What inspired the theatrics of Talking Heads?
In 1984, Talking Heads released the greatest concert film of all time. Led by David Byrne, Stop Making Sense saw the band take to the stage at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre to perform some of their biggest hits, album-only tracks, and even a Tom Tom Club song. But, while the music was masterfully performed and had audiences up on their feet, Stop Making Sense was made all the more memorable and dynamic for its onstage theatrics.
For ‘Life During Wartime’, frontman Byrne accompanied his vocals with exaggerated facial expressions and wobbly knees before taking off on a sprint around the stage. Later, he dons a huge business suit for ‘Girlfriend Is Better’. More and more band members join Byrne onstage for each song, and with the theatrics for the show, Byrne and his band really took the title to heart. They incorporated all the nonsensical elements they could think of, and Stop Making Sense was all the more engaging and iconic for it.
Looking back on the inspiration for the theatrics of Talking Heads, David Byrne told Conan O’Brien that they came “little by little”. Appearing on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, the frontman cited the early influence of David Bowie on his onstage physicality and theatrics.
He explained: “Growing up, seeing like, David Bowie shows and some other kinds of things I realised, ‘Oh, that is a thing that can be done. You can do a kind of theatrical show, wear costumes or whatever. That’s not completely out of the question.’”
Though Bowie had proven the capabilities of theatrics to Byrne, he felt he was still too nervous and inexperienced to incorporate them in Talking Heads: “But I thought, ‘No, we don’t know what to do’, so we started off trying to take it down to ground zero and not do anything, just wear street clothes onstage and not have any kind of look.” At first, they didn’t even have lighting on stage, as Byrne recalls: “We would go into a club and just say, ‘Just turn them on when we start and turn them off when we’re done’.”
Despite his attempts, Byrne found that “not having a look ends up being a look… You can’t escape it”. Accordingly, they began incorporating elements of theatrics into their shows, from movement to lighting.
Byrne’s interest in theatrics was only exacerbated when he moved to New York, where he began attending experimental theatre performances. He recalls realising, “Oh, there’s all different ways of doing this. I don’t have to be like various rockstars I know about that I might love, but there’s other ways of doing things”.
Rather than personifying the rockstars around him, Byrne opted to think outside of the box, conceptualising his big suit around the influence of traditional Japanese Noh theatre and business attire.
Byrne’s decision to eventually delve fully into the theatrics of performance served him well. Without it, Stop Making Sense, while an excellent display of Talking Heads’ musical talent, would have lacked the performance iconography it has become so well-known for. Since then, Byrne has only deepened his love for theatrics with productions such as American Utopia. His inclusion of theatrics has consistently elevated his musical talent and creative output.
