"Just One Guy": The Tame Impala Extended Universe Ultimate Explainer pt. 1

Look upon my brainrot and perish!

If you know me even a little bit, you know that I am a Tame Impala superfan.

The band is one of the few (though not few enough) remaining vestiges of my mid-late 2010s psychonaut phase. I jumped on the bandwagon in the middle of the Lonerism album cycle and have been an insufferable champion of the band ever since. I’ve seen two live shows, one in Pittsburgh right before the Currents release in June 2015 and once in Philadelphia in August 2019, right at the beginning of the The Slow Rush album hype.

I remember everyone freaking out when “Let It Happen” first dropped and it was a massive departure from the more traditional guitar-centric psych pop of Lonerism and Innerspeaker.

I remember listening on repeat to the messy Saturday Night Live premiere of “Borderline,” including the intro by Sandra Oh, back before the single version of “Borderline” released on streaming, later to be replaced by the widely-regarded-as-inferior album version of “Borderline” when The Slow Rush dropped in February 2020.

All of this is to say my personal history with the band runs deep. Over my many years of fandom, I’ve seen Tame Impala grow in notoriety, bringing us to the current cultural moment where the band and its fans have become somewhat of a meme.

You see… I keep referring to Tame Impala as a “band,” but really, Tame Impala is just one guy.

Source: r/tameimpalacirclejerk

The Tame Impala is Just One Guy meme pokes fun at the favorite “fun fact” of every Tame Impala enjoyer, which is that Tame Impala is primarily the solo project of Kevin Parker, a shy dude out in Perth, Australia who writes, records, and produces the albums himself and recruits his friends to join him as his live band on tour. And with a few exceptions—some of which we’ll cover in this very article—this is mostly true. Tame Impala is, indeed, for the most part, asterisk asterisk, Just One Guy.

Back cover of Lonerism depicting Kevin Parker lying down in his home studio.

But let’s move beyond the meme, the myth, the legend of Kevin Parker, the introverted super-savant of Western Australia. Because the friends who make up his live band have their own solo projects, bands, and other collaborations that together form the Tame Impala Extended Universe: a redundant, incestuous web of psych-rock, psych-pop, psych-adjacent bands, projects, albums, and one-off live performances that are (mostly) notable in their own right. And who better to guide you on this magical journey than me, the self-proclaimed boy-king and walking encyclopedia of 2010s-2020s Australian neo-psychedelia?

So, without further ado…let’s start with the biggun.

Pond

Pond is a psych-rock/psych-pop band formed in 2008 in Perth, Australia. If you’ve heard of any of the Tame Impala-adjacent projects I’m discussing in this article, Pond is probably the one you’ve heard of.

Man It Feels Like Space Again, 2015

Current members of Pond include Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, and Shiny Joe Ryan, all of whom are directly involved with the Tame Impala live experience. Nick Allbrook, the frontman of Pond, was Tame Impala’s touring bassist from 2008 to 2013. Jay Watson, Pond’s co-founder continues to play with Tame Impala on tour. Shiny Joe Ryan, on the other hand, does visuals for Tame Impala’s live shows. Pond also includes Kevin Parker himself as one of its former members, as well as Cam Avery, Tame Impala’s current touring bassist, and Julien Barbagallo, their current touring drummer.

Kevin Parker also produced the Pond albums Beard, Wives, Denim (2012), Hobo Rocket (2013), Man It Feels Like Space Again (2015), and The Weather (2017), and he was a co-producer on Tasmania (2019). Their most recent record, 9 (2021), is the first since Beard, Wives, Denim not to be produced or at least co-produced by Kevin Parker, with Pond members Jay Watson and James Ireland handling production this time around.

I’ve always contextualized Pond as Tame Impala’s more erratic, jam-y cousin, the one that actually embodied the “guys on drugs dicking around in the studio” vibe that was sometimes attributed to Tame Impala before the Just One Guy meme took off. I’m not sure this is the truest or fairest assessment of the band and their process, but if you think Tame Impala has deviated too much from its more traditionally psychedelic roots, you should give Pond’s earlier stuff a try.

Tasmania (2019)

What to listen to: Tasmania is, in my opinion, their best album so far, with standout tracks being the slow-burn opener “Daisy” and the electric “Hand Mouth Dancer.” People more into the psych-rock vs. the psych-pop side of the spectrum may enjoy Man It Feels Like Space Again, which is a bit crunchier but still polished compared to some of the earlier releases. Also check out the album Sessions, a collection of live performances from throughout their discography. It’s a good sampler of some of Pond’s best work over the years, with some of the older tracks being updated to fit the band’s slightly more subdued and less crunchy vibe from the last 2 to 3 albums.

