Earlier this week, Australian indie act Tame Impala was accused of plagiarizing 2012’s “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” with Chilean news site Rata claiming the song was clearly a knock-off of Argentinian singer Pablo Ruiz’s “Oceano.” Now the authors of that article, Raúl Álvarez and Patricio Pérez, have clarified that they were only joking—but their attempt at humor may still come back to bite Tame Impala in the ass.
According to ESPN Radio Argentina, Ruiz is consulting his lawyers about possibly suing the group, even though there’s absolutely no evidence that Tame Impala was even aware of “Oceano” or the singer. But Ruiz told ESPN Radio Argentina that it’s still plagiarism even if the group didn’t intend to do it, saying, “There are seven bars that are equal to my song.”
Rolling Stone reached out to Tame Impala for a comment, only to have the group’s frontman Kevin Parker reply, “This is a joke, right?”
Álvarez and Pérez said their charges of plagiarism was a joke they came up with at a party, and were “very surprised” at how fast it went viral. But while they still find the whole thing funny, they hope it doesn’t actually lead to charges against Tame Impala, because they “actually like them a lot.”
Comparisons of the two tracks are below.