Kevin Parker and Mac DeMarco Were Indie Gods. Now They’re Just Trying to Keep Up.

When Mac DeMarco, sitting comfortably in the bathtub of his home in Canada’s Southern Gulf Islands, hopped on a Zoom with his friend Kevin Parker earlier this month, the Tame Impala frontman had, just hours earlier, won his very first Grammy Award, this one for Best Dance/Electronic Recording. But accolades don’t matter much to the Aussie, whose 2025 album Deadbeat, inspired by the vibrant raves—or “doofs”—of his homeland, marked a radical and somewhat polarizing sonic departure. “I’m going to be dead honest with you,” Parker told DeMarco, who opened for Tame Impala on the 2015 Currents tour. “I forgot that I was nominated.” The musicians, both synonymous with the indie rock explosion of the early 2010s, reunited at a moment of contemplation and nostalgia, each reflecting on the days when they used to get “fucking hammered” just to make it through a live performance. “It’s funny how things that were so chaotic back then become romantic ideas,” mused Parker, whose world tour kicks off in February. Below, he and DeMarco get deep about sobriety, imposter syndrome, and the quiet thrills of your late 30s.

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MAC DEMARCO: There he is. I’m in the tub. 

KEVIN PARKER: Maybe show me really quickly?

DEMARCO: Okay, okay. [Turns camera on] Let’s see. 

PARKER: Man, you’ve really trumped my relaxational interview mode. Gorgeous. How are you, my friend?

DEMARCO: I’m good. Good to see you.

PARKER: Yeah, dude. You too. Where are you in the world?

DEMARCO: I’m in Western Canada. It’s an area called the Southern Gulf Islands in British Columbia.

PARKER: Okay. Is that where you bought a house?

DEMARCO: Yeah, I got a crib out here. It’s very old and I’m constantly working on it. We actually built some doors and put them in last night, which I thought was going to be easy, but it was just not easy at all. I’m covered in wood dust and I’m covered in caulking. It was a nightmare but I finished just in time and that’s why I’m in the tub. And you’re in L.A. a lot of the time now, right?

PARKER: I am, but I’m in Fremantle right now back home in Western Australia. I’m in my own corner of the world.

DEMARCO: Very good. I mean, you have that fancy house that you can see the ocean in—

PARKER: I wouldn’t call it fancy. The view is fancy. But are there a bunch of rodents and stuff in the walls? Yeah, probably. 

DEMARCO: It’s the same with this house. Like, are there a bunch of rodents and stuff in the walls? Yeah, probably. But the proximity is cool…

PARKER: Wait, so paint me a picture of how remote it is? Do you have neighbors?

DEMARCO: There’s neighbors but they’re a ways away, an acre or two.

PARKER:  So it really is like Wave House.

DEMARCO: It’s like an ocean farm vibe and also kind of too cold to actually farm anything.

PARKER: Oh, okay. I have to apologize. They told me to read an interview with you to get up to speed on everything but I was like, “You know what? I’m not going to read it because then I’m already going to know everything.”

DEMARCO: Oh, it’s fine. And I thought you won a Grammy last night. [Laughs] How come you’re not in L.A.?

PARKER: Too far, my friend. Way too far.

DEMARCO: Well, congratulations. 

PARKER: Thanks, man.

DEMARCO: I was going to ask what the parties were like, but you weren’t there.

PARKER: Look, I’m going to be dead honest with you. I forgot they were even on.

DEMARCO: So did I. But the difference is, I’m not up for any Grammys. You are. 

PARKER: No, I forgot that I was nominated as well. You have to imagine my confusion because in Australia, we wake up and then we find out about what happened in America last night, so my phone has absolutely blown up. I’ve got 30 messages on my phone, all saying congratulations. None of them are saying what for. And I’m like, “What for, motherfuckers?”

DEMARCO: That’s a good place to be, I think. But tell me this… I saw you guys were on tour, West Coast of the States. I guess you did the East Coast, too. Is that it? 

