{"id":796965,"date":"2026-10-09T11:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796965\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T11:44:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:44:16","slug":"how-talking-heads-made-it-big-despite-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796965\/","title":{"rendered":"How Talking Heads made it big despite themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Declaring edgy post-punk funkers Talking Heads<\/a> to be prog might seem like a bridge too far. But much of their work was truly progressive for those speed-addled times \u2013 not forgetting the input into their work by Brian Eno<\/a>, Adrian Belew<\/a> and Robert Fripp<\/a>. In 2012 (long before the band members put their 80s differences behind them<\/a>) Prog explored the question: how prog were Talking Heads? <\/p>\n

\u201cThe most popular contemporary avant-garde group in America\u201d is how Time Out described Talking Heads in 1980. In a way they were the Radiohead<\/a> \u2013 named after a 1986 song by the band \u2013 of their day; their experimental sound and edgy, arty ideas attracting a huge audience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Progressive? They certainly made astonishing progress, creatively advancing between albums, especially the three they recorded with producer-catalyst Brian Eno. In fact, so giant were the leaps they made that Simon Reynolds, in his 2005 book on the post-punk era Rip It Up And Start Again, was moved to compare them to The Fab Four.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trilogy of records Eno and Talking Heads made together recalls the runaway evolution of The Beatles<\/a> across Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper\u2019s,\u201d he wrote of More Songs About Buildings And Food (1978), Fear Of Music (1979) and Remain In Light<\/a> (1980). These were albums that variously featured, alongside the erstwhile Roxy Music chrome dome, Bowie<\/a>\/Zappa<\/a> guitarist Adrian Belew, world music pioneer Jon Hassell and King Crimson<\/a> majordomo Robert Fripp.<\/p>\n

Talking Heads have had numerous appellations ascribed to them, from new wave and dance-rock to art disco and brainiac pop \u2013 but how about progressive funk? It seems to suit the cerebral nature of their highly rhythmic music.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Talking Heads – Take Me To The River (Live at Entermedia Theatre, 1978) [Official Video] – YouTube
\n\"Talking<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Progressive funk\u2019?\u201d muses Chris Frantz, co-writer of many of Talking Heads\u2019 best-known tracks including Psycho Killer and Life During Wartime, and drummer from their inception in 1975 after his previous band with singer David Byrne<\/a>, The Artistics \u2013 formed when the pair were at the Rhode Island School of Design \u2013 ran out of steam. \u201cThat\u2019s not bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey used synthesizers and all kinds of new technology,\u201d says Belew, who appeared on the Heads\u2019 fourth album, and spent a year in their touring line-up. \u201cBut were they prog? When I think of the term \u2018progressive\u2019 I think of epic things like Yes<\/a> and King Crimson. \u2018Progressive\u2019 to me means something ahead of its time, moving forward… so in that sense, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Frantz remembers prog\u2019s golden age. He was at art school in 1971, where two records dominated student dorm stereos: Neil Young<\/a>\u2019s Heart Of Gold and Yes\u2019 Roundabout. \u201cYou\u2019d walk down the hallway and hear one and then walk a bit further and hear the other,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

He acknowledges the prowess of the prog musicians. \u201cI have a great deal of respect for those guys and their musical chops,\u201d he says. He doesn\u2019t believe, however, that Talking Heads were in the same league in terms of pyrotechnical ability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say the most musically accomplished member was Jerry Harrison. He was a great keyboardist and guitarist. David was an excellent rhythm guitarist and Tina a wonderful bassist. As for me, I\u2019m a pretty good backbeat player, but if you asked me to do a drum solo I might just give you the stink eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Talking Heads – Life During Wartime (Live on Old Grey Whistle Test, 1979) – YouTube
\n\"Talking<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Whatever their shortcomings on their chosen instruments, there\u2019s no doubt that the four players, when they got together in the studio with Eno, made for an awesome, inventive unit. Frantz has grown used to receiving accolades on behalf of this highly influential outfit, one that has become synonymous with dark, intense dance music that isn\u2019t necessarily designed to be danced to. \u201cPeople on Facebook tell me every day the music changed or saved their life,\u201d he says. \u201cI never tire of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first time most people heard Talking Heads was 1977, when the funk noir four \u2013 Byrne, Frantz, his girlfriend and later wife Weymouth plus former Jonathan Richman\u2019s Modern Lovers member Harrison \u2013 emerged out of New York\u2019s CBGB<\/a> scene. To say that they stood out next to their peers \u2013 the burgeoning New York punk\/new wave milieu that included the Ramones<\/a>, Suicide, Television, Blondie<\/a>, the Patti Smith Group<\/a> and Richard Hell\u2019s Voidoids<\/a> \u2013 would be to do understatement a disservice.<\/p>\n

