"Bring on the tough questions," insists Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker, extending an open invitation into his usually sequestered world - and the innermost workings of a mind described by Lady Gaga as "a real musical genius." Traditionally, the revered artist/producer has shied away from the spotlight ("I've always been allergic to being the main character, like absolutely fucking allergic to it"), but today in a Los Angeles diner soundtracked by ABBA, Parker is earnest and determined to leave no stone unturned when discussing his new album, 'Deadbeat'.
"Seeing the benefit of opening yourself up artistically, and opening yourself up to the people around you and opening yourself up to the world, and seeing the positive art that comes from that, and also the feeling of liberation that comes from that, made me realise that it's not such a bad thing - that I can maybe do that too," reflects Parker on his time spent working alongside some of pop's biggest stars. "I used to think it was kind of a self-centred ego thing to want to make all your music all about you, but it's really not, it just makes the people listening to it think about themselves."
Both of us far from home, Coup De Main met self-described "reluctant exhibitionist" Kevin Parker in Los Angeles recently to discuss his focus on the future, feeling disconnected from reality, and the 'Deadbeat' songs that made us think about our own lives...
COUP DE MAIN: I was watching a 2022 interview with you on The Project in Australia and they labelled your job on-screen as "Musical Genius". How would you describe your job?
TAME IMPALA - KEVIN PARKER: Try my best to convince people that I am a musical genius. Try desperately to convince people I'm a musical genius. Try desperately to fool people into thinking I'm a musical genius. There we go. That's my final answer.
CDM: Clearly, you're succeeding - as evidenced on national TV.
KEVIN: To some people!
CDM: How would you describe yourself as a person?
KEVIN: I don't know... a nervous dreamer. That's terrible. I'll come back to that one, remind me.
CDM: Is there any difference in how you see yourself versus how the world sees you?
KEVIN: Definitely, refer to question one.
CDM: Everything feels intentional with this new album era - it feels like you want people to understand and know who you are as a person now. Has any part of that come from spending time with popstars whose lives are very public-facing?
KEVIN: Almost definitely, for sure. Seeing the benefit of opening yourself up artistically, and opening yourself up to the people around you and opening yourself up to the world, and seeing the positive art that comes from that, and also the feeling of liberation that comes from that, made me realise that it's not such a bad thing. That I can maybe do that too.
CDM: When it's sincere, it feels like an extension of an artist's story that begun with the music.
KEVIN: Exactly. I used to think it was kind of a self-centred ego thing to want to make all your music all about you, but it's really not, it just makes the people listening to it think about themselves.
CDM: You're more relatable when you're three-dimensional.
KEVIN: For sure.
CDM: Are there any other artists you'd like to work with, that you haven't yet?
KEVIN: Today I said Rosalía and I'm sticking with that.
CDM: Back in 2010, you begun 'My Lover Mother Nature' with the lyrics: "Outer space is the only place to hide now / From whoever wants to know where you are / Everything is easier than ever / When we fall baby we fall so hard." How does it feel looking back on those lyrics now with a 2025 perspective?
KEVIN: Wow. I think I wrote those lyrics when I was... long before 2010, so the song only sort of surfaced online around then.
CDM: I was researching on the Tame Impala Reddit what fans think was the very first Tame Impala song to exist - there were four songs that they were trying to decide between and this was one of them.
KEVIN: Wow, yeah. They're probably on the money with that. I mean, I think, in a weird way, it's truer than ever.
CDM: I picked those lyrics for this interview because I felt like they still make sense in 2025.
KEVIN: Yeah, that was a good one. That really got me. Thank you.
CDM: Past-Kevin knew what he was doing?
KEVIN: He very much did not, but every now and then, he got things right.
CDM: In comparison, you start this new album with 'My Old Ways' and say: "So here I am once again feel no good / I must be out of excuses I knew I would / Feels like it came out of nowhere this time / Wish I had someone else to blame." Why did you want to open the new album with that sentiment?
