Talking Heads: The Best Band Not Together

The band Talking Heads were at the forefront of the 70s New York club scene with a sound all their own.  David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison combined funk, pop, country, African rhythms, new wave and other experimental sounds, while  constantly evolving throughout their career.  They were both loved by critics and managed to have huge pop hits– a rare trick to pull off– with songs like “Psycho Killer”, “Burning Down the House”, and “Once in a Lifetime”.  They broke up in 1991 but continue to be an iconic band, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.     Recently Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about the release of a new DVD, “Chronology” which collects rare live performances by the band.

Ron Bennington: Let’s get into the DVD that you’ve got out now. Who’s idea was this?

Chris: Well, I think everybody in the band was aware that we had a lot of unseen footage, some of it is not exactly unseen but it’s kind of rare, you know like for example Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

Ron Bennington: Which I didn’t remember at all, and an incredibly hyper Dick Clark.

Chris Frantz:  Well you know he was really cool, I gotta say. Didn’t you think so Tina?

Tina Weymouth: I thought he was great.

Chris Frantz:  He had done his homework, he knew our hometowns, he knew our favorite foods, he knew everything.  But he just wanted to check, he had a little meeting with us before the show and he said “I just want to check that I got the correct information here”, so he was very, very welcoming and nice.

Ron Bennington: I think it’s so great because people, only know him as an older guy but here he was, he was probably in his fifties and the energy level that he had – people aren’t used to that anymore. But for you guys, let’s just say that, for when the Talking Heads were doing Bandstand, that had to be a show that you grew up watching right?

Chris Frantz: Absolutely yeah. It was also the first time we ever had to lip sync a song and we weren’t used to that. It was kind of weird for us because we had never done it before and we always kind of looked down our nose at bands that lip synced but when you’ve got a chance to be on American Bandstand, you go with it.

Ron Bennington: And it’s one thing to lip sync but what do you do with the instruments? How are you not bashing the drums?

Chris Frantz:  Well, they had these little rubber pads that they put on them so they wouldn’t make any sound when I hit them or very little sound.

Ron Bennington: Do you feel the same way about music as you did when you first fell in love with it and you first decided this is what I want to do?

Chris Frantz: I think so. I mean, we know a lot more about the business and everything, but when it comes to the actual art form, I think I’m still as, I still get as excited as, especially watching.  Now you can watch the whole YouTube videos and stuff.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, it’s tremendous.

Chris Frantz: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.  And I still get the chills that I got the first time I heard those records, and ah, James Brown, the Beatles, the Stones, I mean, I think Tina and I both feel the same way about it and I’m sure most musicians do. It’s like beyond loving it.  It’s this passion and obsession that you have and the stuff that you loved when you were a teenager sounds even better now.

Ron Bennington: When you guys were doing Talking Heads and the band kept expanding and expanding, and getting bigger and the sound changing so much, was that also a kind of a frightening thought of, wait, we’re getting away from stuff?  Or were you guys able to just give over to that, surrender to it and let it happen organically?

Chris Frantz: I think there was never any doubt in our minds that it was a good idea from a musical standpoint.  Business wise, things got a little bit more, shall we say, complex.  We were just mentioning Bernie and Steve Scales. But all those people we played with, they really brought a lot to the table and that’s why, that’s why our band, our kind of nerdy stiff little New Wave band became so darned funky was because we were surrounded by the masters.

Tina Weymouth: And they laughed a lot. And you know Talking Heads never, we laughed a lot offstage, but onstage we were SO serious and but those guys were laughing all the time.

Chris Frantz: And still are.

Tina Weymouth:  And you couldn’t tell any of them what to do or how to do it you know, that was just, “No you can’t do that” and that was very freeing I thought.  It was like, when people first started doing jazz, they were children you know, playing in the streets for rent money and it was a very free thing.  It didn’t become what it became later, you know with bebop and fusion where it becomes all about mathematical intervals and very complicated things.  It was freeing and it was fun and so when we added the people in the big band, that was the same kind of thing.  It was kind of freeing and fun.

Ron Bennington: And as the band was getting bigger, at the same time, the rooms that you guys were playing got bigger, and your popularity at the same time was increasing so the whole thing must have felt like it was getting larger.

Tina Weymouth: Right, we could play big places but we intentionally chose not to, as much as possible.  That was a decision of our manager, Gary Kurfirst, he was a true rock and roll cat. He’s the ghost promoter of Woodstock. You see Michael Lange on the camera, but people don’t realize this because they weren’t allowed, they didn’t get filmed for the Woodstock movie. But Mountain was the headliner and so this guy Gary Kurfirst, he was about 19, 20 years old and managing Mountain and from that he had this love, about rock and roll that it had to be about, that it should always be affordable. When we played Radio City Music Hall, we paid the union not to touch our stuff and we paid for the hall, because the ticket prices– we kept the ticket prices way down so that anybody could afford it could get it. Of course, the scalpers came in as they still do today, but you know we were trying as much as possible to play for four or five dollars, to always make it really accessible to kids, you know, young people who are going on a date. And so we would play these smaller places, too, and we never really got above these 2,000 seaters except when we would play these giant festivals. The Police would not sell out a place so they would need somebody to come and help them out you know, so we would just go and like the stadium would sell out. But otherwise, we were playing 2,000 seaters you know, 2,000 at the most maybe, and then the festivals which were big.  But otherwise, it was always intimate.

Ron Bennington: How was that, I mean, you have some of the US Festival stuff on here. I mean that was such a massive thing.