We were inspired by Roxy Music. We didn\u2019t have the funny outfits, though. When I see those pictures of Paul Thompson in that leopard skin suit, and Eno…<\/p>\n

Chris Frantz<\/p>\n

Musically, as evidenced by their 1977 debut album – titled, with typical neatness, Talking Heads: 77 – theirs was a clipped, bright but weird pop that suggested a warped mix of African rhythms and bubblegum melodies with the spikiness of punk. Lyrically, too, this was virgin territory: songs that seemed to celebrate conformity and ran counter to rock\u2019s usual credo of rebellion and degeneracy. Talking Heads looked and sounded clean-cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were inspired by Roxy Music<\/a>,\u201d admits Frantz of their formative sartorial period. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have the funny outfits, though. When I see those pictures of Paul Thompson in that leopard skin suit, and Eno… Eno was really out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking Heads were the diametric opposite of Roxy\u2019s retro-futurist amalgam of styles. Frantz explains how the Heads came up with their defiantly simple preppy early look.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Talking\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say it was the clothes our moms gave us for Christmas,\u201d he laughs. \u201cWhen we arrived in New York, The New York Dolls were still going and there were a lot of people in bands wearing platform shoes and satin trousers. We thought: \u2018We can\u2019t dress like that, we\u2019ll look and feel ridiculous.\u2019 So we decided to go with button-down shirts or Lacoste polo shirts. That seemed to work really well for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

They might have looked like the most unprepossessing students, but there was an intensity to their frontman that lent the band a so-normal-they\u2019re-disturbing air and made Psycho Killer, their most famous song, seem virtually autobiographical. Or, as David Byrne himself put it in an interview in 1992: \u201cLooking at old videos of us, it\u2019s like three normal kids backing up this maniac.\u201d<\/p>\n

We came from a place where ideas and conceptualisation were almost more important than craftsmanship<\/p>\n

Tina Weymouth<\/p>\n

Even in an era that threw up Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, Byrne was unusual, appearing to teeter on that fine line between genius and madness. Discussing it today, Weymouth says: \u201cPeople would ask: \u2018Is David Byrne a genius or a moron?\u2019 I wanted to nip that \u2018moron\u2019 bit in the bud, so it was better to say \u2018genius\u2019. The truth is somewhere in between.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back, she says: \u201cWe had fun making those Talking Heads records \u2013 they were rarefied times.\u201d She doesn\u2019t accept the brainiac tag, asserting: \u201cour music was emotionally profound.\u201d She adds: \u201cPeople say we were clever, and it\u2019s funny \u2013 it\u2019s also quite mistaken! Compared to Stephen Hawking we\u2019re just midgets. Imagine if we had A Hawking Heads \u2013 that would be something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet she concedes that Talking Heads were big on ideas. \u201cWe\u2019d been to art school \u2013 not that we were effete snobs \u2013 but we came from a place where ideas and conceptualisation were almost more important than craftsmanship.\u201d The band\u2019s experimental approach saw them make, she decides: \u201cscience fiction funk.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we did was texturally entirely different,\u201d she asserts, \u201cbecause we had this interesting mix of people: Chris came from the steel town of Pittsburgh and understood that raw black American sound. Then there were myself, David and Jerry who had been exposed to a lot of European classical music. So when you combine the African-American rhythms with that European melody you get Talking Heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would have been very destructive for the band. You couldn\u2019t replace David Byrne, and I wouldn\u2019t have wanted to<\/p>\n

