Tame Impala

Au sbalia's Tame Impala led by Kevin Parker.
have taken the classic psychedelic sounds of
cream and '77le ~~hite Album·· era Beatles ,
rombining them with elements that <:an only exist in
the modem age. Their debut 2010's lnnerspeaker.
"as celebrated by critics. a s well a s maJ..ing many
end-of-year "Bes t Of' lists. 2012 sav.. the release
of the enlhu s ias ticaUy raeived Lonerism. whi<:h
(l(k.-e again raeived gushing reviews . I sat down
with Kevin in 2010. and again in February 2013. to
talk about his five-year !Ian sition from precocious
young songwriter to regular featured fe s tival
perfumer. and ho" disregarding common recording
"'isdom can often haVe fanta stic result s.
November 16,2010
What was your first l'eeording pi'Oject?
When I was 12 my brother was recording himself on a
boom box playing drums, because he wanted to hear
what he sounded !ike. When he was finished I walked
in and recorded myself playing drums for 30 seconds.
I realized if I played that back into a new tape deck,
whilst also playing a keyboard along with it. I could
multitrack myself, and then do it again with
something like bass guitar. Of course, each time we
did it it accumulated a ridiculous amount of mush; as
soon as you did like three iterations of it, the thing
that you did first was just static.
So you'r<e another graduate of the Boom
Box Reeol'ding School! What was next'?
HOW clicl the fint TaiM
to be?
I was about 14, and I used that for a couple ri year.;. It was just a selection of five songs fR:IIR
Cakewall< served me pretzy v.eJ. ~ that the soundcard
of 20 or 25 that I had done Oil'S a
loti dad's friend lent me Cala!wall< (recording software] when
I had in my computer was not advanced enough so that
I could play back audio while I was recording audio in. I
had to set up a dick and record the whole song from
meroory. I had to meroorize ~ng that fd done in the
previous take. which was really difficult The first time I
went to a stWio was in Pl!rth, Australia, and I didn't find
it very enjcryab!e. All of a sudden I was out of this world
where I was able to do ~ng for myself. I was in this
time-ams!Jained environment where there were other
professionals walking around te!ling me how to do things.
That really put me off.
When was that?
recorded songs on my own. and
releasing them. I didn't think anybody
them. I just shared them with my friends.
got offered a recording deal from a labeL I
'Why not just put out these demos?" They were
with it, because the songs had character.
recording methods were so shoddy! When
chosen the five songs that sat together the best. we
sent them off to Mandy Parnell for mastering in
London. I got a call from her saying, "What? How am
I meant to master this? There's no headroom!• rd
mixed one of the songs on the little Boss [BR-864]
8-track until it sounded good and, without knowing
it, I'd completely limited the whole thing by putting
the master fader of the final mix up until it was flat
lining! That Boss recorder has a feature where when
it's about to start digital clipping, it limits it. B:
gives it a great, crunchy sound that I loved.
when I sent it to mastering she puUed it up and
was just a flat line. She asked if I could mix it
and I was like, '1 can't! I mixed it four years
Each time you mix on this 8-track it's a
performance. I loved the way it sounded and
her to work with it, but she hated it.
I was about 18 and in a band. We had won some recording
time in a stellar stiJdio with a proper engineer, as a prize
for coming in second in a band competition. But as
soon as I started it was like, 'What is this?" All of a
sudden fm just the guy who plays guitar. I listened back
to the recordings and they sounded honibl.e. It didn't
sound anything like the way I was used to hearing it I
didn't have a good first few studio experiences - it felt
like as soon as another professional got involved they
assumed they knew how things should sound more than
me. I believed them for a while, like maybe they did
know better, but then I just retreated back to my
bedroom. I eventually decided that even if that was a
crappier way technically, it was still closer to the way I I noticed that you were routing
liked things to sound.
guitar through that live.
'll!s. that's the ~me one.
That'~ the DJ tone I U'>C for a frw
diflt.rent songs. It'~ JU\t an Mremc OJ fuu \Ound
I wanted to ask 0 bo t h
.
. ·
"
u t e 7-lnch nngle
Sundown 5yndrome."
It was going to go on the album. but for som~ rea son
we left it off. I love the lounge-y Byrd~ songs. WP
tra ked 1't · h
·
·
c.
Wlt Li.lm Watson at loc Rag [TapeOp UlS,
8B], we !ned new things, like a double-tracked kalOo
for the solo. He's got 3 bunch of crary reverbs and
echo units. One has a microphone at one end and a
speaker at the other. He's got one of those origmal
plate reverbs the size of rl door, which we ran the
kazoo though. The label asked us to try recording rn
a studro to help us get the feel for it. [in anticipation
of] a future album. We were domg a double A·side.
