As we know, Kevin Parker is Tame Impala. In the studio, he plays all the instruments and writes all the songs. It’s his vision, his project. But what happens when he plays live? How much leeway do his touring musicians have?
That was one of the issues that was discussed when Parker appeared on Questlove’s podcast, er The Questlove Show. When the Roots man asked him about collaborating live with other musicians, Parker admitted: “We are amazingly on the same page these days. It took us many years to get there, and like in the early days, there was a lot of tension and a lot of friction, a lot of confusion about like what we're doing here.
“You know, it's like, 'Are we a band, Kevin, or is this the Kevin show, and we're just your session musicians?' You know, there was a lot of that so like we couldn't work out what it was, and what it was supposed to be. So I think for a long time it was difficult and caused a lot of arguments and just like you know bad vibes."
Parker admitted that he used to be quite controlling, especially about drum sounds: "I used to be such a stickler for sounds, drum fills.
"When Jay was on drums, be like, ‘Oh, Jay, I noticed you didn't do the drum fill that's on the album coming into the second verse’. And he'd be like, ‘Oh yeah, I just did my own drum fill. Is that okay?’ It's like, well, the kids are gonna wanna hear that drum fill, so maybe just do that one. He's like, ‘Well, fuck you. I'll do every drum fill in the fucking album’.
“Now it’s like we’ve dialled in the instruments, the synths we’ve got, like a Swiss army knife I can make them sound like anything. Now we appreciate the live versions as their own thing.”
Some things though are non-negotiable. “I’m big on recognisability,” he adds. “When that song starts, people have got to know it’s that song straight away. It’s got to be instant, right? That’s got to be the ‘everyone fucking hands in the air’ moment. But for the rest of the song, it can be its own thing. Whatever works best. Playing music in the arena is a completely different experience to headphones on in your bedroom, and it should reflect that.”
Questlove then asked if he had learned to let some things go. “Exactly,” Parker agreed. “Rehearsals are really fun now.”