Adrian Belew<\/p>\n

Their sci-fi funk process involved Eno\u2019s use of \u201coblique strategies,\u201d including the random chance cards he had brought to bear on the sessions that produced Bowie<\/a>\u2019s Berlin<\/a> trilogy. \u201cThey were fun,\u201d recalls Frantz. \u201cOne said: \u2018When in doubt, be quiet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fear Of Music sessions involved a different kind of oblique strategy: Eno and crew sat in a truck outside Weymouth and Frantz\u2019s loft while cables ran upstairs to where the band performed the songs. Was that weird?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it worked out just fine,\u201d says Frantz, who enjoyed making a record that soon became synonymous with paranoid punk-funk: from its terse song titles (Mind, Air, Paper, Animals, Drugs) to its jittery rhythms, it brought to mind Anthony Perkins circa Psycho down at Studio 54. \u201cWe had a good time – a good time being paranoid.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the follow-up, arguably their finest foray into (out of this) world music, the band accommodated extra musicians such as keyboardist Bernie Worrell and Belew. Although Frantz talks up those Remain In Light sessions now, at the time there were rumours of dissent in the ranks as the other three found themselves increasingly treated like Byrne\u2019s backing band.<\/p>\n

Did Belew, an outsider, detect animosity? \u201cNot in the studio, because Chris and Tina weren\u2019t there when I played my parts,\u201d he replies. It was on tour later that he was \u201cprivy to the in-fighting and questions as to who should be credited for what.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just tried to remain neutral and have fun,\u201d he says, \u201cwhich it was, a lot of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

David had plans outside Talking Heads and he wasn\u2019t keeping us abreast of what they were<\/p>\n

Chris Frantz<\/p>\n

Weymouth recalls \u201csome temper tantrums\u201d as relations broke down. \u201cDavid had a lot of those when he got to be a star,\u201d she reveals. \u201cFame overwhelmed him.\u201d But then, as she admits: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a sane time in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it true that Weymouth asked Belew to replace Byrne? \u201cYes,\u201d says the guitarist. \u201cChris and Tina raised the question. But that would have been very destructive for the band. You couldn\u2019t replace David, and I wouldn\u2019t have wanted to. It came out of Tina\u2019s anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Talking\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

There wouldn\u2019t be another Heads album until 1983\u2019s Speaking In Tongues, and thereafter only two more: 1985\u2019s Little Creatures and 1988\u2019s Naked (that is, unless you count 1986\u2019s pseudo-soundtrack True Stories as an official Talking Heads release). They all saw a scaling back in terms of ambition and experimentation, but they did make the band more popular than ever as songs such as Road To Nowhere and Burning Down The House made them early stars of MTV.<\/p>\n

They also saw Byrne and the rest become increasingly estranged from each other as it became apparent that he intended to go solo. \u201cWas there tension?\u201d wonders Frantz. \u201cOnly because David had plans outside Talking Heads and he wasn\u2019t keeping us abreast of what they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking Heads – Psycho Killer (Official Video) – YouTube
\n\"Talking<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

One sensed mutual antipathy seeing the four together onstage to receive that Hall of Fame induction in 2002. Have they spoken since? \u201cBarely,\u201d says Frantz. \u201cI would be happy to sit down and talk to David, but he\u2019s not a social guy. His preferred method of communication is email.\u201d It\u2019s a shame, he says, because they started out as such great friends. \u201cWe did pretty much everything together, but as the band became more popular David grew more distant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it all Eno\u2019s fault? \u201cNo,\u201d he replies. \u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things. We had a wonderful chemistry, but nothing lasts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Weymouth: \u201cWe just have to be glad there was no loss of life \u2013 nobody was killed in the creation of a Talking Heads record.\u201d<\/p>\n

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