I've always been a massive fan of l.tam Watson. He's
recorded Fabienne Delsol. and I loved his work with
The White Stripes. Liam is one of my idols.
So you had your first positive studio experience?
Yeah, you could say that. I trust Liam, so I was more
wiUing to just be "the guitarist and singer." The only
reason I even stood over his shoulder at all is because
I was curious to see what he was doing. Mic
placement, drum compression, and the rest was up to
him. I felt so out of my league; I was in absolutely no
position to question him - I just let him do the Liam
Watson thing. [Tame Impala drummer] Jay (Watson]
and I just played the songs - I was in good hands.
Then came the lnnerspeoker album,
which you recorded in a beach
shack? [in lnjidup, south of Perth]
We were expected to do a debut album. I wanted to do
it at home, but the label said I'd have to do it at a
different location. They didn't want it to sound like
the EP again! It had to be better. It took a while to
convince them that I was going to make it sound
somewhat professional. I asked my manager to get us
some kind of shack by the beach. I figured we might
as weU get some sort of romantic place. We booked it
for six weeks, with a week in between. Since we had
to step up the quality, we borrowed some preamps
and compressors from a friend who owns a studio. We
hauled aU of it down south in my car and a van, and
set up in the living room of this holiday home (Wave
House]. The little window-viewing area became the
control room, and the rest of the living room was the
tracking room. There actuaUy wasn't much need for a
control room, since I was playing and the guy
operating aU of the shit. There was a stone room
downstairs. I had aU these intentions of recording
some drums down there, but I never actuaUy got
around to moving them. The main room was quite
spacey and echoey. There were a lot of glass panels
on one side, and plenty of wood.
Dicl you have to do anything to treat the
IJMIGe in particular?
I thought. ''Ok.Jy, w~ miqht ~swell " I'm rr.~lly thankflll
Tim was there with sugrJ~tions. I h~rl been using t11o
microphones for the drums. and llhouqhl il w~s ~uit.c
CJ!r.'.Jr wt.:hi-fi. He wa•, Li~e. "Um, no. [Give th~m) more th~''
'JOII Q 'hr<• ICJh V pcrlaJs ft
th.1l, and run t~m through t~ Nevr~." If that guy
Did you have trouble mastering ogoin?
hadn't been therP. lhr album would havr, •,ounded a Ma,JtPr'in(~ 1/f It r· -.(' l;eUL...: • ( . ~!It
whole lot cru~t iPr than it dor•s. I ran't r~corrl vor.1ls
fr~dmann [Tape Op #17] did
wilh othr.r pt'opiJI itnJund, l:wc.aus.'! the house '1/rJr., •.o
How did Dave get involved?
opm, Dom IDormmr Snnper ba•;, and 'JUit>lf) and
fhr· ldbel was looking for rom.-:me to tr.< ·~c aiL-:n.
Tim wrrt• always around, •,o I did those •l hontf'.
They didn't tJ"lie-Je I cfJuld d<. it. and after awh:·e :
What did you end up doing for the
didn't ctthl:r! We had offers fro;'l othl>r people, bl+ :
drums?
dedin•:d h-?l.aiJ'.e I t.hou~ht th€-; .vould llk:ke •he
We had [Shure] SM57\ on the toms, but I don't thrnk Wf'
re<.ord ~Jund .¥11 we~;onc el:;e. I didn'• wa~t to have
u~ed them much in the [final mix]. The mam drum mic
arguments about pitcr corrcct1or· a~d beat
that I used was an AKG 0190. l put that right on th~
repl.arem~nt. l mew that Nas the fht thing peopte
side of the snare shell and compressed it in a way that
would do as roon as they $td•'ed mtn~ . D<r1e "as
sounded good. If you put a mic there, record. and play
the only person I wa1 wilbnq tr, •.ay yrv, to. a~d •t
it back. rt sounds horrible. If you don't set the right
turnPd out he had .I'O 11• ~ free
attack and release. it sounds horrible; but when you
Did you feel like you learned o lot in the
reach the sweet spot. it sounds like the most perfect
mixing process?
trip·hoppy, Portishead sound. It's really nice. Because Definitely. An astronomical amoLnl n Da·..e
the compression ends up being heavy - high-ratio and Do you see yourself seeking outside
low threshold - it picks up the whole kit. Then, from
production and mixing help with the
there, you just put a bit of kick in. I was kind of
next album?
spooked out about having a top mic on the snare that I think I want to do it like the first album. l1l record
I wouldn't use. It just made me feel a bit apprehensive,
everything, have aU the tracks I want. and then J'U
doing the take; but since then I've teamed that having
take it to Dave after that. Especially since now I h<r.-e
a mic on top of the snare is quite a useful thing for
a better understanding of how he .vorks. and 11hat he
adding attack. An SM57 was on the kick, but as far
likes to have before he mixes. Now I understand Nhat
away as possible. I hate that top-end attack that you
stage the tracks are meant to be at 11hen I tum them
have to try to get rid of. I prefer to not have it there
over, and what sort of things I should tell him to
in the first place. The kick drum had two heads on it
make him comfortable.
and barely any [muffling]. It was a very lively room.