GUM

GUM is the project of Jay Watson, touring band member for Tame Impala as well as co-founder of Pond.

Delorean Highway, 2014

The name GUM is derived from Gumby, which was the nickname he was given while growing up in Western Australia. Jay Watson released his first album as GUM, Delorean Highway, in 2014.

And, since there is no better place to insert this information, Jay Watson has also made some not-insubstantial contributions to Tame Impala tracks over the years. He played on two tracks of the band’s 2008 self-titled EP—drums on “Wander” and keys on “41 Mosquitoes Flying in Formation.” He also played drums on three tracks on Tame Impala’s 2010 debut album Innerspeaker and keys on Lonerism’s “Apocalypse Dreams” and “Elephant.” That’s right—even though Tame Impala is Just One Guy, Jay Watson is responsible for some of the most memorable piano/keys parts on some of Lonerism’s most popular tracks. Curious.

Glamorous Damage (2015)

What to listen to: Okay, so, I am not a huge fan of GUM. I do like a good handful of tracks across all six releases so far, but no single album or era has really grabbed me the way certain Pond albums have.

As far as the best full album, that honor goes to The Underdog (2018), special attention paid to the whiplash between S.I.A. (stands for “say it again”) and “Serotonin.” But GUM’s far and away standout track to me is the single “Anesthetized Lesson” off 2015’s Glamorous Damage. Then again, this may be because I have a core memory of listening to Kevin Parker’s remix in the crowd at a Tame show in 2015. …Are you understanding now why I called this whole thing incestuous?

Pop quiz time! 🛎️

Who is Cam Avery?

…

If you’ve been paying attention, you should know that Cam Avery is the current touring bassist for Tame Impala, and he is also a former member of Pond. In addition to those things, he is also the founder of the band…

The Growl

The Growl was formed in 2011 in Fremantle, Western Australia and features Cam Avery as well as James Ireland from Pond. They released one EP, Cleaver Lever (2011), and one album, What Would Christ Do?? (2013).

Kevin Parker sobbing in the “Liarbird” music video.

Their most notable single is “Liarbird,” in part because the music video features several mainstays of the Tame Impala Extended Universe (TIEU), including Kevin Parker himself, crying in striped shirts in a little rowboat.

The Growl seemingly hasn’t been active since 2013, but they hold a special place in my heart. This band has an edge that a lot of the other TIEU projects just don’t. As their name suggests, The Growl is brash. If Tame Impala is bouba, The Growl is kiki. Cam Avery’s vocals play a major part in this distinction. His voice has this gravelly, admittedly kind of early 2010s stomp-clap-Hozier-take-me-to-church vibe to it that makes every song feel slutty while it kicks you in the chest. Imagine if The Black Keys were more interesting than they are 80% of the time (cue Black Keys and Tame Impala fans having a mid-off in the replies).

I think it’s a massive shame that most of The Growl’s already-limited catalog is not available on Spotify, at least in the U.S., because this band is good. Or was good. Fuck.

What Would Christ Do?? (2013)

What to listen to: “Cleaver Lever” is hands down the band’s best song and also really exemplifies the 2010s garage-y feel I was alluding to above. I am also a sucker for “Douse The Lamps,” which is hot as fuck even though the line “you’re just one of those womanly types” is kind of cringe to me. It’s a line that only makes sense to me if the song is about a man. Bonus points if you listen to the stripped-down, unplugged version of “Douse The Lamps” recorded at Fat Shan Records in 2015, which vindicates my assertion that this band is kind of slutty.

I have another slutty Cam Avery bonus points video on deck, but I’ll save that for the next installment where we’ll discuss his solo work. Don’t touch that dial…

The end… for now.

There are about 16,000 other projects and people in the TIEU I haven’t covered yet, but in the interest of not sending out a 50,000 word post, I’ll have to save them for a part 2 (or 3). Highlights for future installments include:

• Melody’s Echo Chamber, the self-titled psych/dream pop stunner of an album from Kevin Parker’s ex girlfriend, Melody Prochet;

• AAA Aardvark Getdown Services and the mythology of the controversial R. Moocher;

• Buncha Mark Ronson bullshit, including an early version of the song “Daffodils” on Uptown Special;

• The Dee Dee Dums, Kevin Parker’s band from his teenage years; and

• Gunns, a really great band you have never fucking heard of.

For now, I’ll leave you with this early Tame Impala pic featuring (from left to right) Nick Allbrook, Dom Simper (who I haven’t even talked about at all yet), Kevin Parker, and Jay Watson (GUM).

The men to whom I have given my last two brain cells.

Stay tuned for more unhinged Kat Giordano brainrot. xoxo