Todd Rundgren Disses Thom Yorke, Credits Tame Impala

Todd Rundgren has dissed Thom Yorke and praised Tame Impala at the 2013 Red Bull Music Academy in New York City.

TheMusic.com.au's Kris Swales learned that Rundgren's forthright ways haven't dimmed with age.

"I'm blunt with an act," he said when quizzed about his notoriety as a hard taskmaster in the studio. "I'm not there to make them feel good, I'm there to address all the horrible things that will be said about them if that's the way they want to go ahead and do something."

Precious artists weren't the only target in Rundgren's sights when he sat down on Thursday for RBMA 15th anniversary edition, being held in a reconfigured office space on the fringe of Manhattan's Chelsea district. Nothing was safe from his slightly acidic tongue, least of all himself.

Rundgren admits that by the time he'd gotten to his 1972 album Something/Anything - a breakout commercial success as well as critical darling - he'd became aware that he'd spent the past six years writing songs about a high school love affair that died when he graduated.

"I realised I was digging the same hole over and over again," he said. "I realised that isn't what my world is about - by this time I was taking psychedelic drugs, so I realised that there was this whole inner life to draw on."

It was a wide-ranging lecture over two-plus hours to the 31 first term participants of the brand's semi-annual musical finishing school. Rundgren - looking very rock'n'roll in brown-tinted shades that never came off - didn't hold back on "music becoming the wallpaper of your life" thanks to the Walkman, the death of the major label model being entirely the fault of the labels themselves, and the overabundance of angst he hears from contemporary artists.

"Even though people aren't naturally miserable, people tend to write angsty," he said. "How much misery can Thom Yorke stand? Are you going to kill yourself or what?"

He also credited Australia's own Tame Impala as part of the impetus for his return to the studio and his 2013 long-player State.

"A band like Tame Impala come along and say they want to make their A Wizard, A True Star," he said, referencing his 1973 patchwork opus. "The irony is that they're doing neo-psychedelia, but wanted me to do a dance remix of them [of 2012's Elephant].

"They were so interested in what I used to do that I started to think I should be more interested in what I used to do as well."

Rundgren is touring Australia this July. Here are the dates:

Wednesday 17 July – The Gov, Adelaide SA
Friday 19 July – Chelsea Heights Hotel, Chelsea VIC
Saturday 20 July – Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree VIC
Sunday 21 July – Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Tuesday 23 July – Lizottes, Newcastle NSW
Thursday 25 July – Bridge Hotel, Balmain NSW
Friday 26 July – Whitlam Theatre, Revesby Workers, Sydney NSW
Saturday 27 July – Twin Towns Services Club, Tweed Heads QLD

Kris Swales is in New York City as a guest of Red Bull.