PARKER: Well, it’s this classic story. We had a whole tour booked for a month in America and then the album got pushed back by a month and then we had to push the tour back and that went into basketball and ice hockey season, so we lost all those venues.

DEMARCO: [Laughs] I don’t have these problems playing in theaters. But you have to move over for the sports teams, I guess.

PARKER: Yeah. So we just played a handful of shows and it was kind of like a warmup tour, really. And then this year’s going to be the big dogs where we just go to America for fucking eight weeks or whatever it is. See if we can stay sane and see if our families still want to stay with us…

DEMARCO: I think it’ll be cool. A lot of kids in the band nowadays, aren’t there?

PARKER: There is, which is really beautiful. There’s going to be six kids or something across two extra tour buses. I remember right when we were starting out, we supported the Foo Fighters. And it’s funny how your perspective changes, right?

DEMARCO: Yeah, yeah. I mean I don’t have kids yet, but I probably will at some point. My drummer hasn’t been with us for a long time, but this guy Phil [Melanson], who just started touring on my album with us this cycle, he just had a kid. So looks like we’re right around the corner…

PARKER: Oh, yeah.

DEMARCO: We’ve known each other since, what, maybe 2013, something like that? I didn’t really meet you guys at Coachella, but I remember you guys came by and saw us play some fucked up show at a pool party. 

PARKER: I was going to say, I thought maybe we met in Paris the first time, because I was living there. That’s when I started listening to you, when your 2 album came out.

DEMARCO: I think the first time we actually kicked it was when you came and did lights for us in Perth, the first time we played in Australia.

PARKER: Wait, what?

DEMARCO: I emailed you. I was like, “We’re playing Perth, you should come out.” And I think we were playing with Ham Jam.

PARKER: Man, your memory is insane.

DEMARCO: Oh, it’s as sharp as a tack. But you were like, “Oh, I’m trying to learn how to do lights right now. Can I do the lights?” I was like, “Yeah, I mean, fuck.” 

PARKER: I don’t remember doing lights so I was probably just like, “Fuck it, I’m not going to do it and I’m just going to watch.” But I want to ask you about shows, first of all, because you’re sober now, right?

DEMARCO: For a few years—three, four years. I don’t know, something like that.

PARKER: That’s so awesome.

DEMARCO: I mean, it changes every day but it’s interesting. 

PARKER: Was there just a moment where you’re just like, “Okay, that’s it.”

DEMARCO: Oh my god. I was a savage beast. But Australians are very similar to Canadians. We drink a lot. It’s a drinking culture. You know what I mean?

PARKER: Absolutely.

DEMARCO: And I think that I’m just used to it. People just get fucking hammered. And I love to do it. It’s part of touring.

PARKER: Absolutely. I didn’t know that about Canadian culture. 

DEMARCO: In certain parts of Canada, there’s a lot of it, but I think it kind of goes back to some maybe English roots or something. But I’ll say that in England, it’s healthier. The pub is kind of the community center. So I got sober in COVID, but I think before that, I would already experiment with not getting hammered before going out there because it’s kind of like, you’ve played a trillion shows, you get so used to the way it goes that sometimes I just wanted to try to bring some of those nerves back or something.

PARKER: So was that kind of your routine, getting pretty sloshed before you go out there?

DEMARCO: For a period, and then it was going out bone dry and getting hammered afterwards. Then other times, it was bone dry, getting hammered throughout the show. You look at videos of me from that time and I look like I’m about to die. It’s insane. I actually remember the last show you guys did because I probably gave you all COVID with that crowd-surfing. [Laughs]

PARKER: I still see videos of that on Instagram like, “Mac DeMarco crowd-surfs at Tame Impala Show.”

DEMARCO: It was at The Forum, right? And then it all shut down the next day. 

PARKER: Yeah.

DEMARCO: It’s funny, I don’t know if it’s partially the sober thing, but going back out and playing now it’s almost amplified. If it’s a good show, it’s really good. If it’s a bad show, it’s really fucking bad. In the moment, I’m kind of like, “Oh, that was horrible.” But it’s horrible in a way you can taste.

