Tame Impala

by Jana Birchum

"Writing songs from a personal point of view is kind of like tearing off part of yourself and throwing it out there," admits Kevin Parker.

Since pouring his soul into song, the timid Tame Impala frontman finds he's slowly emerging from his shell.

"It's rewarding – therapeutic, even. I used to be quite shy with my lyrics," he recalls. "Like, cryptic and metaphoric. On [2012 LP] Lonerism, though, I really put myself out there, lyrically: my relationships, my childhood, everything. It was really hard to do at first, but it felt so rewarding afterward."

The Sydney-born singer remains reticent onstage nonetheless.

"I'm terrible with eye contact! I can never look people in the audience in the eye. Even in normal life, like in conversations, I have to force myself to look people in the eye when I talk to them," he laughs. "It's like pushing magnets together, you know? We don't wanna stick."

Parker curbs that anxiety with age-old rock remedies. The multi-instrumentalist claims to have mustered the inspiration for the Perth-based quintet's third LP, July's Currents, while tailspinning down a Bee Gees wormhole on a coke/mushroom cocktail ("I, at least, have to reach the 'right' level of drunk before playing.") The 29-year-old's casualness contradicts his take-charge nature in the studio. Currents is a woozy whirlpool of Seventies-stroked psychedelic soul, all written, recorded, performed, produced, and mixed by Parker himself.

"I'm proud of these songs," he reflects. "Particularly, I think, of 'Love/Paranoia,' as it has some chord changes I especially like. Sometimes, when I go back and listen to an album I made a month or a year later, I'm surprised I came up with certain chords.

"Other times," he snickers, "I look back and think it's all a fluke."