Tame Impala's Kevin Parker Responds To Missing Royalties Lawsuit

Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker has spoken out about the ongoing saga which has seen publishing behemoth BMG drag Aussie label Modular Recordings to court, over what’s alleged to be around one million dollars worth of missing Tame Impala royalties.

Speaking with themusic.com.au, Parker says he wasn’t actually expecting to see the missing money again.

“As far as I was concerned I’d written off that side of things, I’d heard that some money had gone missing, blah blah blah, that’s all I really thought about it.”

“It’s not frustrating, that’s not the word. It’s just… that’s the way it is. It’s one of those things that I accept,” he continued, also admitting that the logistics of the case have left him a bit confused.

“To begin with, it’s complicated, it’s so complicated,” he confessed. “Put it this way, I’ve had it explained to me a number of times, how the money went missing and where it went and why it went missing, but about 30 seconds into the explanation I’m just lost because there’s a difference between mechanical royalties and songwriting royalties.

“It gets extremely technical extremely quickly, and that’s why I’m not that interested in it. I’ve been okay, I’m doing fine, you know, I’m getting by, I can pay for my dinner. In the end, I’m lucky enough to travel the world and make albums, and not have to worry about not having a job.

“Whilst it is naive that I don’t give a shit about that much money that’s gone missing, I just find it counter-productive to get worked up over it. They’re just gonna battle it out and do their thing, I’m a spectator at this point.”

Parker also says he was surprised to learn that BMG had taken action to recover the funds from Modular in the first place.

“When it actually hit the surface, and everyone knew about it, I was surprised,” he says. “I didn’t know they were going to sue anyone, I didn’t know there was going to be any suing going on, so I was as surprised and interested as anyone.”

His comments come hot on the heels of a Reddit interview a few weeks back, in which Parker first alluded to the missing money, prior to the launch of legal proceedings.

When quizzed over why he decided to make mention of the issue during the AMA, the singer emphasised the importance of recognising that artists deserve to get paid for their work.

“Different people have different opinions on whether it should be owned, physically owned, whether you paid for it, [and] if you got it for free it’s not as valuable as if you paid for it,” he said.

“I guess all I’m saying is the idea that paying for music is important because the artist deserves money for their work. It made me realise my situation is like – in terms of money, I haven’t made any album money, I haven’t made any money from album sales”.

Tame Impala are gearing up to release their third album, Currents, on July 17th.

You can read the official statement from Modular Recordings responding to the royalties lawsuit, here.

Watch: Tame Impala – Cause I’m A Man [Official Live Video]