KEVIN: I just thought it was a good place to start. It just felt like the right way to open up an album called 'Deadbeat'. <laughs> In a way, it almost felt like a movie - not that this album is in any way a narrative from start to finish, but it's kind of like an 'oh shit, here we go again' moment. I just like starting with: 'Well, fuck... here we are again.'
CDM: What does being human mean to you?
KEVIN: Being imperfect. Trying to make sense of everything around you.
CDM: Are you a curious person by nature?
KEVIN: Definitely, definitely. I think curiosity is one of the things that drives me - I have curiosity to thank for so much that I have in my life, and I have curiosity to blame for so much in my life.
CDM: I always want to understand things because it's frustrating not knowing... and then sometimes it leads you down a rabbit hole.
KEVIN: Totally! Sometimes that's a lot of why I like to try new genres - because I'm just curious about how they made that. It's the first thing I thought when I heard Skrillex for the first time: 'Wait, how the fuck is he doing that?' And I kind of wanted to try it myself. I didn't really... or did I? <laughs> That's the truth of the time.
CDM: What do you think are your best and worst character traits?
KEVIN: My worst is that I'm a procrastinator. Which I put down to that: procrastination is just fear, it's just not wanting to look something in the face.
CDM: For me personally, it's also the anxiety of wanting something to be perfect and the best that it can be, so I'll procrastinate to avoid having to really commit and lock in.
KEVIN: Totally, you're spot on. So, that's my worst trait: I put things off. My best trait is probably that I am patient. I feel like it's hard for anyone to know what their best trait is because they're probably unaware of it - it's probably why it's their best trait. If I was going around telling everyone how patient I am, then people would probably call me out on that. They'd be like, 'No, you fucking are not.'
CDM: Reflecting back on the making of this new album, what are you most proud of?
KEVIN: I'm proud of a lot of things. It's not a very romantic one, but the hustle in the last four months was kind of the most gruelling part of my working life that I can remember, and I was just so laser-beam-focused, and it was almost unbearable, but I just kind of pushed through. At the end, when I finished it, I was really proud that I was able to do that and not just get lost along the way.
CDM: You overcame your procrastination! <applauds>
KEVIN: Exactly, exactly. Thank you. That's what I thought. Well, you know what? There's another side of the coin there, which is that: I got to that point because I'd been procrastinating working on each and every song. Unfortunately, that's the way my mind works - that as soon as I am happy about something, I spin it into a bad thing.
CDM: How does it feel when inspiration hits?
KEVIN: Like nothing else. I sound like an ad, but it is the essence of possibility. It sounds like a fucking perfume commercial or something. Things go from being impossible to possible, and at the end of the day, it's all you need.
CDM: Has that feeling changed at all over the years?
KEVIN: It's changed, it's evolved, but it's become something that I've learned to cherish. Ten years ago, I'd be inspired and not even really make the most of it - and now, I realise how much of a precious commodity it is.
CDM: Throughout your career, has your perception changed on what a successful career means for you - both personally and professionally?
KEVIN: Good question. Yes, but not massively. I almost said no, but it has.
CDM: In what small ways has it changed?
KEVIN: Well, there's a couple of things. I used to think that not trying and not succeeding is better than trying and not succeeding - and now I realise that's wrong; the most important thing is that you try. I used to be worried that I might try and fail, and so sometimes I wouldn't try, and then I realised that only leads to wondering what could have happened. Now I think that even if you fail at something, even if you're not successful, as long as you can come away with knowing that you gave it your best shot, then that is success. That's one side of it. I also used to think on a purely sort of music world / career level, that there was an easy way to measure success, and now I just don't think there is. Now, success is different for everyone - some people want to hear 20,000 people singing their song back at them on stage, and some people get nothing from that, but some people think that success is getting a number one album, and some people just think that that's just a thing that you engineer when you're in the industry. So nowadays, I just realise that whenever you feel successful, that is success. If someone stops me on the street and says that my music changed their life or whatever, to me, that's the epitome of success - one person telling me that is more fulfilment than I felt when I won a Grammy. The Grammy was like, 'Oh okay, cool, let me tick something off,' but it didn't fulfil me in the way that reaching people on an emotional level does.
