“They were an amazing live band, even before they’d really done a bunch of touring,” says MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser, an early champion who brought them on the road. “We have a lot of the same influences. We bonded right away.”

Tame Impala caused a hipster frenzy during their first visit to the States in 2009 and, much like Seattle after Nirvana in the 1990s, labels, agents and journalists almost immediately started scouring Perth for the next great psychedelic act. That search shed some light on Pond, a harder-edged brother band that includes Watson, Allbrook and other Tame family members. (“Pond does all of the naughty things that Tame Impala wouldn’t do,” Goldwasser says of the group, who some consider the Stones to Tame Impala’s Beatles.)

“It’s about 15 people, who make up about seven bands,” Parker clarifies. “It’s not really a ‘psychedelic scene.’”

Parker also released a proper full-length, Innerspeaker, which he recorded while camped out in a beach community about four hours outside Perth. Watson and Simper left their fingerprints on the sessions, and Dave Fridmann—who has helped bands like MGMT and The Flaming Lips make traditionally weird sounds feel sexy—was eventually brought in to mix the sessions, but Parker made the album almost entirely on his own.

The psych scene’s shot heard around the world, the record boasted standout, supercharged stoner-rock tracks like “Lucidity,” “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind?” “Solitude Is Bliss” and “Expectation”—and introduced a new, blog generation raised on garage rock to a kaleidoscope of heavy, ‘60s-drenched sounds.

Parker followed Innerspeaker with Lonerism, a denser, more experimental, art-rock record that married his newfound reliance on electronic music and ambient sounds with his increased interest in pop. He utilized numerous synths and cites Todd Rundgren as a direct influence on the sessions. Once again, Parker recorded most of the album on his own—this time, while on tour— with some minimal help from Watson. (Fridmann returned to sweeten the mix, too.)

“When Lonerism came out, I didn’t expect anyone to say it was psychedelic,” Parker says. “In fact, I was feeling a bit guilty for the psychedelic Deadheads. Turns out, it was the most psychedelic album I’ve made.”

Watson, who in a rare move co-wrote a few songs on Lonerism, developed into Parker’s first responder. “Jay is very direct with his criticism—he’ll give you the real deal,” Parker says. “I felt really paranoid about Lonerism before I brought it out. I’m always insecure about my albums, so I played him Lonerism, and he told me it sounded like a big mess of drum fills and flanger. He couldn’t pick any melodies.”

However, there were melodies buried in those left-leaning recordings, and Lonerism spawned several popular singles in 2012 and 2013: the marching psych-ramp “Elephant,” the dreamy anti-ballad “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” and the spiraling pop-odyssey “Mind Mischief.” It also propelled Tame Impala into large clubs and choice festival spots around the world.