The grateful head

“One night in 1977 Talking Heads were playing at CBGBs but there was a really horrific smell that night, it made us nauseous. And CBGBs normally didn’t smell so great but this was terrible, and we checked our shoes and looked over each other but we couldn’t find where it was coming from. One of the owners of CBGBs had a dog that had been missing for a couple of days and sure enough we eventually discovered the dog had crawled under the stage and died. I guess he’d eaten rat poison or something else toxic. There was a lot of toxic stuff around back then.”

David Byrne is flicking through the Hot Press 25 year anniversary issue and remembering what he and his band were up to way back then. One of the most successful of a crop of NYC new wave acts that included The Ramones, Blondie, Television and the Heartbreakers, Talking Heads always seemed apart from their peers, remote and aloof. This attitude was due in equal parts to the band’s considered approach to their music – blending dance rhythms and elements of funk with punk’s nihilistic lyrical vision – and Byrne’s studied savant intelligence.

“I think we consciously tried to be different, I had no interest in being the same as anyone else, and while it was a scene or a movement it was very much a collection of individuals also. Drag queens, muscled gay guys, artists and musicians all united by the peculiar energy of New York. We were never really into the drug thing that was a very big part of that scene but again I didn’t want to be doing what everyone else was doing. That junkie-glamour thing was something I never appreciated – the attraction to that danger. Then there were guys like Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine who would have felt a link to certain French poets of a similar ilk, but even that was almost expected. I thought it was more perverse to be in the rock ‘n roll business while appearing to be as normal as possible.”

How does he view the recent success of retro-punk outfits like The Strokes?

“A good song is a good song,” he insists, “whether it’s a retro thing or not and those guys have a couple of good songs. But you know, I’ve been through that once so I’ve no real interest in going there again.”

Talking Heads were among the most successful of the acts of that era yet in 1990, David Byrne, by then an established solo artist, refused to rejoin the line up for a proposed tour. It was a decision that confirmed suspicions that the band was finished.

“When we started out in ’74 we hung out together all the time,” explains Byrne. “But as we all became more successful that didn’t happen as much… Plus our musical interests changed and though for a while it was interesting to have people bring different ideas to the table, eventually things went too far and people had some very different visions as to where we should go. And I won’t deny there were some long standing personality differences that weren’t ever going to be resolved. Basically what had started off as a fun thing to do, and I wasn’t a very exuberant person back then but I loved it, it just became something that wasn’t a lot of fun to do. It became a job.”

His solo career has seen him experiment with indigenous music, particularly the sounds of South America. How did his interest in Latin American music come about?

“Again it goes back to New York City and the amazing blend of music that exists in that city. The Village Gate venue on Bleeker St is just blocks from CBGB’s and would host some of the best salsa bands in the world every Monday night for ten years straight. And jazz guys would sit in and play sets that would last for hours with everyone dancing… And this was parallel to the punk thing that was happening two blocks over. But I discovered other clubs all over New York City and a Latin scene every bit as vibrant and energetic as the punk thing. It’s as New York a sound as the Velvet Underground – it’s just at the other end of the spectrum.

“Anybody who’s ever gotten involved in any kind of dance music will confirm that there’s a feeling of being transported, a moment when the feeling you get from the music transcends your mundane existence. You can get a little taste of it on records but it’s better when you’re grooving with a whole crowd of people. I love it.”

The dance scene on this side of the Atlantic, and the communality that he describes, was greatly aided by the popularity of ecstasy. Has he experimented with the drug?

“The ecstasy thing never really caught on in the USA as much as it did in the UK and Ireland, except in areas like San Francisco for example, which was not where I was. Consequently house music didn’t enjoy the popularity in the USA that it did here, which was kind of a pity.”

So is that a no?

“Oh, sorry (laughs). Yeah, that’s a no!”

His non-use of the drug hasn’t however prevented him from collaborating on one of the finest floor fillers of the summer; the Xpress-2 hit ‘Lazy’.

“I had asked the guys to perform live with me some time ago but they explained that they didn’t do that. However we kept in contact and they sent me the song and I was really pleased to do it. It’s at number one in Beiruit now which is cool. And we play it live on this tour, the Freeform Five mix with live strings, and it works really well.”

Does he normally write music and lyric simultaneously?

“Usually I write the music first which is relatively easy and I slot the lyrics around the tune but I find lyric writing difficult. It’s not just a case of writing words to fit the slot, you have to be relevant, and I don’t want to imply that I’ve nothing to say. The funny thing is that the words you decide to include often have a meaning and a resonance that only becomes clear at a later date as you realise, ‘Ahhh!, that’s what I meant’; it can be quite a subconscious thing. But you are writing what’s on your mind. Although on my current album several songs arrived with the melody and lyric almost intact.”

Did he enjoy his recent tour?

“Very much, in fact I enjoy it now much more than I ever did before, and we’re doing some old stuff and some new stuff and even a couple of cover versions. It’s great that we have a six-piece string section because that brings something else to the music, it’s very powerful but very subtle also. And the audiences have been great, people are singing along and dancing, it’s a lot of fun.”

Is he still involved with his Luaka Bop label?

“Yeah, but obviously I’ve been touring so I need to get back to that. My role is mainly in suggesting artists whose records we might release and then helping people with the business and press side of things so that the artist just has to concentrate on the music. But we’ve got a couple of records due this year, one from a salsa band and one from a female singer and I’m looking forward to working on those. It’s all good.”