{"id":305216,"date":"2025-11-21T13:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T13:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/305216\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T13:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T13:33:11","slug":"psycho-killer-talking-heads-demo-recorded-in-ri-to-be-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/305216\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Psycho Killer,’ Talking Heads demo recorded in RI, to be released"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe ran through these songs, and when we had the best version \u2014 what we thought was the best version \u2014 we kept it,\u201d Frantz recently told the Globe via a Zoom call, describing that day the band gathered around one microphone in his Providence apartment at the time to cut the trio of songs, probably using a tape recorder from RISD\u2019s film department.<\/p>\n

Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club<\/p>\n

A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz.<\/p>\n

Now that early demo of what would become a hit song for the innovative band, recorded here in Rhode Island, is finally getting an official release.<\/p>\n

The track is featured in a new Talking Heads collection from Rhino Records titled, \u201cTentative Decisions: Demos & Live,\u201d<\/a> coming out on Record Store Day on Nov. 28, or Black Friday. The vinyl release also includes The Artistics\u2019 take on \u201cWarning Sign,\u201d<\/a> which appeared on Talking Heads\u2019 sophomore album, \u201cMore Songs About Buildings and Food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPsycho Killer,\u201d meanwhile, made it onto the band\u2019s 1977 debut, \u201cTalking Heads: 77,\u201d with bassist Tina Weymouth and guitarist-keyboardist Jerry Harrison<\/a> in the fold. These days, it\u2019s a classic rock standard, wholly unique with its pulsing bass line, jolting energy, and signature French phrases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the real fans will recognize the songs in their demo form,\u201d Frantz said. \u201cLike I said, it was three amateurs in front of one microphone in a dusty apartment on Benefit Street, so technologically it\u2019s not brilliant or anything like that. Quite the opposite.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s got an excitement to it and it\u2019s got a real, I think, rock \u2018n\u2019 spirit,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m very happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Artistics demo tape at the Rhode Island School of Design.Kaylee Pugliese\/RISD<\/p>\n

Frantz has said he sent the initial Artistics demos, along with a handwritten letter, off to his teacher, artist Alan Sondheim, who, at the time, had a radio show on WBAI in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sent it to him, you know as young artists will do, in the hopes that he would play it,\u201d Frantz said in February<\/a>. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think that ever happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tape was eventually purchased by the RISD Museum in 2005 as part of a collection of Sondheim\u2019s materials, according to Margot Nishimura, RISD\u2019s assistant provost for academic engagement.<\/p>\n

RISD reached out to Frantz about it not long after the original Talking Heads members appeared on \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u201d in October 2023, where Frantz mentioned he had heard early recordings of the band during its RISD days might exist.<\/p>\n

Frantz then had the tape digitized and mastered, and, in February, returned it to RISD, where it now resides.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIt\u2019s amazing to have an artifact that, you know, really was there at the beginning of something that has had such an incredible impact on popular culture throughout the world,\u201d Nishimura said in an interview.<\/p>\n

It was Byrne who started writing \u201cPsycho Killer.\u201d He brought it to Frantz and Weymouth \u2014 a RISD student who was Frantz\u2019s girlfriend at the time \u2014 in part, because he knew Weymouth spoke French, Frantz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst he approached a Japanese student to write something in Japanese and she found out the title of the song \u2026 and she said, \u2018Oh, no. I\u2019m not going to do that,\u2019\u201d Frantz said. \u201cBut this didn\u2019t bother Tina.\u201d<\/p>\n

The foreign language addition gave the song \u2014 the first the trio collectively wrote together \u2014 its signature bridge, with a few lines about the killer narrator ruminating on \u201cwhat I did that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was perfect,\u201d said Frantz, now Weymouth\u2019s husband. The trio penned the track \u2014 the first they wrote together \u2014 inside Carr House on Benefit Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had a good rhythm to it, and you know that fa-fa-fa-fa came from Otis Redding,\u201d Frantz said. \u201cBut the whole vibe was kind of like Velvet Underground meets Otis Redding at Alice Cooper\u2019s house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TalkingTalking Heads members Tina Weymouth, left, and Chris Frantz look at materials at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence earlier this year.Kaylee Pugliese\/RISD<\/p>\n

The new collection coming on Record Store Day also includes a demo of the song recorded in September 1975, as well as 10 other tracks recorded by Weymouth, Frantz, and Byrne in 1975 and 1976, and The Artistics\u2019 demo of \u201cWarning Sign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our early years in New York before we made any records, you can see the songs evolving over time, and they really did evolve as we got better and more refined in our listening and our thinking,\u201d Frantz said. \u201cI\u2019m very happy that this is coming out because it\u2019s, you know, to me, it\u2019s an important cultural artifact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he would have ever thought \u201cPsycho Killer\u201d would have the staying power it now holds while he was recording it in that Providence apartment all those years ago, Frantz said, \u201cThere was never any doubt in my mind that we could have success with music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really had this vision in my mind that there was room in the musical landscape for a different kind of band that was artistic, but also spoke in everyday language, and spoke about things that were not generally referred to in popular music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After a pause, Frantz added, \u201cSuch as psycho killers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe ran through these songs, and when we had the best version \u2014 what we thought was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-305216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}