Tina Weymouth: “Bono used me to taunt Adam Clayton”
As the 1980s began, the Talking Heads were about to become some of the most successful artists in the world. After their start playing in the seedy clubs of the New York punk scene, bassist Tina Weymouth emerged as one of the biggest bass players in the scene and a teasing mechanism for a fledgling rock juggernaut.
In a new interview with Guitar World, Weymouth explained how her short stature became one of the main inspirations for aspiring bassists to pick up the instrument, saying: “I think you can look at me and say, ‘Wow, there’s this small, small person working away at this, and if she can do it, I can”.
Weymouth would also explain her begrudgingly accepting an offer to join Talking Heads, recalling: “Within a month Chris [Frantz] was begging me to play bass. We all shared a loft just down the street from CBGB’s; he’d go there every night looking for a bass player, but no one was interested”.
Even though Weymouth was a placeholder band member, she would go on to say that she didn’t think she would last in the group, remembering: “I’d taught myself guitar out of Bob Dylan songbooks, so playing bass in a band seemed very far-removed to me. It just didn’t seem realistic. I figured I would leave as soon as they found a real bass player”.
Her dedication to her instrument had an effect on the fledgling U2, who were making their first album at the start of the decade. According to Weymouth, her bass playing was a way of taunting U2 bassist Adam Clayton, recalling: “There are ways of getting around limitations, and my size was almost like a dare to boys. I know Bono used me to taunt Adam Clayton when they were starting out, which was terrible for Adam!”.
At the start of her career, Weymouth also praised bandmates Frantz and David Byrne for pushing her outside of her comfort zone. She said: “Chris and David began working with me. Chris was very encouraging and supportive. And David was marvellous in that he was so hard on me; he had no patience whatsoever”.
Though the band would have greater success with albums such as Remain in Light, their internal struggles caused them to go their separate ways in the late ’80s after the album Naked. Weymouth has since kept active in the music industry, producing for acts like Happy Mondays and having a cameo as the voice of Noodle on the Gorillaz single ’19-2000′.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.