CDM: Coming from our part of the world, I feel like there's a big underdog sensibility instilled in us - because if you want to make it out of Australia and New Zealand, then you have to work hard to make it happen yourself.
KEVIN: Oh fuck yeah.
CDM: At this stage of your career, are there still any underdog feelings internally?
KEVIN: Definitely. Feeling like the underdog can be quite an inspiring feeling - it feels like you've got something to prove.
CDM: And you can never know everything, there's always more that you can learn.
KEVIN: Yeah, yeah. I definitely think that coming up in the world is a more satisfying feeling than being up in the world, you know? Not that I've ever really been at the top, but when you're at the top there's nowhere to go, and then you become obsessed with trying to retain what you have. You're desperately trying to hold on to something. Trying to hold on to something is not a nice feeling either.
CDM: What advice would you give to your 16-year-old self?
KEVIN: Don't be so self-conscious. Try to realise that. Just chill out. Enjoy it. Actually, that's what I'm gonna say: enjoy it.
CDM: 'No Reply' is one of my favourite songs on your new album because I literally had a similar situation happen to me recently - except I was on the receiving end of the conversation.
KEVIN: Oh no! <laughs>
CDM: He did reply.
KEVIN: Okay...
CDM: And his jokes were alright, but he didn't ask me any questions about my life.
KEVIN: Well yeah, that's what happens. He was probably just anxious, my friend. Take it from me!
CDM: I never take it personally when people who are on tour are in their own world - I've had a lot of musicians tell me how isolating it can feel to be on tour, but as someone on the outside looking in though, it can be very difficult to communicate or connect with people who don't feel present. You're both trying, but it's hard.
KEVIN: Yes, yes. Lots to unpack there, but touring is a strange, strange, strange mental place to be in - it's not normal life. It couldn't be further from normal life if it tried. Everything about being on tour is just a lot to sort of try and get used to - it's not normal at all. It can really fuck with your head, whether you like it, whether you enjoy it too much, or you don't enjoy it all. Some people hate touring, even though they're getting on stage to audiences that are coming to see them from all around the world - using a different shower every single night, putting your head on a different pillow every single night... you get what I'm saying. Funny enough, 'No Reply' is me now, for sure, but it's also inspired by a time long before I started touring, when I kind of just started dating and started seeing girls, and it's about really not being able to connect with people. And what I realised when writing 'No Reply' was that the song was really about anxiety. When I read back the lyrics, I was like, 'You know what? This song is about someone who doesn't realise that they're anxious.'
CDM: Was it therapeutic writing that song?
KEVIN: Yeah, that's kind of what songwriting is a lot of the time. It's like therapy and ways to process things.
CDM: Do you find it difficult or easy to relate to people who are not musicians?
KEVIN: I'm getting better at it. <laughs> It used to be very hard. Kind of following on from the last questions, it used to be the only sort of language that I knew, but yeah, I've become a more people person. Basically, I've gotten better at asking people about their life, put it that way.
CDM: Would you want more non-music related friends? Or is music what ties you to people?
KEVIN: I don't want more friends, music or non-music. I've got enough really amazing friends.
CDM: Who are your people?
KEVIN: My family, the guys in the band, my friends. I've got a really large group of friends and I've got an extremely small group of extremely close friends. I know lots of people and I love them all, but there's only a few people that I am truly unguarded around, music or non-music. But going back to tour, that's the other thing about becoming a touring artist, is that you develop a way of seeing the world and seeing life, that people who haven't experienced find hard to understand. In the years that I was touring constantly, the more you tour, the harder it is to sort of hang out with people who don't tour because...
CDM: You're having a singular experience.
KEVIN: Yeah, exactly. It's like that with a lot of things.
CDM: How do you feel about touring now?
KEVIN: Well, I haven't been on tour for two years, so I'm really excited about it. I love it right now because I haven't experienced it in two years. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know?
CDM: The new album will be so good live!
KEVIN: I hope so. I don't know! I don't know.
CDM: What was running through your mind while writing 'Not My World'?
KEVIN: That one, I kind of just wanted to not think.
CDM: Like a stream of consciousness?
