By now most of us are probably familiar with Tame Impala’s backstory. We know they got their start as a local Perth outfit called The Dee Dee Dums and we know they spent their formative years as Tame Impala playing to no one.
We’ve even heard the story of how project leader Kevin Parker found out he’d been signed to Modular Recordings as he was on his way to a uni exam and subsequently decided to ditch the exam and drive home to make more music.
But what you may not know is that before all of this, before Parker was being hailed as a creative visionary and wunderkind musical auteur, he was your run-of-the-mill teenage derro bumming around Perth, shoplifting and smoking weed.
Speaking recently to The Australian, Parker discussed his rebellious years as a teenage delinquent, a time during which he first began using music to better deal with the world around him, including the breakup of his parents.
“In high school, I was an absolute derelict,” Parker said. “I just never came home, shoplifted, smoked weed. I was totally into the thrill of breaking the law.” But all the while, Parker was teaching himself drums and guitar.
After enrolling and dropping out of engineering and astronomy degrees, Parker decided there was only one thing he was interested in. “Music became a bigger and bigger thing in my life, the only thing I thought about, the only thing I wanted to do,” he said.
“Your head just starts a song as though you’ve flicked on the radio. I’ve always thought about it as a way of dealing with the silence. If you walked into a room and it’s quiet it can be quite jolting, but a way of your head dealing with what’s around you is making a song to go along with it.”
The songs Parker has made to fill the silence and “go along with it” are now being heard by millions around the world and have resulted in Tame Impala becoming one of the most critically acclaimed music projects in recent memory.
However, as Parker tells The Australian, the only accolade he really pays attention to is the Hottest 100. “For me that’s the craziest thing… when there’s a sign that the music’s moved people,” he said.
As the multi-instrumentalist told Electronic Beats back in January, Parker still considers Tame Impala’s early days as “the most exciting time of my life”, remarking on the feeling of anticipation surrounding the project.
“I still consider that the most exciting time of my life,” he said. “The initial feeling that something great could happen is immense. Not to say that amazing things haven’t happened since then, but I’m getting better at digesting them.”