What did you record to?
February 21, 2013
I tracked to a Boss [multitrack] unit again - a BR-1600.
I had become so quick with those that I decided to get
the next model up. I knew there were better quality
options, but because that format was so familiar to me,
I went with something intuitive. It didn't sound as
good as the BR·864 for some reason. Maybe they
downgraded the 0-to-A converter or something.
How do you typically mic guitars?
The typical SM57 in front of the amp, but nowadays I
barely use any amplifiers. I just DI guitar. unless I can
be bothered to set up an amp. I always have trouble
with amps. 01-ing a guitar adds this other layer of
top-end presence that I find I'm always trying to get
with an amp, but can't, even though I love the sound
of a tube amp. I go from my pedals into a Seymour
Duncan DI, which sounds amazing. and then into the
mixer. I love the sound of bass through an amp
though. When we were at Toe Rag the bass amp was
the best I've ever pl.lyed through in my entire life, by
far. It's the Selmer Treble 'N' Bass, like Spacemen 3
used, going through a Selmer Goliath lxlB [cabinet].
I've got a search going on eBay for a Goliath · in the
year I've been looking, haven't seen one come up. I've
got a Treble 'N' Bass. There are quite a few of them
floating around, but the Goliath is rare.
When did you start recording Loner ism?
~ea~JN. At one stage we couldn't isolate the kick
drum enough, so I ended up putting a quilt over the
,AlGie kit, eccept for the kick drum. nm Holmes
[of Death In Vegas] was with us, encou~ging me ~ You have~ame disorienting claaic delay
10und• on the rec:ard. Do you u1ually
illt 111018 pufessional methods, like runmng the m1c
do thOH in the box, or do you u ..
t;.:~
...... Neve preamps and running the ~ass and
outboard eftedl?
· tbrDugh an (Empirical Labs] Distressor.
Not
It happened pretty much as soon as I finished mixing
the last album . Before Innerspeaker was even
released, reaUy. I didn't even know if the new songs
would be for a Tame Impala album. fd bought a
bunch of synthesizers and I was really into making
synthesized pop music. I thought it was going to be
a side project, or songs that I was going give to
someone else. After a while I realized I'd moved
beyond writing songs that sounded like the last
album. so I figured they might as well be for the next
Tame Impala record.
Are you still using the Boss recorder?
I bought a MacBook and started with GarageBand. We
were on tour. I love recording music wherever I am,
so I was just using what l had. A friend of mine, who
makes electronic music, said I had to try Ableton
Live. I fell in love with it - I could not believe the
world of possibilities of things you could do. It's
different from Pro Tools. whrch I thrnk works best for
bands in a studio environment. Ableton is made for
electronic producers. Using an electronic recording
platform to make psychedelic rock music just seemed
to work. Electronic producers want to have easy
access to things like filter sweeps and other ways of
fucking with the sound like a OJ would. I'm always
trying to find ways to make the psych rock sound less
rock. To get it into the computer. I used a giant
[Mackie] Onyx 1640i. I got it because I thought It
So I knOW that If l
whole other ~ I
was t he on IY thing that would work for me. It has
remixing one of the 10ngs?
. .
another sessiof1,
faders and EOs. I'm at a surface level when it c_omes_ to
It was a record label thing. Wheneller there's a II!ITJ1X, it's nat
drums in "Endo!S
stuff in the studio, and I loved mixin~ on a thmg Wlth
us doing it. Some of them rum out awesome, ~ ~
loud. But t:hafs the
giant knobs. So I carted it around WJth me for a long
sound like the per.;on only spent 45 minutes knocking it up. They lfl'/ that a pcdntUii
time. 1 went to Paris and recorded there and I took
that giant Onyx mixer with me. Since then, I got a Presumably you have to agree to it?
