Talking Heads: Tina Weymouth reveals the secret of her successful marriage to Chris Frantz
In a recent conversation with Far Out, Tina Weymouth, the former bassist of Talking Heads, discussed the perks and pitfalls of life as one-quarter of a global phenomenon. She discussed her 45-year marriage to drummer Chris Frantz, with whom she formed the side project Tom Tom Club, and how frosty relations with frontman David Byrne held the band on the verge of collapse.
During the conversation, Weymouth told me how her strong bond with Frantz in marriage proved to be pivotal in keeping the band on the path for 15 years over the late 1970s and ’80s. “You gotta give us credit,” she said. “Chris and I kept that band together for so many years. It wouldn’t even have got its start without the two of us because people didn’t even want David in their band. And, I mean, we had to tell people, ‘He’s really an interesting guy. You got to come check it out!’”
“Why wouldn’t people have wanted David in their band?” I asked.
“You know… he’s a very weird guy,” Weymouth said hesitantly. “And a lot of people just didn’t think he was rock star material. Chris put the first band together [Artistics], and he put Talking Heads together. He put the deposit down on the loft and invited David to come live there and invited me to come live there, you know, ‘Let’s form a band.’ But other people were just very… they didn’t tell us about any of their fallouts. Nobody told us about David Byrne and their personal experiences with David Byrne”.
“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,” Weymouth added, hinting at Byrne’s cheeky, perhaps duplicitous side.
Worldwide fame has been shown, through innumerable historical examples, to throw a spanner in the works of intra-band relationships. I was intrigued to uncover this rhythm section power couple’s secret. How did Weymouth and Frantz’s relationship survive through thick and thin?
“Oh, I think Chris is just a saint! Don’t tell him I said that; no man wants to hear that,” Weymouth replied. “Chris is just the loveliest, smartest person I know alive today, and he’s also happy, a genuinely positive person. There’s so much to be said about having an enthusiastic person in your midst. And for instance, once – David being the contrary – one time, [Byrne] told me, ‘Oh, you’re too emotional.’ And I felt it was a way of bullying me, of trying to push me into some kind of submissive service. And so it was lovely of Chris to say, ‘Oh Tina, there’s no such thing as too emotional.’”
“I think everybody was always afraid David would crack or break. You really had to walk on eggs, and he could be a bully, but you couldn’t do it to him. He could be unfaithful, but you have to be loyal – it’s very Trumpian, in a way. One needed sacrifices in order to keep it going because we absolutely adored our fans. David never cared about people, but we did, and we loved our team.”
It seems that, despite palpable tension within the band, Frantz always offered positivity and emotional support to his wife. While a happy marriage helped keep the band together, Weymouth suggested that the mutual love they shared with fans was ultimately the fuel that kept the fire burning.
