Extra: David Byrne and the birth of Talking Heads

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2019

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Byrne’s stage show “American Utopia” is heading to Broadway in October. The show will feature songs from his latest album of the same name, as well as some older works from his former band, Talking Heads. This month also marks the 35th anniversary of “Stop Making Sense,” the brilliant Talking Heads’ concert film, made by Jonathan Demme.

Kurt Andersen spoke with David Byrne in 2012 about the group’s early years. In an era of punk decadence, Talking Heads created a pop revolution by combining tight, funk-based rhythms, a clean-cut image, and themes of anxiety and social isolation. Kurt brings up the early song “I’m Not in Love,” in which Byrne wonders, “Do people really fall in love?” “I was just asking all the most super-obvious questions,” explains Byrne, who has said that he may have had Asperger’s syndrome as a young person. “Why do humans, people, we do these things? And how does it work?”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	from PRX.
0:07.0	I'm Kurt Anderson, and this is the Studio 360 podcast.
0:15.4	If I were to make a list of my, I don't know, 50 living cultural heroes, David Byrne, would be on it.
0:24.4	I fell for him in the late 70s, of course, when he was the front man for talking heads.
0:29.3	And then I became more of a fanboy as his career evolved, music producer, music curator, visual artist, biking activist, lecturer, filmmaker, theater maker.
0:41.2	Now, he's kind of blending most of those things together from his resume and staging it and starring in it on Broadway.
0:50.2	His show American Utopia opens in New York City this month.
0:54.7	It features songs from a new album called American Utopia, as well as Talking Head songs,
1:00.1	plus a kind of story and choreography and other assorted bits of theater.
1:12.1	My Talking Heads Omnmanac tells me there's another milestone coming up soon in October.
1:17.9	The ninth is the 35th anniversary of Stop Making Sense, the terrific concert film directed by
1:23.4	Jonathan Demi.
1:24.7	I have spoken with David Byrne a couple of times on Studio 360, most recently in 2012,
1:30.3	when he and Talking Heads released a DVD set called Chronology, which was a collection of the band's
1:38.5	live performances, audio and video, all the way back to 1975.
1:47.2	David Byrne, welcome.
1:48.6	Hi, good to be here.
1:53.9	Were you surprised at the popularity that you had? That this success that came out of this arty little downtown band?
1:59.4	Yes and no.
2:01.3	Well, I'm interested in the no.
2:03.2	Okay, you're interested in the no.
2:05.6	All right.
	...

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