Hanging With The Tom Tom Club: August 2011
If you’re anything like us– and you can’t ever hear enough stories about the New York club scene in the 70s– then you definitely want to check out this interview with Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. Chris and Tina were the rhythm section for the iconic 80s group, The Talking Heads, and also formed The Tom Tom Club. They stopped by to talk to Ron about their career, New York City in the 70s, and why the Talking Heads haven’t gotten back together.
Below is a short excerpt the interview. To hear great interviews like this one, check out Ron Bennington Interviews only on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.
Ron Bennington: Its strange too, to look back at that time, [the 70s] because everyone had a perception of NYC as gone and not coming back but now in hindsight it was one of the most creative times in the history of this city. There was so much music, there was art going on, even stand up comedy was kind of breaking at the time….filmmaking.
Tina Weymouth: Well, you know Berlin is like that now. Artists really thrive in beat up old cities where there are not being pushed out by the haute bourgeoisie.
Ron Bennington: And the city kind of got successful again because a lot of those people, from all the different artists, and those were the first people that we went…alright now the rents too high you’ve got to move along.
Tina Weymouth: Yea gentrification wrecks it for artists, doesn’t it?
Ron Bennington: But the beauty of it is kids will always then find a new place.
Chris Frantz: Yes. Brooklyn. And I’m told now that there’s a little bit of hotbed artistic activity in the South Bronx where no sane person would ever have gone back in our day.
Ron Bennington: When you look back on NYC at that time what are some of your strong memories?
Tina Weymouth: It was just like Taxi Driver. Debbie Harry– Blondie lived just across the street…and invariably we’d be mistaken for hookers and it was kind of amusing but at the same time it was threatening. I think a lot of times we were hungry too. Thank goodness for Hilly Kristal. I mean he fed us at times. When times got really rough.
Chris Frantz: CBGBs was something that was very memorable. We moved to NY in 1974 and a friend of mine was living on Bond Street and he said you really should go across the street on the Bowery. There’s this place called CBGBs, there’s something going on there. So I went there and there was nothing going on that night, it was like a Monday. So I went back the next night and Patty Smith was there and it was when it was just Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye on guitar, that was it. And it was just….spine tingling and I got goose bumps and I thought ah, this is it. I’ve come to the right place. And I went back another night and The Ramones were playing and then the night after that Television was playing and then the night after that Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and something that preceded Blondie. So we moved in right around the corner– two blocks away into a loft– and we started rehearsing our songs and writing our songs and eventually we screwed up our courage and asked for an audition and Hilly Kristal said, ‘Well, I can put you on in front of the Ramones on Thursday Night. So we opened up for the Ramones and there was maybe 30 people there that night, if that.
Tina Weymouth: including the bartenders
Chris Frantz: Yes. (Laughing). And including Hilly’s dog but it was a wonderful scene and it exploded a few months after that. It kind of exploded and we had journalists coming in and interviewing us from France and Japan and Holland and all over the place.
Tina and Chris went on to talk about how Tina got her start in the band, what led them to form Tom Tom Club while Talking Heads was still a band, their new album, Genius of Live, and why they haven’t reunited with Talking Heads.
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For more info you can check them out on twitter @tomtomclub or on their website and you can pick up their newest album, Genius of Live here.
