Credit: Press / David Byrne Facebook

David Byrne admits to being the “control freak” in Talking Heads

Fri 28 July 2023 5:56, UK

It’s been more than 30 years since Talking Heads officially disbanded in 1991. The breakup had been a long time coming – after the release of 1988’s Naked, the band had entered a lengthy hiatus – but the decision was originally made by frontman David Byrne without consulting the other members.

Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison toured together as the Shrunken Heads for a short time in the immediate aftermath before releasing No Talking, Just Head as The Heads in 1996. The new lineup was abandoned after a lawsuit from Byrne prevented them from performing as The Heads.

Talking Heads participated in a few reunions over the years, most notably in 1999 for the 15th-anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense and in 2002 for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But otherwise, Byrne has resisted participating in a full-scale reunion. That doesn’t seem like it will change any time soon, as Byrne reiterated during his recent appearance on the podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.

“I love collaborating with people, but being with a band is hard. I have to say it’s really wonderful. You’re like a family. You’re like a little team. A little army – all those kinds of things,” Byrne explained. “But then after a while, it gets all the kind of negative stuff in a family is there as well as the positive stuff.”

When asked about the band’s reunion for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Byrne admitted that relationships were still strained. “It was fun, but it was tense,” Byrne said. “I remember there were some musical mistakes that drove me around the bend. Like, ‘Oh, geez, really? Now? Here?'”

When O’Brien makes a joking reference to Benito Mussolini, Byrne acknowledges some of the parallels. “I remember being like that at various points. Being a control freak and saying, ‘It has to be this way. We’re gonna do it again,'” Byrne added. “Then years go by, and you realise, whatever the phrase is: you catch more flies with sugar or whatever it might be.”

Byrne’s admissions come after Weymouth shared her thoughts on Byrne’s leadership style with The Sunday Times. “I recently described David Byrne as Trumpian, which didn’t go down well with everybody,” Weymouth wrote. “What I meant was that, from my experience, everything with David is transactional – he will use you until he has no more use for you.”

“[Byrne] always seemed very insecure about himself and would often try to blame other people if things went wrong,” she added. “Chris and I loved him dearly, and we did our best to overlook these disastrous character flaws, but it seemed obvious that Talking Heads wasn’t going to last.”

In an exclusive interview with Far Out, Weymouth opened up about Byrne’s character. “Nobody told us about David Byrne and their personal experiences with David Byrne,” she said. “So, we didn’t find out for decades about a lot of stuff. Like people now say, ‘Oh, yeah, you know, I used to play poker with him, and I couldn’t understand how he was winning all the time. But then he went home, and I found all these aces hidden in the furniture.’ So, that would have been a clue, but we didn’t know.”

Watch Byrne discuss Talking Heads’ breakup with Conan down below.