Talking Heads Reunite After Over Two Decades
Talking Heads have reunited for an onstage Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival. The band – comprising frontman David Byrne, bassist Tina Weymouth, drummer Chris Frantz and guitarist Jerry Harrison – made their first public appearance together in over 20 years at the event to celebrate their classic concert film, Stop Making Sense, on 11 September.
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Frontman David Byrne spoke about working with the film’s director, Jonathan Demme, and the moment he realised that Demme was actually making an ensemble film. “Like, you would have a bunch of actors in a location and you get to know each character, one by one,” Byrne explained, adding, “You get familiar with them, and then you watch how they all interact with one another. And I thought, I’m in my own world. But he saw that, he saw what was going on there.”
“There’s all these moments that he caught, where one of us looks at the other, looks over at Bernie [Worrell, keyboardist] or Bernie looks at us, all those little quick interactions,” Byrne marveled. “And I thought, that stuff is amazing.”
Guitarist Jerry Harrison said that “one of the reasons for the lasting power of the film is you see that we are having so much fun onstage,” adding that “the audience is brought right into it. We say, you’re part of this too. And I think that every time anybody watches it, it brings back that wonderful emotion.”
Meanwhile, Byrne revealed the moment he decided to wear an oversized suit onstage, “The origin of that was… we were in between tours, and I was thinking, ‘What are we gonna do next? Maybe I should rethink what we wear onstage’,” he recalled.
“I was having dinner in Japan after we finished the tour, and this designer there said, ‘Well, David. In the theatre, everything is bigger than [in] real life’. He’s referring to like gestures… you sing louder and all that.” He added: “I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my suit should be bigger too.”