Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker has shared his love for Deftones, Silverchair and Queens Of The Stone Age, and explained how they inspired him as an artist.
The Australian musician and producer shared insight into some of his favourite albums of all time during a new appearance on Amoeba’s What’s in My Bag series, discussing how different records had shaped his own material over the years.
The first record he talked about was Silverchair’s second record ‘Freak Show’, which was released in 1997. Introducing them as an “Australian grunge band from the ‘90s”, Parker added that the record was one of the first he ever bought, and played an integral part in his childhood.
“It might be responsible for me wanting to be in a rock band at all. I was obsessed with Silverchair. Absolutely flogged this album,” he said. “I was like 10 or 11 years old, and they would have been like 16 or 17 when they made this.”
He continued, talking about the songs on the tracklist: “I know every song back to front. Whether it was just being in my room playing with Lego or playing Playstation, I just had this on. The first track of any album is always the one that gets you, because it’s the one that comes on first.”
Later, Parker shared his love for ‘90s rock giants, Deftones, admitting that he is a huge fan of their third album, 2000’s ‘White Pony’.
“I was obsessed with this album. I had been into a lot of nu metal stuff since I was a kid. Deftones was really the one that carried me through my teenage years,” he explained.
“It’s another album where [if] I hear songs now, it almost hurts to hear them… It takes me right back there to being a fragile human.”
Later, he described Queens Of The Stone Age’s ‘Rated R’ (2000) as one that helped shape his sound as he started writing his own material, and described it as a “very important album for my musical upbringing”.
“Queens Of The Stone Age definitely changed the way I play guitar – I went from just trying to be as angry and angsty as possible to just like being really controlled,” he explained. “[It] made me feel like I was on drugs before I even took drugs… This album taught me that rock music can be hard, but also totally sexy.”
Check out the full video above, where Parker also shares his love for Todd Rundgren’s 1973 album ‘A Wizard, A True Star’, Coldplay’s 2002 release ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ and more.
Tame Impala’s fifth studio album ‘Deadbeat’ arrived back on October 17, and was given a three-star review from NME. It noted that “Parker has grown outside his comfort zone, only to strike a kind of lyrical inertia that becomes detrimental to his new vocabulary of music”.
Over the past two months, Tame Impala embarked on a huge US tour, and they will be bringing the show to the UK and Europe in spring 2026. UK shows include a stop at the O2 Arena on May 7, followed by visits to Manchester (8), Birmingham (9) and Glasgow (11) and Dublin (13).
Visit here for European tickets, here for UK tickets and see all dates below.
Tame Impala’s 2026 UK and European tour dates are:
APRIL
4 – Super Bock Arena – Pavilhão Rosa Mota – Porto, Portugal
5 – MEO Arena – Lisbon, Portugal
7 – Movistar Arena – Madrid, Spain
8 – Palau Sant Jordi – Barcelona, Spain
10 – LDLC Arena – Lyon, France
12 – Inalpi Arena – Turin, Italy
13 – Unipol Arena – Bologna, Italy
14 – Hallenstadion – Zurich, Switzerland
16 – Olympiahalle – Munich, Germany
18 – PreZero Arena – Gliwice, Poland
20 – O2 Arena – Prague, Czechia
23 – Barclays Arena – Hamburg, Germany
25 – Royal Arena – Copenhagen, Denmark
26 – Avicii Arena – Stockholm, Sweden
27 – Unity Arena – Oslo, Norway
29 – Uber Arena – Berlin, Germany
30 – Festhalle – Frankfurt, Germany
MAY
1 – PSD Bank Dome – Dusseldorf, Germany
3 – Accor Arena – Paris, France
4 – Ziggo Dome – Amsterdam, Netherlands
5 – AFAS Dome – Antwerp, Belgium
7 – The O2 – London, United Kingdom
For Deftones, the shout-out from Parker comes shortly after Chino Moreno and co. shared their latest album ‘Private Music’ to critical acclaim.
In a glowing five-star review, NME wrote: “Rather than just hang off the legacy of the immaculate classics ‘Around The Fur’ and ‘White Pony’, the Sacramento art-metallers have spent the 21st Century boshing out banger after banger as arguably the most reliable band in rock.”
As for Queens Of The Stone Age, the band brought their UK and European ‘Catacombs’ tour to an end earlier this year with a show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
They will hit the road again next year, with stadium support dates with System Of A Down in the UK and Europe and Foo Fighters in North America. Fans are also expecting the follow-up to ‘In Times New Roman‘ to arrive in 2026.
