Jerry Harrison calls Talking Heads’ ‘Stop Making Sense’ re-release a “healing experience”
In a new interview, Talking Heads guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison has called the upcoming re-release of ‘Stop Making Sense’ a “healing experience”.
“We own the film together, [so we had] to work together to make a decision,” Harrison said on the podcast Kyle Meredith With… “‘Is A24 the right distributor for us, the right partner for us?’ We had to have conversations about that, and this is something we did together. Then A24 is going like: ‘Here’s the offer — we’re going to get really behind this if you help us.’ And so it was like, ‘obviously, we need to work together to make this a success.’”
“I think it’s been somewhat of a healing experience for everybody,” Harrison added. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, we actually can work together and do this.’ And this is something we’re all proud of.”
Talking Heads originally broke up in 1991 after largely being inactive following the release of their 1988 album Naked. The band briefly reunited to celebrate their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. The band members are set to reunite for the first time in over 20 years at the Toronto International Film Festival next month for a live Q+A following the screening of A24’s re-release of Stop Making Sense.
“The conflicts that people have spent a lot of time talking about, they still can be looked up,” Harrison added. “It’s not like the feelings that made people say various things are totally gone or anything like that, but it’s sort of like they’ve been voiced. Do you need to voice things like that over and over again? I mean, I made my point.”
Harrison also felt that David Byrne’s Broadway show American Utopia had helped allow him to be more open to repairing relationships with his former band members. “It also [helped him], let bygones be bygones, because why waste our time on these petty complaints from the past? I don’t need to prove anything because now, I have proven it.”
Harrison also hopes that the band’s appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival will open the door for more events. “I hope everyone goes: ‘Wow, that was fun! It was really nice to see you, and it’s nice to get caught up and what else is going on in your life?” Harrison said. “It is really nice for us.”
Check out the trailer for the re-release of Stop Making Sense down below.
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