Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker Reflects On Debut Album InnerSpeaker
Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by @goldendaze_illustration
Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker has reflected on InnerSpeaker on the 10th anniversary of his debut album’s release.
“My first album is 10 years old today,” Parker writes via Instagram.
Accompanying his words is an alternate InnerSpeaker cover.
“This version of the cover was one version out from the final,” he shares, “but I found it the other day for the first time since 2010 and it makes me very emotional to just look at because it reminds me of what I was going through about a week out from finishing and signing off on the whole album, which scared the shit out of me and at the time seemed like an insurmountable task.”
“Little did I know,” he adds, “that was the easiest it was ever going to get.”
“Thank you to everyone who believed in me back then,” Parker continues, “you know who you are. And thank you Tim Holmes where ever you are, you saved this album in a way my naive self didn’t realize at the time. Announcement of something very special coming very soon.”
For those not steeped in the history of Tame Impala, Tim Holmes of Death In Vegas assisted Parker and his bandmates recording the album in a shed-like beach house four hours to the south of the Australian city of Perth.
Nominally present to assist in sound engineering, Holmes was rarely required due to Parker’s own budding talent as a producer.
“I told him that the Tame Impala set-up was pretty unprofessional and that there wouldn’t be much for him to do,” Parker would later recall of the engineer’s presence. “Tim was totally cool with it. He said he’d bring his fishing rod and help out when needed.”
“He encouraged me to use some different mics instead of some old mics I was using,” Parker related, “which helped a lot. I look back now and it was really invaluable having him there.”
“We rented this beach shack, mansion,” Parker shared of the recording sessions in 2019. “But the thing that I learnt immediately was that as soon as you’re in this beautiful environment making music everything already sounds beautiful because of what you’re looking at. I had this ocean view. So just like strumming my guitar once was like, ‘Oh that’s all I need to do.’”
Interviewed by UPROXX in 2019, Parker provided further insight into his debut album.
“I almost don’t feel like it’s me that made that,” Parker noted. “It feels like someone else. My scope has just widened. Back then, I was terrified of doing anything other than what I knew how to do and what I liked listening to. I guess I wasn’t as brave as I am now… InnerSpeaker was what the previous five years of my musical life had led up to.”
“I was a shy person,” he revealed. “I was shy personally and musically. The fact that everyone thought it was a band is an example of how shy I was musically. I didn’t even want to tell people that I made the whole thing by myself.”
Upon its release in 2010 InnerSpeaker reinvented a number of Kevin Parker’s viral singles and two home-recorded extended players into a powerful statement of identity.
Its vintage rock feel, stoned vibration, and philosophically questioning themes, quickly earnt Tame Impala critical praise at home in Australia and overseas.
While lacking the commercial reach of subsequent albums Lonerism and The Slow Rush, InnerSpeaker launched Tame Impala‘s career as an international act.
To date it remains favorite amongst Tame Impala fans.