Tina Weymouth: Yeah, that was about 250,000 people

Ron Bennington: And when you get in front of an audience like that, does it all not even start to make sense any more, when it gets that large?

Tina Weymouth: Oh it’s fun, you know, because  people cut loose in those situations and the most fun thing for us, of those festivals, is not just the energy of the crowd, but what happens backstage is really funny. You know with all the egos. And the people, you know insisting that they won’t go on before this guy, blah blah, and that’s really funny to watch.

Chris Frantz: That particular thing, the US Festival, I’ll tell you a little story that was hilarious that we witnessed. We’re all backstage and we’ve got our trailers and our little sun decks and everything and plenty to eat and drink and the Kinks were supposed to go on. It was the middle of the afternoon and they didn’t want to go on, they wanted to wait a little while, and Bill Graham was having an argument with their manager. The great Bill Graham said “You know what I’m gonna do?” and the manager says “No what?” and he said “Wait right here” and he went and he got a forklift and he picked up the manager’s Mercedes SL and he started driving it towards the little manmade lake that they had built backstage, and he was just right on the edge and about to drop the Mercedes SL into the pond and the manager said “Hold on, we’re gonna go on, we’re gonna go on” and that kind of stuff is kind of funny.

Ron Bennington: I’m sure now for younger people they’re hearing Bill Graham, that’s like hearing P.T. Barnum or something you know so just the fact that you guys have had that opportunity, even to be around some of those legends, is amazing.

Chris Frantz: Yeah it’s great

Ron Bennington:  You know, when you look at all the great bands, the greatest band that hasn’t regrouped, reformed and went back out on tour is the Talking Heads. There’s no doubt about it, that it’s all still there, the audience is still there. I’m sure that if I made two phone calls, everybody would congratulate me.  If I could announce it, I could make the deal for this tour. Well, do you think it’ll ever happen?

Chris Frantz: Well, we were talking about it as we walked down 6th Avenue and went by Radio City Music Hall and said “remember how great that was?” You know, frankly, I think it’s a marvelous idea and I’m in favor of it, and we’re just hoping that one day that our singer comes, you know, wakes up and says, “I should give Chris and Tina, and Jerry a call and we should do something together.” We keep hoping that’ll happen but, you know.

Ron Bennington: Well, one of the things on this DVD is when you guys got back together for the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and it’s right there again.

Tina Weymouth: Yeah, it was fun

Ron Bennington: I mean, it is RIGHT THERE.

Chris Frantz: Yeah

Ron Bennington: You can feel it, it’s happening.  That’s to me, the saddest part about this, is that nothing has changed, it’s a matter of turning a key. It’s not like we’ve lost different members or anything.

Tina Weymouth: Yeah, I remember how I felt about the Beatles breaking up and I feel really bad for the fans. I wish there was something I could do, but you know it’s not up to me.

Ron Bennington: I cannot believe too, that all this footage is together. Do you have a favorite song of anything, or a favorite performance that’s on here?

Chris Frantz: Well, I think my personal favorite is the Psycho Killer at CBGB’s. Cause that was only the second or third time we played and so it’s very young, but I remember how I felt that night, and it was so exciting to be there, and we looked good, we looked great.

Ron Bennington: Was it really only the second or third time you guys played there.

Tina Weymouth: Yeah, I had only been playing bass about five months.

Ron Bennington: That’s insane.

Tina Weymouth: Yeah, I know, it was insane but we did insane things back then.

Ron Bennington: And one of the great things on here this, and I don’t want to give away too much for people who want to be surprised with it, but the fact of Seymour Stein talking about hearing you guys from the street. Here it is your third time playing together and hearing it and being drawn in to listen to this band.   I don’t know how much anyone believes in fate, but if it was in a movie, that would have been even a corny scene, that a couple of kids could have gotten together and suddenly there’s a guy from a record company.

Tina Weymouth: It was pretty amazing but that’s Seymour Stein.

Chris Frantz: Yeah, to his credit.

Tina Weymouth: Yeah, he was the only one. He actually came to the side of the stage and asked me if I needed some help, you know, lifting my amp back down, and I said “thanks, I can handle it” because I knew I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t get any help or David would get really angry with me because I wasn’t holding my own. But, that’s Seymour Stein, he was that way about music. And everything that he’ll tell you is true, and he remembers. When Madonna came to the hospital and he was having heart surgery and Madonna couldn’t wait to meet him, and she made him sign, on some kind of hospital gauze or something a little contract that you know, that I’m going to make a record with you. So, all these stories are absolutely true and that was what it was like back then. I don’t know what it could be again, but it was definitely, there weren’t a lot of  intermediary people;  someone who would know someone else, and it was just a very lucky time. And I think there were fewer people, you know, on the planet as well, so it made it a lot easier than it is for kids now. I mean, there’s so many bands now.

Ron Bennington: How long before you started getting radio airplay? Did it take a while or?

Chris Frantz: Well, I think we got some, like college radio on the first record, but it was Take Me To The River by Al Greene that was our first time we cracked the Top 40.

Tina Weymouth: The national radio.

Chris Frantz: And probably because it was an Al Greene song, which was, it’s a great song.

Ron Bennington; And oddly, when MTV came along and pushed a lot of the 70s acts away, you guys just got even bigger.

Chris Frantz: Yeah, well we had, we understood the power of visual stuff, so we went for it.

Ron Bennington: Yeah and you can see that in these live performances. Well it’s very great to have you guys back in here, and honestly, we’ve got to get another tour going. Thanks so much and we’ll see you next time through.

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