I can't emphasise enough how important it is to me to feel like I'm just outside my safe zone. And also trying to find some way to harness that and use it as an energy. PARKER: Yeah, we did a studio session together. And then, when the time came to tour it, he'd teach his mates how to play the songs he'd written. @sonyatvaustralia #Lawsuit #nowitsmyturn, A post shared by Tame Impala (@tameimpala) on Apr 27, 2017 at 8:01pm PDT. Fans got edgy. I feel like my perspective of being in the studio changed after that. PARKER: I realized I wanted to have that kind of attitude in the studio, like, “Fuck yeah, we’re doing this!” And not, like, doubting everything constantly, going like, “Let’s not try this,” or, “Let’s not go ’til five in the morning.” Like fuck it! And usually you just kind of press a couple buttons and give them whole sections, but I gave them every little bit of it. For Parker, getting high is a way to escape the twanging of his brain, which can get in the way of his creativity. It was lonely work at times, but it was his work. It's a kind of stillness, a preternatural calm that seems to soothe the people around him. In that same interview, Parker said that his biggest takeaway from making both the previous Tame Impala album, 2015's Currents, and this one was to trust his gut instincts. STEREOGUM: Working with Ronson is also what led to the Lady Gaga record you worked on. Same emotion. Which is kind of like me now. I think that song started out as something completely different that he was working on, which me and a friend programmed the drums for. He is perhaps Australia's most famous rock star, but has spent most of his career hiding behind a band that doesn't really exist. "There's no one in the world that I've felt as creative with as I do when I'm alone". I was like, 'You're fucking worthless, you're pathetic', but I guess the fact that it is me doing it all, there are more ways that it can grind to a halt. Could those unbidden melodies be his mind's way of filling up the space where voices suddenly weren't? On the album, 'Borderline' has taken a new form, one closer to the version that had first materialised in Parker's mind. STEREOGUM: What are some things you saw eye-to-eye on or connected on? But it won't stop me trying. When I reach Parker over Skype in early May — him starting off his Friday morning, me wrapping up my Thursday night — it is not yet fully clear what a prescient move he made by getting the hell out of California. In December 2018, Tame Impala was announced for the Saturday headline slot at Coachella, which had just been vacated by Justin Timberlake. The most important stories and least important memes, every Friday. For anyone that's a fan of me, to hear that they would probably think that's ludicrous, you know? He is a sought-after collaborator who literally cannot write music with anyone else in the room. But I didn’t meet him until like a year later, whenever “Fuckin’ Problems” came out. You hear it all the time. I don't just mean on my own, but working that intensely. Mark is someone I've been super close with for a long time now, so it's much easier for me, but the big difference is because I've never been able to separate creative time from social time, I know that I piss Mark Ronson off sometimes. I just set up a 707 drum machine and I just hit record because I was testing out this new tape machine that I had. She’s obviously a busy person, so no, I didn’t chat with her. Do you know if it’s going to come out? "I thought it was totally slamming hip hop, boom-crack drums," he says. He is a perfectionist, verging on control freak, who thinks his best music is born in moments of unbidden inspiration. STEREOGUM: Like you were willing to try more things? But you could have that. We were just starting out, young guys from Perth, all fairly socially inept, so everything was pretty intimidating — which I wish it hadn’t been. STEREOGUM: When you’re programming drums for a rap record, do you approach it differently than if you’re working on a Tame Impala record? PARKER: Yeah, something like that. Oh, and he does write songs like 'Posthumous Forgiveness', the centrepiece of his upcoming fourth album, The Slow Rush, in which he laments the failings of an absent father before offering him exoneration (although unlike the Biblical Son, Parker's comes backed with pillowy synths). Do you actually feel this way, or is this just the post-album emotional hangover? I mean COME ON guys at least put some effort in. But it also led to a strange relationship with creativity. I really, really hope that we are given an opportunity to finish it and release it. It had been four years since the last album and no one announces a festival slot, and a world tour, without something new to promote. It makes me dream, you know? There was tons of pressure on him to deliver his breakout album, or his album that’s going to take him to the next level. Distorted guitars and hip-hop sometimes go well, like Kanye and Mike Dean, and they can also be a disaster. Which is kind of like my M.O. Tame Impala was recently nominated for 2 Grammy awards — “Best Alternative Album” and “Best Rock Song” for the single “Lost In Yesterday.” This marks the third nomination in the Alternative category for Parker, having previously been nominated for Currents and Lonerism . Has success brought more confidence or do you worry about how things are going to be received? I haven't written a single chord progression in the company of another person that made it in the actual song. PARKER: It was great. I mean, that's kind of one of the whole things of it, being at peace with the idea of people hating it. In March, when it became clear most people around the world would have to hole up for a while to combat the spread of COVID-19, the Tame Impala mastermind and his wife, Sophie Lawrence, were faced with a significant decision: Stay in LA or make a break for Parker’s native Perth? Yeah. They have exactly the same software. PARKER: He had most of the lyrics done, and he was like, “Can you sing something over it?” So I just sang the first thing — and it was funny because it’s such a cheeky thing for a song. Uh, yes? I played some kind of synth on it, I think. I don't think I left my house in LA in about two weeks. I hate my voice too much, and my producer brain just immediately wants to flood it with sounds and noises and drum sounds and shit. How different was the creative process from your own? Did I really feel those things? 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