Tame Impala: 10 Interesting Facts You Might Not Know

When you hear the phrase “Tame Impala” it probably conjures images of Sir David Attenborough narrating a BBC wildlife documentary, but unless he’s a rock star I don’t see that happening.  Back in the day, one of my fellow DJ’s at the Grind Radio introduced me to this Australian psychedelic rock band and I liked their music so much, I’ve decided to do a fact sheet about them.

Here are 10 facts you might not know about Tame Impala

1. Tame Impala hail from Perth and was formed in 2007.

2. The current members of the band are Kevin Parker, Dominic Simper, Jay Watson, Cam Avery and Julien Barbagallo.

3. Tame Impala‘s music is heavily influenced by late 1960’s and early 1970’s psychedelic rock.  Some favoured and often-used effects by Parker include phasing, delay, reverb and fuzz.

4. Parker played in a various bands in the Perth music scene and eventually Tame Impala emerged as a Kevin Parker home-recording project in this period. He posted a number of tracks on Myspace, sparked interest with various record labels and eventually signed a deal with Modular Recordings. He called up Dominic Simper and Jay Watson to perform the songs live at a few live gigs.

5. The band gained a huge success with their debut album ’Innerspeaker’ in 2010, but the main success by fans and industry only came in 2012 with their second album ’Lonerism’ (which lead the album charts in Australia).

6. According to Parker the songs for ‘Lonerism’ were made world-wide: he has recorded guitar in Vienna and vocals on a Singapore-London flight. He has also lost an iPod somewhere between London and Amsterdam (full with recorded ideas), but he finally finished the album in a rented apartment in Paris in 2011.

7. To date Tame Impala has won no less than 17 WAMI awards, 13 ARIA awards,  2 Rolling Stone Australia Awards and 3 APRA Awards. The band have also been nominated for 4 Grammy Awards over the years.

8. Tame Impala have played shows at various festivals around the world including Southbound Festival, Meredith Music Festival, Falls Festival, V Festival, Big Day Out, Splendour in the Grass, Reading Festival, Coachella and Sasquatch Festival.

9. Counting ‘Lonerism’ and ‘Innerspeak’ the band have released a total of 4 studio albums, 2 Live Albums and 4 EPs.

10. In an interview with Esquire Magazine Gene Simmonds (of KISS fame) said this about Tame Impala: “…during the ’60s and ’70s they would’ve become big, I’m convinced.”

Well, there you have it, 10 facts about Tame Impala. You can follow them on Twitter via @tameimpala or check them out on Facebook.

To give you an idea of how awesome their music is, have a listen to their song, “Elephant” below:

 

Watch this space for regular updates in the Music category on Running Wolf’s Rant.