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This is Fresh Air, I am Terry Gross.

My guest is David Byrne. He was a founding member of the band Tucking Heads,

one of the seminal bands of the punk New Wave period of the 70s.

The Tucking Heads weren't exactly punk, but they weren't like any band that came before them.

They recorded eight albums between 1977 and when they stopped playing together in 1988.

If you love their music or if you never saw or heard them,

this is a great time to watch the 40th anniversary edition of their concert film Stop Making Sense,

which is playing in theaters. It's newly restored with a remastered soundtrack.

Many music critics and fans consider it among the best concert films ever made.

Byrne went on to record solo albums, collaborate on experimental theater pieces with Robert Wilson

and Spolting Gray, and a ballet with choreographer Toilet Thorpe.

He still has the record label he founded in 1988, Luacobop.

His first releases were compilations of Brazilian music,

but then he expanded into African pop and later jazz and gospel as well as his own solo albums.

Spike Lee directed the film version of his 2019 concert Broadway show, American Utopia.

Byrne's musical, Here Lies Love, is currently on Broadway.

He won an Oscar as one of the composers of the score for the Bertolucci film The Last Emperor

and was nominated for one for the song he co-wrote with Mitsky and Sun Luxe for the 2022 film

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