Kevin Parker remembers the first time he ever splurged on an item of clothing: he was out shopping with his girlfriend, now wife, and bought a Gucci jacket. “It was by far the most extravagant thing I had spent money on, and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I just did that,’” he recalls. In the kind of music community Parker comes from – his multimillion-selling psychedelic project Tame Impala has its roots in the DIY scene of Fremantle, Australia – people balk at a £50 jacket, let alone one that might cost 30 times that. “The world I come from is sceptical, not instinctively warmed by the world of fashion,” he says. However, “it was one of those things of slowly seeing that it’s not about the shallow aesthetic, it can be more about expressing yourself, and now I respect it in the same way I respect all other art forms.” Plus: “To be fair, it’s a sick jacket.”
How quickly things change: Parker has just unveiled a fashion line in partnership with the French label APC, known for its chic, minimalist basics and collaborations with icons such as Jane Birkin and Kid Cudi. Parker is not necessarily known for his fashion sense, making the collaboration something of a surprise. “It definitely wasn’t on my bingo card for my career,” he says with a laugh. “For the first few years of my career, I just slapped on whatever and, to be honest, I still slap on whatever. But there’s a bit more thought behind it.”
Befitting that mindset, APC x Tame Impala features comfortable, 70s-inspired clothes in muted pastels, inspired by “the idea of clothes that are worn by people in a cult or a commune,” he says. “A sort of DIY uniform worn by people all living together in the same world.”
Parker’s entrance into the fashion world has dovetailed with his increasing presence in the big-budget pop universe. A few years ago, he said he wanted to become a “Max Martin type”, an aspiration that’s come true with this year’s release of Radical Optimism, the third album by Dua Lipa. Parker worked on the bulk of the record and appeared onstage with her to perform his TikTok hit The Less I Know the Better during her Glastonbury headline set this year, an experience he describes as “way more wild than I thought it was gonna be”.
“The nicest thing about it was that it was Dua headlining Glastonbury, which is something she has wanted to do since she was a kid,” he says, his voice glowing with admiration. “I felt like I had a seat in someone’s dream that they were living – I was just happy to be a part of it.”
The dream, of course, only lasted a moment – Parker and Lipa tried to celebrate together afterwards, but got caught up in the Glastonbury rush. “We had a big hug, just vibing out for an instant there, and then I had to go to a DJ set and she had to go to her afterparty,” he says. “We didn’t get to properly rage, but that is just the way Glastonbury goes.”
When Lipa first broke the news to Parker during a studio session in Los Angeles, “we were all kind of jumping up and down, super excited about it,” he recalls. “She also got the Friday night spot, which meant she got the rest of the weekend to party – so even that was just the dream situation.” Initially, Parker was surprised that Lipa wanted him to share her career-pinnacle moment, but Lipa was resolute. “I remember just being like, ‘Really? Are you sure you want to play my little song during your set of absolute bangers?” he says. “She was pretty insistent – so after I double-checked with her that she wanted to do it, of course I was in.”
Parker describes himself as “an ambitious person” who’s “always unsatisfied in a healthy way – dreaming of the next thing”, which is why he was so thrilled to work with Lipa on an album-length project. The pair clicked at the first session in London. “The energy Dua creates in her creative space is one of no ego – we all noticed there were no huge personalities in the room trying to dominate the process,” he says. “When you speak to other writers, they’ve all got nightmare experiences of people who were too big for the room.”
Parker is one of a number of rock producers – including Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and underground indie luminary Alex G – who have made the jump to pop in recent years. The move doesn’t signal the long-forecasted death of rock’n’roll as much as an ability to “explore a different personality in making music”. “Having all the attention on you, when writing songs that you’re going to be singing, can be restricting, because you have to think about everything at once,” Parker says. “When I had the first ambition to write pop music for other artists, [I had] the idea that it doesn’t matter what you write, because you’re not the one saying it. I quickly learned that’s not the case – you still do care about it deeply, but it’s nice to share the burden of making stuff.”
And how is his new pop focus going to affect the forthcoming fifth Tame Impala record, his first since 2020? It’s hard to say – staying tight-lipped seems to be one of the key skills Parker has picked up from the pop world. “All I can say is that I’m working on it,” he says. “It’s not finished yet, but I think it’ll be there soon. I’m loving how excited I am by it – for me, with Tame Impala, if I’m not feeling inspired, there’s no fucking point in doing it.”