heady success and youthful musical genius that all the best bands of the '60s and '70s had.

Fans and critics said plenty about that retro influence, but Parker dismissed it.

"We are people of now, the time that it is. 2012," he told triple j's Richard Kingsmill in 2012. "Every time we do something we feel like it's relevant, totally new and has absolutely nothing to do with anything that happened in the past."

Every time we do something we feel like it's relevant, totally new and has absolutely nothing to do with anything that happened in the past. Kevin Parker

More than anything, Parker wanted the world to know he wasn't afraid of making a pop album. He even told some journalists he had a stack of songs ready should Kylie Minogue should ever come calling.

"I really always had a love of pop music," he told Kingsmill. "This album was more a case of leaving off the pop filter.

"In the past I've wanted to be a part of the league of musicians that aren't doing pop. Going against the commercial thing for the sake of doing it. So I've put that filter on it. 'It's gotta be alternative.' 'It's gotta be something the people who listen to pop music wouldn't like.' Now I just do exactly what I feel like doing – even if it's the cheesiest thing ever."

I no longer have any other part of my life to worry about. I'm not trying to fuel this backup life anymore. Music is my thing. It makes it a new beast. Kevin Parker

Lonerism was led by 'Elephant', a punchy, three and a half minute belter that Parker called "the groovy, glam, T-Rex moment on the album". It proved a perfect lead single, but not exactly indicative of the rest of the album.

"The rest of the songs are wavy and spacey and 'Elephant' is just like this jackhammer," Parker told Kingsmill. "All efforts were made to make it as fuzzy and jolty as possible."

They abandoned the beach cottage and this time Parker worked on the majority of the record from his house.

"I'd wake up some time, maybe like midday, and walk into the studio. Maybe at about six o'clock I'd think about getting some food.

"I don't really feel the need to be doing something else. It's just become easy to do this kind of thing since I no longer have any other part of my life to worry about. I'm not trying to fuel this backup life anymore. Music is my thing. It makes it a new beast."

"I used to have a job and friends," he laughed.

'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards' was the first Tame Impala song to feature no guitar and was largely made up of Parker's first takes in the studio.

"When I was writing it I couldn't work out if I was stealing a Prince song or if I was just going to give the song to Prince."

The thrill of that first creative spark remained the most exciting thing about creating music for Parker.

I couldn't work out if I was stealing a Prince song or if I was just going to give the song to Prince. Kevin Parker

"Generally the first few hours that a song exists is the most magical. It's the most fulfilling feeling for me.

"I'll spend the next 12 hours completely obsessed and throwing ideas down everywhere and really going nuts with it.

"Then the next two years is spent listening back to it, deciding whether I love it or hate it.

"Most of what you hear in the finished version is what was done in the first few hours.

"I'm so obsessed with those first few hours where it was forged. In a way I'm just trying to get back that feeling that I had when I first came up with it. I can never really get back that feeling of wonderment I had in the first few hours of knocking up this song."

'Mind Mischief' is the most extreme example of inspiration striking in a flash.

"The drum track that's used is me checking the drums to make sure they were working, with the tape rolling," Parker told Kingsmill.

"I was listening back to the drums just trying to make them sound cool and the guitar melody just popped into my head, as a lot of Tame Impala songs happen, it just popped into existence. I was like 'oh, I better record that'. Then the vocal melody came along and I recorded that as quick as I could. I think I was actually really drunk at that time. It was really late at night."

Chapter 4

Currents

After the mania of Lonerism subsided, Parker went back to Perth and got to work on Currents, the band's third album. The album is about change, something Parker knows a bit about given the trajectory of his career in the past seven years.

"It's a powerful feeling, when you realise this is happening," Parker told triple j's Zan Rowe in July this year, just before Currents' release. "Things are changing, sometimes without your consent. When that happens it's quite a powerful thing. So much so that it felt like the whole album could be based around that feeling."

Currents is a markedly different record to Tame Impala's first two. It embraces disco, soul, R&B and house music more than ever. Parker knew there'd be fans who didn't appreciate the new direction, but hopes he can inspire people to open their minds a little and embrace new styles.

"I know a lot of people will have their thoughts about sounds and genres or whatever," he told Zan. “But if people can still see that it's definitely still Tame Impala at the core of it maybe [it will] even influence some people to accept some different styles of music they wouldn't have otherwise been into."

Parker's vocals were no longer buried in the haze when Currents came around. He boosted them in the mix and his lyrics became more prominent than ever. He said the theme of the record was strong enough that he wanted it to stand out.

"I guess this album, more than the rest, had a strong message to it," he told Zan. "Not to say my other albums haven't had a strong message, but with this one more than ever it felt like the music was the soundtrack to the message.

"Kind of like in the way that Serge Gainsbourg did it. His approach to songwriting, especially on his concept albums, was like the music was the cinematic atmosphere to whatever he was saying. It was like the two go alongside each other, rather than the vocals just being another one of the instruments, which is something I've thought about in the past."

I'm terrible at taking compliments. So, I'll play it to my girlfriend and she'll be like 'I really love this' and I'll be like 'Do you? Do you really love this? Or are you just saying that to make me feel better?' Kevin Parker

Again, he largely toiled away by himself on the record. He opened up about how isolating the process can be and how difficult it can be to figure out which of his songs are working and which aren't.

"You go to friends for advice, but even that is tainted with its own weird thing," he said. "I'll play it to a friend and I'll just be totally monitoring their face to see what they say. And I'm terrible at taking compliments. So, I'll play it to my girlfriend and she'll be like 'I really love this' and I'll be like 'Do you? Do you really love this? Or are you just saying that to make me feel better?'.

"Going to people for advice does not help at all anyway. I feel like it doesn't have anything to do with it being a solitary recording experience. It's still just as isolating if there are other people involved. Even just thinking about it, I'm sweating. I feel like I'm back there, in the studio, losing my mind."

Forever the perfectionist, Parker now programs the lights for the Tame Impala live show as well.

"I like to get involved with a lot of lights in the Tame set, synchronising things that happen visually with things that happen with sound," he told triple j's Veronica and Lewis earlier this year. "I love it when it happens, when there's this link between the two. As I'm making a song in one studio, I'll try and go over and do the lighting for it when I get bored of how it sounds."

Tame Impala have three hit records, have played at the top of some of the biggest festival bills on the planet and are universally adored. If it all ended now, would Kevin Parker be satisfied?

"No," he says after long consideration. "I think that's one of my qualities that I've only recently started to appreciate.

“I'm never satisfied with what I've done as being all I need to do. I'm just one of those people that shifts the goal posts every time I have a kick. Which is good, it keeps me on my feet. It keeps me exploring, which I guess is important. That's my job."