Exactly. You never finish it,
MOTU Ultralite, which is my new love. We've got three We do; but at this stage, I'm not too fussed. That's one
went back; he spent an
battle that isn't worth fighting. Everyone knows that
of them on stage at the moment.
bumped down the drums.
remixes exist, and now they happen even without the
What do you use them for on stage?
sitting there pulling my
record
label
knowing
about
it.
lf
someone
has
access
We've got two MIDI keyboards playing multi-samples, so
frustrated. I asked him, "Mal"'- +o4f
to the parts of a song, they can fuck with themselves
that's the interface for both of the computers.
a little bit? can you hear the
and put an unauthorized remix on YouTube. I enjoy
.And you're using Ableton Live, live?
can hear the difference." He
some of them. If they're really good, they might be
Yeah, live live [laughs]. The third is for the drums,
changes we were making were
better
than
the
original
song.
because we mix them on stage to try to get the same
back of the sun. People were
imagine you're a fan of Rundgren
roomy, crushy sound. [Nowadays] there's an infinite
is going to think that the synth
though, and that he doesn't do
amount of people that want to stream your live show,
louder, or it's too quiet in the mix.
and they do their own recording of it. There's nothing
remixes like this often.
going to accept it for what it is. ®
I hate more than playing a festival and having some Right. This was one of those times when I was like,
guy in a van next door taking aU the feeds from the
'What? Todd Rundgren is going to do a remix?" The
stage and mixing the drums different from how your
remix part seemed insignificant. Just the fact that he
front-of-house guy is doing it. They take all your tracks
was going to be interacting with our music in some way www.tameimpala.cam
and spend about two minutes mixing them, ship that
was the big thing for me.
out. and then it's aU over the Internet. The gig you Lonerism is much more synth heavy. How Special thanks to Doug Sutton, The
and Matty Chequer.
played was fucking rocking because it's loud; and then
did that happen?
there's this YouTube mix where the drums sound like I had some access to digital synths, and things in Ableton,
bonus article:
someone's tapping cardboard boxes. My way of battling
but I never thought I'd use them. Then I was at my
that is mixing the drums on stage before they even go
friend's sbJdio in Sydney and he had a rack of synths with
to the [front of house]. We've got mics on the kick,
a Sequential Circuits Pro One. One day I put my finger on
snare, and overheads; but there's also a mix going to
one of the keys and I went fucking insane. He had the
the floor that's in stereo, and has a Distressor and a
portamentojglide on; I played a lead line and I thought
stereo Ranger on it.
it was the most amazing sound I had ever heard. It had
http:jjtapeop.comjinteiViews/95/tJ1rrle.inl
An you still using the Boss unit on stage,
emotion, but it wasn't a guitar or anything organic; it
by chance, for that guitar fuzz thing
was totaUy synthetic. I realized that it's a total
that you're doing'?
misconception that synths belong in the '80s pop world.
feah. We have two of them on stage actuaUy, one for Dom
They can be just as fuckmg growling, terrifying, and
and one for Jay. I got obsessed with the way the guitar
ferocious as any stringed mstrument. So 1 was sold
sound was, and I ha·1e less and less time for guitar
basicaUy. I went on eBay and got the exact same synth:
ar-,ps these day:;. I lo1e the sound of DI guitar, but I
After that. l got a [Roland] Juno-106. I started writing
~ave a 'lot (AC30] on stage too.
some
songs on synths. At the time, I felt I had exhausted
You did a vocal take on an airplane at
the. possibilities of the guitar. Which 15 not true,
some point. How did that happen?
obviou~ly; but I ~eeded a break from playing guitar
~i'd ~ i&>a for a rnPtody, and I ~new that I wa> going
How did Toclcl Rurulgren get involved in
~1!1
·~
[!]~
sa u A
to forget it if l 11a1~e<J until I got off the plane. So 1 You m~xed thlS one with Dave Fridmann
again. Were you more involved in th
plu~g'-d in headphone> and ><~ng into my laptop. It wa'
process this time?
e
·~ 'd•:·-n0] 1uca1 tAke. Don't gr~t thi> id~a of me going
He >tiU kicks me out of the room for two or three h
itv trot to1let. lrJ(k\ng the dofJr, :.Hting up a mic, and Yeah.
while ~ t .
. our~
,' pu s It togt:ther. I give him a rouqh mix after
ft nq ;,.p tmlet pafJ(:r roU ba'' trav- in the u,mer domg a" much a~ I can to malo-.e it wund how I
,,,, v,rrebr)(}t Y'lf){Ying ou~ide and !Tlf' heinq like,
no
·I!J:·
. .
want, but
.t > minute•
one " - ~n mala-~ a mix hh, Dave. I ~tiU don't know
how he doe-" rt. !here i~ ju1t thi• depth
e you're doing a song like "Be Above
. .
,
'
' prl!SI;nce, and
Impact that I cant get anywhere near; though l'vP been
It," do you construct it over time and
[lrrJud of my drum mi<(~. lately. ru qive it to him .complete the idea in mixing?
muqh rn!l and '.ily, "lh~> i•, what I'm l n
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rum rnlz on It H' I
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