Tina Weymouth says touring with Talking Heads “was great until the drugs came into the picture”
Former Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth has reflected on her touring days with the band and described how drugs had a disastrous effect on them.
While Talking Heads officially split up in 1991, they stopped touring in 1984. Although Weymouth enjoyed spending time on the road with the band during their early days, she has now claimed it became considerably less pleasurable once they began consuming drugs in the 1980s, making touring a more challenging process.
During a conversation with Haim bassist Este Haim for Interview Magazine, Weymouth looked back and explained why she’s glad to no longer be a touring artist. She told her fellow musician: “I’m glad to not be on tour now. We just toured to death, and you get that kind of burnout. My younger son, he’s a painter, but he’s also a musician. His wife is part of an electronic duo called Xeno & Oaklander and they did a tour in a little Subaru Crosstrek. They covered 11,600 miles in 31 days. They said the only way they could do it is by not drinking any alcohol.”
“They only drank things like Red Bull and espresso and a lot of water. I really think that that’s what hurt touring for me, the amount of drugs around us. It was great until the drugs came into the picture. When we were touring in the 80s, the drug of choice was primarily cocaine, which was cut with all sorts of things, including speed. It made people feel like they could just do anything. But it was just so damaging,” Weymouth added.
When asked by Haim whether drugs “changed people’s demeanor”, Weymouth responded: “Yes, absolutely. In fact, shortly after that, in 1985, I met a woman named Imal. She was extraordinarily psychic. She told me that entities, not good ones, don’t have life, they don’t have sentience, they don’t have bodies. And they enter into people’s bodies when they’re not really all there and it changes people. It makes them different people.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Haim explained how seeing the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense as a child was a pivotal moment in her life. She recalled: “I was transfixed the entire time. The film itself is magical, but I think the most magical part is your part in it. I was completely enamored with you and how much fun you were having. I was like, ‘Oh my god, this girl’s having such a good time on stage. She’s dancing and she’s singing, and she’s really getting into it.’ So I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do. That looks like fun.'”
Talking Heads recently released Stop Making Sense in 4K for the first time, watch the trailer below.
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