Currently wowing the UK on tour, Talking Heads legend David Byrne explains how he’s more comfortable in social situations and feels less of an outsider. He won’t reunite with Talking Heads but concedes they had something special other than just songs.
Once considered pop’s great outsider, David Byrne is now on a ground breaking tour that celebrates community and the human spirit.
Less awkward but still reassuringly angular the Talking Heads legend’s latest work includes a song called I’m An Outsider, but does he still feel like one?
“Not as much as I used to,” he confesses. “I’m more comfortable in social situations now, but still a little. I don’t feel like a typical rock musician… I can write about it, remember how I felt.
“I still write songs where I ask questions. Why do people do this? Why do I do this? I still have this feeling of not quite understanding.”
That outsider changed the face of popular music with Talking Heads, merging rock with funk and world rhythms. He invented a fresh way of writing with pioneering video and stage ideas —something that foreshadowed the fabulous eighties.
After Talking Heads Byrne immersed himself in the arts focusing on a variety of projects including ballet scores, contemporary art exhibitions, films, books.
But he was never tempted to form another collective.
“Like Paul McCartney starting another band?” he questions. “No, I thought, ‘This is my chance to explore, to try different things’.”
That all changed on latest LP, Who Is The Sky? a collaboration with Brooklyn-based 9-piece ensemble, The Ghost Train Orchestra known for re-imagining classics and obscurities.
“I’d never heard of them until maybe two years ago,” he says of the band. “I heard this album where they performed Moondog’s music. I liked the sound of their arrangements.”
Their collaboration takes in everything from Latin to jazz but that’s nothing new for Byrne who first introduced world music to the Talking Heads canon in the Seventies: “I used to buy records without having any idea what they were. There was no information. Is it a good or bad band, what kind of music is it? I discovered Cuban and Brazilian music, and gradually I found what I liked.”
Byrne’s current tour is closer in spirit to theatre production than traditional rock gig, but there’s a few old pop classics thrown in too.
“It’s a delicate balance for me. I don’t want to be seen as an artist who only exists in the past; I’m not interested in having a nostalgic view, going back and trying to relive some past glory days,” he admits.
“I’m always excited about what I’m going to do, whatever it is. But at the same time, I’m very proud of what we did with Talking Heads. And to see younger musicians, music fans, listening to what we did years ago and enjoying it, finding inspiration in it, that’s great!”
Talking Heads reunited last year to revisit inspirational concert movie Stop Making Sense, but a tour is out of the question.
Nevertheless Byrne concedes Talking Heads crafted a special kind of magic that’s hard to quantify.
“Maybe the band and the music we made meant something, had some kind of value,” he reflects modestly.
“Not monetary value, but a certain importance to people. It’s not just about having a good song or not. There’s something else going on.”
The tour continues in Manchester, Dublin and London this month.
CAUGHT LIVE
DAVID BYRNE /Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith *****
A once in a lifetime experience, Byrne’s latest theatrical project delivers more ‘wow’ moments than a Donald Trump press conference. “Dancing is allowed,” deadpanned Byrne prior to the gig and by the time And She Was kicked in, the aisles were packed full of wild people shapes.
An evolution of the American Utopia show, he and a versatile band of percussionists and dancers – suited in matching blue – strut across the stage to choreographed perfection while producing immaculate music with instruments strapped to their body.
The stage itself is a marvel, a huge concave screen engulfing the floor and able to create immersive pop videos for each song, the earth appearing specularly on the horizon during tender opener Heaven. What follows is pure joy, Byrne weaving anecdotes, Talking Heads classics and solo highlights into a theatrical narrative focusing on the mysteries of life and the human condition.
It’s affirming and inspiring on every level, even more so witnessing an artist of his generation still pushing the boundaries with a performance that leaves even the legendary Stop Making Sense concert in the shade. It’s the best live show you’ll experience all year, don’t miss it.
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