KEVIN: Yes, almost - I wanted it to feel like someone was just singing without thinking about it beforehand. I wanted to have that feeling of someone that's kind of just disconnected from reality like... what's that The Beatles song? 'The Fool On The Hill'. Someone that you see out in public, and you're like, 'That guy is not part of this reality' - because that's how I've felt a lot in my life.
CDM: Describe your world...
KEVIN: Well, from the persona of that song, it's sort of floating around aimlessly in the ether and just observing other people who seem to have their lives together. It's about watching people from your window walking home from work in a suit, which has been me before, just sort of waking up at 4pm, and by the time you wake up the sun is almost setting, and you're seeing people coming home from work and it's like, 'Wow, this is who I am now.' Obviously, it can be very isolating, but that's an extreme case of it.
CDM: Yearning really characterises a lot of this new album. Do you consider yourself to be a romantic?
KEVIN: Yeah, of course. I'm not sure if it's because I am, or if it's because I love music that has that quality. Probably both. They're probably related. I think that yearning is just a beautiful quality to have in music. For me, it's what music was made for - it's what pop music was made for.
CDM: I think familiarity is an important aspect of romance. What does romance look like to you?
KEVIN: I think it can be the feeling of new love. Not to say that romance can't exist after a love is not new anymore, but it's the feeling of love and connection. Being in love is kind of a unique feeling, and romance is what comes of that and what comes from those feelings, whether it's just one way, or it's two ways... or more. <laughs>
CDM: 'Dracula' is a romantic song, I think.
KEVIN: Oh wow! Okay!
CDM: It's kind of romantic!
KEVIN: Well, remember that the story of 'Dracula' kind of is a romantic story. It's a story of romantic tragedy. That's how it starts. Dracula is Dracula because he was so utterly heartbroken that he became a demon, basically - that's what happens in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. I don't know what other sort of Dracula literature there is, but he was so devastated by the death of his true love that he condemned God and condemned everything and became evil and lived forever, eternally trying to find his love again.
CDM: Do you believe in the concept of invisible string - that sometimes people are tied together for life?
KEVIN: Hopefully. I mean: yes, yes, of course I do.
CDM: How do you mark the passing of time? Or remember specific memories?
KEVIN: My wife tells me, I don't take enough photos, and I think she might be right. I never feel the need.
CDM: I just went on holiday in Europe and took no photos.
KEVIN: I'm the same, yeah. How do I do it? I don't really. Sometimes I think I should keep a diary because it is nice to revisit times and revisit how you felt as a way of knowing where you've been emotionally and mentally.
CDM: Has your relationship with time changed at all since writing your last album, 'The Slow Rush'?
KEVIN: Yeah, it has. It's evolved. It's a strange thing. I don't know... That's a hard one.
CDM: The director of the most recent Bob Dylan biopic, 'A Complete Unknown', told me that Bob told him that he really longed to have the camaraderie and companionship he saw in bands, where they could all take the stage together and had each other to support each other. Bob felt it was a lonely life being a solo singer-songwriter in which you are the entirety of your act and there is no company. Have you ever related to that sentiment?
KEVIN: Definitely, definitely. My whole kind of life as a musician has been trying to get that feeling, but just not being a good enough communicator and leader to get it - because for me, there's always been this tug of war between me wanting to make the best music possible, and me wanting to have the best band dynamic and the most fun possible, and the two don't always go together. The two don't always go hand in hand. In fact, they very rarely do. I've always been so ambitious and obsessed with music and getting better, that being in a band has sometimes been frustrating, but Bob Dylan is spot on. Being in a band is the best feeling ever. I've always been trying to have the best of both worlds - doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.
CDM: Does it feel more isolating when you're in the studio by yourself or when you're on tour?
KEVIN: Neither are isolating now because being on tour is where it all comes together. I used to be very, very, very, very isolated on tour. I used to feel like I was living a lie, and that's when I felt the most insecure and like something wasn't working. But I've kind of got the hang of it now, and we as a band and as a group, have worked out where we all stand and what this is. And being in the studio, I couldn't feel less isolated.
