Talking Heads – 'We thought "down with Arena Rock"'

With the Remain in Love Tour about to happen and a reissue of stop making sense imminent, people are talking about talking heads again. Not that they ever really stopped. With their adventures in psychedelicised funk and dub-spacious art disco, they essayed a new form of anti-'rockist' music, all polyrhythmic colourmotion helmed by Brian Eno, effecting a clean break with tradition. A once in a lifetime proposition, in terms of songwriting and Studio Sonics, they made leaps between - especially albums the first four - matched only by The Beatles. Come into the blue again as David interviews the stubbs greatest rhythm section of the post-punk period, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, about the band, their out-of-this-world music and their eventual, inevitable split, while Terry Staunton tracks their lightspeed evolution on LP and Daryl Easlea gets discographical. Take a look!

Although Talking Heads are often regarded as post-punk, they actually preceded the genre, formed as they were in 1975 in New York, with their sense of identity almost immediately established. Initially consisting of David Byrne on guitar and vocals, Chris Frantz on drums and Tina Weymouth on bass, they were joined in 1977 by Jerry Harrison, formerly of The Modern Lovers, who added vital flesh, tone and colour to their overall sound, on guitars and keyboards.

Talking Heads regarded themselves as an antidote to the decadent, over-indulgent excesses of mid-70s American rock, which had become disconnected from any sort of reality, remote from their audience. They played up their preppiness, focused studiously on their music, with Byrne the wonderfully compelling antithesis of a “frontman”, someone who seemed to wear his nervous system on the outside. Psycho Killer, on their debut album Talking Heads: 77, with its disquieting, stammering chorus, represented a new kind of fraught energy in US rock – neurotic rather than conventionally impassioned, while musically the band were deliberately clipped rather than laden with needless soloing.

Power trio: David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth rehearse in 1976