The advice Lou Reed gave to pre-fame Talking Heads
In the early 1970s, David Byrne met Chris Frantz at the Rhode Island School of Design. The pair of zany music lovers found a shared interest at almost every turn, soon kindling a strong friendship. When setting off on their first music project as a duo in 1973, they named themselves accordingly: ‘Artistics’. At the time, their future Talking Heads bandmate Jerry Harrison was busy laying his musical foundations with Jonathan Richman in The Modern Lovers.
Meanwhile, Tina Weymouth, also a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, became Artistics’ designated driver during their formative gigs as Frantz’s devoted girlfriend. Eventually, Frantz persuaded Weymouth to learn the bass guitar, which she did by playing along to records by minimalist art-punk groups like Wire and Pere Ubu.
By the mid-1970s, the three relocated to an attic apartment in New York City. The trio renamed themselves Talking Heads ahead of their first gig supporting punk pioneers the Ramones at CBGB in June 1975. According to Frantz’s 2020 memoir Remain in Love, they cycled through several possible names, including Vogue Dots, Billionaires, Tunnel Tones and Videos, before landing on Talking Heads.
At this juncture, Talking Heads only had a handful of songs, some of which would end up on their debut album, recorded following the recruitment of Harrison in March 1977. Before Harrison’s recruitment and their eventual kinship with Brian Eno, the notable local Lou Reed offered his services as a producer for Talking Heads’ debut LP.
According to Frantz’s memoir, the former Velvet Underground frontman had been impressed by a Talking Heads performance at CBGB and invited them back to his New York apartment. Here, in true Lou Reed style, he began to criticise the band’s show, advising them to lower the tempo of ‘Tentative Decisions’, which was initially much faster and heavier on the bass than it appeared on Talking Heads: 77. He also advised that Byrne should avoid wearing short-sleeved shirts on stage to ensure his hairy arms were kept under wraps.
Soon after their initial meet and greet, Reed joined the band for breakfast, expressing his desire to produce their debut album and referring them to his manager, Jonny Podell. Later that day, Podell summoned the band to his office, offering them a recording contract on the spot.
Taking prudent measures, Frantz first sought assistance from lawyer Peter Parcher, a friend of his father’s. The group visited Parcher’s office the following day, where he and his partner Alan Schulman examined the contract. They advised the group against signing the deal because it detailed that Reed and Podell would own full rights to the album and could hence assume all profits.
Talking Heads heeded Schulman’s advice and, instead, signed a recording contract with Seymour Stein’s Sire Records in November 1976. While the band remained on good terms with Reed through their rise to fame, Talking Heads: 77 was ultimately produced by Lance Quinn and Tony Bongiovi, the cousin of Jon Bon Jovi.