CDM: When you think about your life, does it feel like you're in a movie that's ongoing? Or does it feel more like a TV show that you can replay episodes or seasons of?
KEVIN: Ongoing movie, for sure. I don't like to be too retrospective. In fact, I hate it.
CDM: Do you ever feel any main character energy?
KEVIN: I try to, but I'm just not geared that way. As an artist, you kind of need a bit of that; I think it can go a long way. Most really successful solo artists that I've met, they know how to harness that energy. I almost said they have a bit of that, but it's not necessarily true - they just know how to embrace being the centre of attention because when you're a solo artist, the people around you who are part of your thing, they want you to be that. They want you to be the main character. It's the way to get the best out of it or the most out of it. I've always been allergic to being the main character, like absolutely fucking allergic to it, which is kind of why I've made music by myself - because I didn't like being the leader of a band. I like being in a band. I like making my music myself, but I don't like being the main character in a band, so making music by myself was a way of just escaping the whole equation of other people.
CDM: Throughout all of your albums, a lot of Tame Impala songs are characterised by nostalgia and thinking about the past. In your day-to-day life, do you spend most of your time thinking about the past, the present, or the future?
KEVIN: The future - more than I'd like probably, but I don't think about the past these days any more than I have to.
CDM: Do you believe in alternate realities?
KEVIN: I don't really believe in them, but I accept that anything's possible.
CDM: Are you still interested in astronomy?
KEVIN: Yeah, of course. I don't really put the time in to learn more, but it's always going to be one of my fascinations and it will always be.
CDM: There's an American called Kevin Parker who worked with NASA on the James Webb Space Telescope - which succeeded the Hubble as the most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Maybe in an alternate universe he makes music and you launched a space telescope.
KEVIN: <laughs> That's it! That's it.
CDM: How do you feel about AI?
KEVIN: Good question. I don't feel like I have to care about it until it's actually useful. I fully understand that at some point it's going to take over our lives. Fully understand that. But that doesn't mean that I have to go around pretending like it's actually useful now because it fucking isn't. It's so fucking dumb. It can't do shit. It's terrible for the environment. If it is gonna take over our lives in the near future, in whatever way that is, the end of humanity or whatever the future holds, if it is completely different to the life we're living now, then I kind of see this time as the twilight of humanity as we know it. So, let's just enjoy it. I'm going to enjoy waking up. I enjoy just... well, I enjoy not thinking about it. But if in five years' time, life is completely different then, let's just enjoy sitting in a diner with a real person coming over and asking what we want, and telling them, and them bringing it over. Let's just enjoy that while we have it. If this is the twilight of humanity as we know it, then there's nothing I can do about it, so I'm just gonna enjoy making music without any AI. You don't know how many times people said when I was writing lyrics for the album ['Deadbeat']-- it drives me insane, finishing writing lyrics, and they say, 'Why don't you just use AI?' Because I don't want to! I just want it to be me.
CDM: I have friends that are journalists who use ChatGPT to write questions for interviews.
KEVIN: <laughs> I bet they do. Everyone I know uses it in some way. And I just think that takes the fun out of it. It's like, 'Why do anything? Why do anything unless it was you that did it?!' I understand getting help with something just makes it easier, but at the end of the day, I like the parts of my job that drive me insane, just as much.
CDM: What are the parts that drive you insane?
KEVIN: Finishing things, organising, finishing lyrics, finishing songs, mixing. Everything that I do can be sort of broken down into little AI tasks at the end of the day, but for the time being, I'm enjoying it being a completely human experience. So that's how I feel.
CDM: Great final words.
KEVIN: And going back to how I would describe myself as a person... can I make it reluctant exhibitionist?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Photography by: Julian Klincewicz
All other Instax photos by: Shahlin Graves
Zine Design by: Lola Jacob
Cover Design by: Wyatt Knowles
Creative Direction by: Imogene Strauss
Styling by: Karolyn Pho
Grooming by: Candice Birns
Tame Impala's new album 'Deadbeat' is out now.
Watch the 'Dracula' music video below...
Tame Impala