PARKER: Yeah, exactly.

DEMARCO: Sometimes I go out there now and I’m just like, “I’m a clown. This is what I do for my job?” But at the same time, there’s another side of that coin.

PARKER: It’s a thrill. That’s why we drink, right?

DEMARCO: Exactly.

PARKER: It’s just sort of to bring it down to a simmering sort of enjoyment of everything.

DEMARCO: Yeah, the sizzle. 

PARKER: Well, see, my relationship with drinking and shows is I’ve got this routine absolutely locked, and I follow it to the T. I don’t really drink much before the show, but I like to drink throughout because it’s fun and I’m up there with my friends. And for anyone who’s not, let’s say Australian, English or Canadian, the idea of getting drunk and then going on stage would be the challenge. But now the challenge is to do it sober.

DEMARCO: Exactly.

PARKER: It would be a real challenge for me to get on stage sober and stay sober the whole time. That would be like playing my first gig all over again. But more and more, I’ve just been appreciating the moments when it doesn’t go to script because the bigger the shows you play, the more everything has to be to a script. If you go off it, then the whole show falls apart because it’s all time-coded and everything’s locked in. So when things go wrong, for me, that’s the sort of spice.

DEMARCO: Yeah. Even with this new album that I just put out, I was kind of like, “I want to go back in a van. I want to play clubs.” I wanted to do it like it was 2015 again and everyone was kind of like, “Cool, Mac. We’ll do that. We’re all in our mid-30s now, but yeah, okay.” And I’ve been slowly realizing that maybe it’s a little bit unrealistic.

PARKER: I feel like I know the answer to this question, but why did you want to take it back to how you did it in 2015? What was it about that time?

DEMARCO: It’s not amnesia, but things have changed. Especially during COVID, a lot of things changed. Even before COVID, big promotion companies bought up most of the venues in the United States. There’s not a lot of independent stuff going on anymore. So I think that I’m remembering these shows that we did in a weird little place in Middle America somewhere on the West Coast. But the reality is, a lot of those places and local scenes are different. And I think that the way the internet operates now is different, so I want to almost cosplay this old version of how touring used to be.

PARKER: Isn’t that funny?

DEMARCO: It might not even be possible, but I’m looking for ways. 

PARKER: I’m always like, “Man, I just want to play a tiny little show in a pub somewhere.” And the Pond guys are always like, “My culture is not your costume.” [Laughs] And I’m like, “Hey man, I was doing that back when you were fucking learning keyboard.”

DEMARCO: Music is different. The industry’s changing. I don’t know if I’m trying to keep up or what I’m trying to do…

PARKER: It’s funny how things that were so chaotic back then become romantic ideas.

DEMARCO: I’m old now. I don’t know what to do. And here we are.

PARKER: Man, you’re 35. You’re a baby. Not to open a huge can of worms here, but has the term “imposter syndrome” ever resonated with you? 

DEMARCO: Absolutely. It’s completely insane what we do. But when you’ve had imposter syndrome for long enough, I think there’s nothing else to do except be like, “Well, I am the imposter.”

PARKER: Exactly.

DEMARCO: You’ve got to own it.

PARKER: Exactly. We outlasted imposter syndrome.

DEMARCO: Exactly. I’m not a good musician, but I am the musician that I am. 

PARKER: Well, my take on it all is that there definitely seems to be more of an immediate awareness of judgment for artists that go out and stuff. Feedback is so instant and so brutal.

DEMARCO: Yeah, for sure.

PARKER: Your bath’s probably freezing cold by now.

DEMARCO: Not too bad. 

PARKER: I haven’t heard you running any more hot water into it.

DEMARCO: It’s a cast iron, so it holds the heat okay. But I will probably get a bit more hot going in here pretty soon.

PARKER: Well, you’ve earned it, man.

DEMARCO: Yeah, absolutely. A pleasure talking to you. 

PARKER: All right. Good to chat, man.