Tame Impala open up about new album ‘Currents’

In a new, extensive interview with Under The Radar, Tame Impala maestro Kevin Parker has detailed the inspiration behind the band’s new record, ‘Currents’. It’s due out later this year, and so far, we’ve heard ‘Cause I’m A Man’ and ‘Let It Happen’.

In the interview, Parker explains the narrative behind ‘Currents’. “It kind of documents —though ‘documents’ is a shitty word — but it follows the progression of someone feeling like they are becoming something else, he says. “They’re becoming the kind of person they thought they’d never become. It’s like if you know someone and you’re close to them, and you can see them changing and morphing into a different person…. this is meant to tell the story from the inside, what’s going on in their head and why they’re seeing things differently and feeling like they go somewhere else mentally.

He also explained that ‘Let It Happen’ is a central song in terms of what he wants to convey on the record. ‘Currents,’ he says, is about allowing yourself to be swept along by the water. “The analogy I use is that you’re stuck in this really rapid river, and it’s washing you somewhere, and there’s a wharf at the end,” Parker says. “You’re clutching at these branches or logs and trees, trying to not let the river wash you down. You don’t want to be washed away; you want to stay in control. But at some point, you realize that you’re only wasting energy by trying to resist. You might as well let go and let it take you where it’s going to take you and let it rush you off the side of a waterfall. Who knows? It might be amazing down there.”

Parker also shed light on “sassy” new single ‘Cause I’m A Man,’ saying that the “boys will be boys” implication of the chorus is thoroughly ironic. “It’s meant to be kind of sassy and tongue-in-cheek to some degree,” he said, “it’s meant to sound kind of sexy…It is very direct. Lyrically I’m not usually that out there and straight up saying things, but it’s meant to be really tongue-in-cheek at the same time. The song is about how weak men are, basically, and how we make all these excuses but really we’re just these odorous male members of the animal kingdom. We don’t have any self-control and are pathetic, basically.”

Listen to ‘Cause I’m a Man’ below: