But generally the album is meant to have a consistent, ongoing theme of personal transition. Parker: Well, I try to take the emphasis away from the romantic side of it, because as much as I sing about something that can be interpreted as a relationship starting or ending or whatever, if I sing about breaking up with someone, for me it’s equally about breaking up with yourself or breaking up with a part of your own personality. Paste: Okay, so let me try to piece the narrative together: Boy loses girl on purpose, boy meets new girl, boy messes up and loses new girl and then thinks about getting back with the first girl.
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The way that I justify making an album is that it is cohesive and that it has this underlying story or theme to it that holds it all together. For me that’s the way that I justify making an album and not just making a song and putting it out soon as I finish it, putting it on fucking SoundCloud or whatever. And I guess the way for me to answer that question is to have this complete picture, like with a whole narrative that fits together. Like, “Why should albums exist these days?” is what I ask myself. Especially when I ask myself, “Why make an album? Why make an album and not just a bunch of songs?” The world we’re in, a group of songs is just as important as something called an album. For me, personally, making albums, that’s something that’s become more and more important for me. Whenever I think that there’s something conceptual going on though, I have to ask. Paste: It may flip genres and moods, but it feels like there’s a narrative through-line. Parker: Yeah, but at the same time I made it, I was just thinking it was the most sporadic, genre-flipping kind of thing. Paste: Your musical identity definitely seems to be something you’re putting forth with Currents, although it’s a decidedly different musical identity than with previous Tame Impala albums. Because the experience of doing it was more satisfying than just having this one thing we stick with and that being our musical identity. It’s something that we kind of grew up doing, which is embracing as many different things as we can, just for the fun of it, for the experience of doing it. So like the first band that would be on might have been Tame Impala, and then I’d get off playing the guitar in this slack rock band and then play the drums for some other band. We’ve always had a bunch of different side projects on the go that were all kind of different genres, and we would often play gigs in Perth with one or more of the bands that we’re in on the same night. The way that I kind of cut my teeth in music was playing with a whole bunch of guys in Perth the Pond guys, the Tame Impala guys. Parker: If you’re someone who makes music and you’re open-minded about what you can create, then there’s no reason why you can’t think of a bunch of completely different songs a day, or imagine playing in different bands every day. Paste: It’s interesting that your name would be on two strikingly different projects within the span of a few months. It was on the same day as my rehearsal that I went and learned the chords and got to know the lyrics properly again. Even with Mark, I played guitar on the album but I’d forgotten what I’d been playing. I’m terrible at actually sitting down and learning things. I guess I just take it one step at a time. How do you divide your anticipation for something like that? Paste Magazine: Not only did you write and record with Mark Ronson while working on Currents, but you also played Glastonbury and you’re joining him for all of his Australian dates, one of which includes a festival that Tame Impala are playing. When asked if it was a relief to get away from the intense introspection of writing, producing, recording, engineering and playing all of the instruments himself on an album about personal transition to get into a collaborative environment, his relief is palpable as he says, “Yeah, absolutely!” Not only has leader Kevin Parker entirely rethought his band’s sound, but the word “change” appears in four of the album’s 13 songs, along with phrases like “moving on” and “letting go.” But in the midst of creating an album all about change, Parker welcomed the chance to change up his own routine and work on three of the tracks on Mark Ronson’s Uptown Special album. The most obvious theme on Tame Impala’s new album, Currents, is transition.