Kevin Parker wanted to “expose” himself on Tame Impala’s new album.
The Australian musician’s latest record Deadbeat opens with a voice note of himself singing alone into his phone because he wanted to make the LP seem “more human” than ever before.
He told RUSSH magazine: “I make a lot of voice memos.
“I was listening to them in the car one day and realised how intimate they are.
“They’re not recorded well, just a s***** iPhone mic.
“It just seemed like the exact thing I was after, which was trying to make a more human, more exposed album.
“I suddenly realised that I hadn’t been exposed in my music before.
“I’ve always made things so dense, so full, that I ended up hiding myself.
“You can forget how important it is to have a voice and write words. You can fall prey to your insecurities.
The cover of the record features Kevin’s daughter Peach, and he insisted he wasn’t trying to send any other message than to make the album feel “personal”.
He said: “Honestly, putting her on the cover was probably the most misleading thing I could have done.
“People see the word Deadbeat and a picture of me and my kid and think, oh, I get it – ‘deadbeat dad’.
“But that wasn’t it at all. It was just personal. Just… human.
“Sometimes art is just putting things together and letting them mean what they mean.
“I can’t explain why that photo and that title work together, they just do.
“To me, it was about saying; here I am. This is me.”
The 39-year-old musician wants the record to be about “connection”.
He said: “I think Deadbeat is about connection. Or maybe the struggle to connect.
“With yourself, with others, with reality.
“I wanted it to sound human, exposed. I realised I’d never really done that before.”