David Byrne is best known as the eccentric frontman of Talking Heads. But that's not
all there is to know about him, as he's a man of many talents and endeavors. Keep watching
to discover the untold truth of one of the most unique individuals in rock music history.
David Byrne was born in Scotland on May 14, 1952. Two years later, he and his family made
their way to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and then when he was eight or nine, they settled
in Maryland. As a kid, he was kicked out of his school choir because of his less-than-extraordinary
pipes. His own father Tom even once flat-out stated to The Washington Post,
"He couldn't sing."
But that setback didn't turn off the young David from music forever. As his father recalled,
"He had a little record player when he was 3. It was a cheap little thing but he played
it quite well, and he was always careful not to damage the records."
David used his dad's modified tape machine to make music starting from a very young age,
and he also learned a variety of instruments, such as violin and guitar. And he enjoyed
messing with stretching frequencies and mixing tracks. As for David's own thoughts about
the importance of vocal technique in music, he once said,
"The better the singer's voice, the harder it is to believe what they're saying. So I
turn my weakness into strengths."
"Why not give it a try? If it fails, go somewhere else."
By the time David Byrne entered high school, he knew how to play a variety of instruments,
like the violin, accordion, and guitar. After he started with his record player when he
was three, he then began playing harmonica at age five. He came by music honestly, with
his father working as an electronics engineer. While growing up in the 1960s, he formed his
first band, Revelation, which mostly performed covers. As he told Rolling Stone in 1983,
"I think we did a couple of Beatles songs, Rolling Stones songs, 'You Really Got Me,'
stuff like that."
After Revelation broke up, Byrne headed to college, where he played the coffeehouse circuit
as a solo artist. In addition to his love of music, he also had a love of science instilled
in him by his father. He even considered attending vocational school before ultimately deciding
on art school, specifically the Rhode Island School of Design, also known as RISD, and
then the Maryland Institute College of Art. As he recalled to Rolling Stone,
"The graffiti at RISD looked the best. It looked like it had the most interesting people
there. So I thought, even if I don't like the subject, I don't want to hang around with
a bunch of deadbeats for four years."
Byrne's instincts proved correct, as he met some of his future Talking Heads bandmates
at RISD.
While attending RISD, Byrne was involved in a functional design program called the Bauhaus
Theory course. Bauhaus is a method founded in Germany that replaces the traditional pupil-teacher
relationship. It aims to bring art, architecture, the performing arts, and design back into
everyday life and for it to be taken as seriously as fine art. Alas, Byrne's teachers weren't
very impressed with his creative pursuits. One time, he had his beard shaved on stage
while accompanied by an accordion as a showgirl displayed cards written in Russian. Soon after,
he was kicked out of the school. He's been quoted as saying,
"I think art school is a real racket, especially in this country. You run into a couple of
good teachers and some interesting students but for the amount of money you spend, it's
not worth it."
But it wasn't all a wash. During Byrne's time at RISD, he made some very important connections,
as he met future Talking Heads band members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, who were dating
at the time and married each other in 1977. After graduating, they joined Byrne in New
York.
Not only is David Byrne a famous musician, he's also a nonfiction author and a conceptual
artist who's written books on everything from music to epistemology. His published works
cover a variety of vastly different subjects. 2009's Bicycle Diaries, for example, is a
journal of his cycling ventures through cities around the world. He's also been known to
design bike racks.
Byrne has also produced a multimedia project called "Reasons to Be Cheerful," which offers
stories to help people be optimistic about the state of the world, including gains in
the solar industry and efforts to eliminate poverty. Considering his versatility, it's
safe to assume that all of his exploits also contribute to the quality of his songwriting.
As he told Rolling Stone in 2018,
"You can only slog away at writing a song for so long and then you've kind of gotten
the water out of the well — and you need to let the well fill up again. I also compartmentalize
a lot. I focus on one thing for a few hours and then break for lunch and work on something
else."
"What if we started a project and brought some of those reasons to be cheerful into
sharper focus?"
The 1977 Talking Heads song "Psycho Killer" was reportedly inspired by some of David Byrne's
own personal experience. His temper and dishonest dealings caused plenty of consternation between
him and his bandmates, particularly toward the end of their time together. He would bill
himself as the sole creator of the band, which caused a rift between him and drummer Chris
Frantz. As Frantz wrote in his 2020 memoir Remain in Love,
"The more successful Talking Heads became, the more cold and dyspeptic David became."
From Frantz's vantage point, the trouble with Byrne came down to his self-centeredness.
As Frantz told The Guardian in 2020,
"It's like he can't help himself. His brain is wired in such a way that he doesn't know
where he ends and other people begin."
Since his Talking Heads days, though, Byrne has mellowed out and come to certain realizations.
As he confessed to The Guardian in 2018,
"I think I probably did not behave all that well all the time. Neither did the others.
It was a very messy thing. But to hold on to that seems like… well that was quite
a while ago."
He also made sure to note,
"I can imagine I must at times have been a real pain in the ass to deal with."
In May 1977, David Byrne made one of the most important connections of his life when he
met Brian Eno at London's Rock Garden while Eno was with his friend and fellow musician
John Cale of the Velvet Underground. The Talking Heads were opening for the Ramones that day,
and Eno invited Byrne back to his apartment to listen to music after the concert.
What followed was a fruitful and lasting partnership, as Eno went on to produce three of the Talking
Heads' albums and three of Byrne's solo projects. Eno's first collaboration with the Heads resulted
in their first Top 40 hit, a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River." But Byrne and Eno
ran into some heat when they tried to claim sole writing credits on what is widely considered
the Talking Heads' masterpiece album, 1980's Remain In Light. Decades later, Eno and Byrne
reunited for their last collaboration, the 2008 album Everything That Happens Will Happen
Today. As Byrne recalled to The Independent,
"Eno gave me confidence in the studio, to go in with nothing prepared."
Considering his prolific and varied artistic pursuits, it should come as no surprise that
Byrne has also tried his hand at filmmaking. In 1986, he directed the satirical feature
True Stories. It starred the likes of John Goodman and Swoosie Kurtz, and it's just as
weird as Byrne is. It's set in Virgil, Texas, and it focuses on a handful of characters
who have all been the subject of tabloid news headlines. In a 2018 interview with Rolling
Stone, he reflected back on how the film was misinterpreted upon its release, as he noted,
"The reaction and appreciation in Europe was closer to what I intended the film to be.
You could point out things that are strange and wacky, but you can still love them. In
the U.S., it was taken to be ironic and critical, a New Yorker looking down his nose at the
simple wacky people in the heartland, which is not what I intended."
True Stories eventually became part of the prestigious Criterion Collection of films
in 2018. It would be Byrne's last time behind the camera for a feature, but it hasn't been
his only contribution to the medium. He's also collaborated with acclaimed directors
like Jonathan Demme, who directed the Talking Heads concert documentary Stop Making Sense,
and Spike Lee, who directed American Utopia, which is a film version of Byrne's Broadway
show of the same name.
Outside of Talking Heads, Byrne is a prolific solo musician who has released records with
younger artists who have upheld a tradition of artsy alternative rock. He was a backup
singer for the Arcade Fire track "Speaking in Tongues," as part of the deluxe version
of their 2010 album The Suburbs. And in 2012, he and Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, released
the collaborative album Love This Giant.
Byrne has also demonstrated his appreciation for the younger generation through his cover
work. In his Broadway show American Utopia, he performed the Janelle Monáe song "Hell
You Talmbout," which is a protest anthem speaking out about police brutality against the Black
community. Monáe never officially released the song, but Byrne discovered it by watching
a video of her performing it in 2015. As Byrne has said of the track,
"Here was a protest song that doesn't hector or preach at us. It simply asks us to remember
and acknowledge these lives that have been lost."
"I asked her what she would think of a white of a certain age singing this particular song."
Monáe was flattered when Byrne approached her for permission to perform the song. As
she told the Associated Press,
"I was moved that he reached out and asked if he could include the song in his show.
I thought that was so kind of him and of course I said yes. The song’s message and names
mentioned need to be heard by every audience."
If you've ever seen a picture of David Byrne performing or have been lucky enough to catch
a Talking Heads concert, then chances are you've seen him in his signature oversized
suits. But if you're looking for an explanation for why he used to deck himself out in such
a fashion, don't expect to find one anytime soon. He did address the topic briefly in
a bizarre interview with various versions of himself. As Byrne told Byrne,
"I like symmetry and geometric shapes. I wanted my head to appear smaller, and the easiest
way to do that was to make my body bigger, because music is very physical."
"And often the body understands it before the head."
Sometimes, the answer is just as strange as the mystery. The suit's designer, Gail Blacker,
described it in 1984:
"[It's] more of an architectural project than a clothing project."
Ultimately, it probably makes sense to know that the nonsensical suit was most famously
worn in the concert film Stop Making Sense.
One of the most recent wacky and political Broadway musicals is the brainchild of David
Byrne. Known as American Utopia, it originally opened for a limited run in October 2019,
and it was met with positive reviews. The cabaret-style show is based on Byrne's 2018
studio album of the same name, and it consists of a cast of 12 musicians performing about
a dozen songs on a minimally decorated set. As NME described it in their review,
"It’s a show that blurs the lines between gig and theatre, poetry and dance; a full
spectrum of culture under one roof."
"How do you think it will resonate with Americans now after the pandemic?"
"It's gonna seem like it was made for this time, I think."
American Utopia was eventually adapted into a feature film concert documentary directed
by Spike Lee that features classic Talking Heads hits like "Once in a Lifetime" and "Burning
Down the House." Other highlights from the set list include "Everybody's Coming to My
House" and a cover of the electronic song "Toe Jam," which was co-written by Fatboy
Slim and Dizzee Rascal. The musical is set to make a comeback to the Broadway stage in
September 2021.
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