To kick off the release of his upcoming “Saturn Attacks” EP, LGBTQ indie pop musician Austin Carr released the tongue-in-cheek track “Tame Me?” on October 13, 2023. Alyssa Wilkens produced this catchy throwback pop song about a romantic game of cat and mouse. The song’s lyrics are full of clever double meanings and irreverent humor.
The Saturn Attacks EP, including “Tame Me?,” is influenced by classic pop solo musicians like Bruce Springsteen and Phil Collins. Austin’s music fuses elements of ambient 80s synth pop with folk and country instruments like the pedal steel guitar, drawing on his background in the American South. His lyrical remarks are, as usual, “embarrassingly honest.”
Austin Carr, like many other “digital natives,” got his musical start on YouTube. Austin’s rise to fame began with the uploading of acoustic renditions of songs; he later competed in and reached the finals of competitions including Simon Cowell’s YouGeneration. The 2020 EP Imaginary Boy by Austin Carr marked the beginning of his study of indie pop influenced by folk and country music. Almost 300,000 people have listened to the EP’s lead hit “I’ll Forget U, I Won’t Forget This” on Spotify, and his song “For Once and for Her” was featured on a pride collaboration album by Heard Well and other gay pop musicians in 2020.
To be honest, I never really planned on recording this song; I composed it more as an emotional release than anything else. It’s really out of character for me to write a pop song with so overtly sexual themes as this one. My inner mopey nerd is appalled that I’m even putting it out there, but I can’t wait to stop taking my music so seriously and have some dumb, silly fun on my next EP.
Listen to “Tame me?” on Spotify: