(Credits: Far Out / Michael Markos / Arista Records/Mick Rock)
Wed 10 December 2025 21:00, UK
A veritable king of the musical underground, the influence of Lou Reed still looms so large over the landscape of alternative music, spanning the spectrum from punk rock raw power to experimental mastery.
Nevertheless, there was one band brave – or naïve – enough to turn down his services during their 1970s origin story.
Reed was still at the beginning of his solo career back in the 1970s, with many iconic albums approaching on the horizon, but his influence could still be felt in virtually every underground scene across the globe thanks to his time with The Velvet Underground. During an age of ‘peace and love’ hippiedom, The Velvets offered something entirely different, celebrating the darkness and experimentation of their New York City surroundings.
Although The Velvet Underground never really impacted the musical mainstream – after all, no 1960s-era radio station was going to play songs like ‘Heroin’ or ‘Here She Comes Now’ – their music seemed to find the audiences who needed it most.
So, within only a few years of the release of The Velvet Underground and Nico, the impact of Reed’s songwriting talents could be felt in everything from the glam rock stylings of David Bowie to the subversive abrasion of the blossoming punk scene.
Despite virtually every band populating New York’s punk undercurrent owing a core part of their being to the inspiration of The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed himself didn’t appear to feel much fraternity with these up-and-coming outfits. By that time, of course, he had moved on to his own solo work and, even putting that aside, his musical tastes have always leaned more towards old-school R&B than garage punk.
Nevertheless, there was one group that did manage to catch Reed’s eye during their time gigging at CBGBs, and that was future new wave heroes Talking Heads. As David Byrne once recalled to Guitarist, “When we were starting out, we were big fans of The Velvet Underground. John Cale and Lou Reed came to see us at CBGB. We met with Lou Reed a couple of times.”
Seemingly, Reed was such a fan of Byrne’s group that he envisioned himself as a band manager, the kind of chance that any other New York punk outfit would have jumped at. “He wanted to sign us to a management-production deal,” the songwriter shared. “But it was a little bit too much like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if we’re ready for this.’ We pulled back.”
Byrne and Talking Heads might have grown to regret that decision to turn down Lou Reed, were it not for the fact that they eventually crossed paths with Brian Eno down the line. “John introduced us to Brian Eno on our first trip to London, and that proved to be a big deal for us,” Byrne said. “All these people that we were in awe of.”
Ultimately, Eno’s experimental sensibilities, which had been brooding since his days with Roxy Music, seemed to fit in with the expansive world of Talking Heads better than anything Reed could have conjured up in the production seat. Even still, the new wave masters must have been one of the only young bands brave enough to say no to that rather formidable figure.
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