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Far Out DECEMBER 5, 2022 - by Jordan Potter

TINA WEYMOUTH DISCUSSES MARRIAGE, TALKING HEADS AND DAVID BYRNE

Tina Weymouth, a quarter of one of New York's finest bands and a half of the greatest marriage in music history, can claim a comfortable seat with her fellow Talking Heads in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Incidentally, it was at the 2002 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony when we last saw this extraordinary foursome together on stage, celebrating their induction. This was the first time the core members had played live together since February 1984, and with strained relationships within the band, fans have been led to hold very little hope of a reunion over the past two decades.

Even though more than thirty years have passed since the official disbandment of Talking Heads, their popularity shows no signs of waning. While my playlists and record collection are extremely biased in forming this inferential conclusion, hearing Once In A Lifetime blasting from radios in stationary traffic and seeing the bold red and white Talking Heads logo on the shirts of those born this side of the millennium divide can only attest to the undying power of New York's new-wave giants.

When looking to form a band in the early 1970s, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne and Chris Frantz clubbed together as a duo called Artistics. The name pertained to the kooky, unprecedented style of music they intended to create. As the duo bounced from venue to venue, it was Frantz's girlfriend, Weymouth, who provided transportation as the designated driver. Little did she know, this job would morph into something rather spectacular in just a few short years.

Looking back at Talking Heads' rich history, one of the most remarkable moments for me was their hunt for a bassist. When Artistics called it a day, Weymouth, Frantz and Byrne moved to New York City, where they shared a communal loft apartment. With rejuvenated plans to pursue a career in the music business, Frantz and Byrne hit their first hurdle in locating a suitable bassist.

Dispirited in their search, Frantz turned to Weymouth and encouraged her to learn the bass guitar by playing along to Suzi Quatro records. She grasped the basics with ease, and in just a few weeks, she was jamming with her housemates as they looked toward their first gig as Talking Heads in support of The Ramones at CBGB.

Recently, I had the honour of speaking with the wonderful Weymouth to become better acquainted with one of Far Out's favourite bassists. We hopped on a video call to face the customary technical difficulties before we finally had a clear audio line, and I could see our talking heads onscreen.

After a virtual handshake, Weymouth told me she was calling from her home in Connecticut. I asked whether her husband, Frantz, was in the vicinity. "He's in another room doing another interview," she told me.

The dawn of conversation was mainly spent reflecting on the humbling power of the Talking Heads oeuvre. If you were to ask me which Talking Heads song was my favourite, I would request a few moments for consideration and still come back with a lengthy shortlist. Naturally, putting such a question to a member of the band was going to be an even taller order, but I did it anyway. To facilitate the triaging process, I asked which was her favourite song to perform.

"Well, that's interesting... hmm," Weymouth said, buying a moment to consider her answer. "It's like picking a favourite child. But what's the most fun one to play? I always love Don't Worry About the Government. Oh, and No Compassion! I just love playing No Compassion, even though the sentiment is crazy."

"Let's see," she continued, worrying for the children she might have missed out. "Life During Wartime, Burning Down The House, Once In A Lifetime, Psycho Killer. I really enjoy playing Psycho Killer."

In preemption of my reactionary question, Weymouth asked herself: "What's my least favourite, though? The only one that I really don't like is The Big Country [from 1978's More Songs About Buildings And Food]. I deliberately wanted to create something really dumb [laughs]. Because I think, oftentimes, confronted with David's lyrics, we would interject into the song through the arrangement of the instruments. And so sometimes we would just do something that was completely contrary to whatever he was singing about."

"Sometimes we would make it very happy if it was a very sad thing, you know, and mostly, people took it as being ironic, but in The Big Country, I thought, 'Oh my gosh!' So you had to pick one's battles. We couldn't say 'Noo!' to things that might turn out well, so who was I to say no to The Big Country?" she said sardonically, commenting, "It was very contemptuous of people."

In The Big Country, Byrne sings: "I wouldn't live there if you paid me / I wouldn't live like that, no siree / I wouldn't do the things the way those people do / I wouldn't live there if you paid me to", in a damning appraisal of life in the rural midwest. In a 2015 interview with Marc Maron, however, Byrne claimed that the song was written to satirise popular culture's image of him as a "snotty city kid". In reality, he claimed to have the deepest respect for the quieter areas of the US, which is somewhat verified by his subliminal warning in 1988's (Nothing But) Flowers.

I told Weymouth that I, too, never particularly enjoyed The Big Country and that, while I admired More Songs About Buildings And Food, the following two albums, Fear Of Music and Remain In Light, were strides ahead and carry no faults.

Agreeing that one of these two would be her favourites of the Talking Heads catalogue, Weymouth admitted that she "didn't listen to our albums for a long time because I was just too busy getting my head into other people's music. But yeah, I would say my favourite albums were Remain In Light and, even before that, Fear Of Music. I really loved that one. That was our most 'rock' record, and I really enjoy it. I really enjoyed playing Fear Of Music live, it was really nice and thriving. It had a lot of meat to it."

Suppressing inhibitions, I boasted of my beloved record collection, revealing that an original Fear Of Music was among my prized possessions. With the topic broached, we briefly discussed the vinyl revolution as a rare positive among manifold negatives in the modern music industry. "Fabulous! Very good... we like that," Weymouth commented as I illustrated my fervent affection for old, dusty discs.

Later, I was keen to discuss Talking Heads' landmark concert film from 1984, Stop Making Sense. The film saw the band perform live from Hollywood's Pantages Theater with an extended cast of musicians, backing singers and choreographers through a blazing, animated set packed with big hits and, of course, Byrne's "big suit".

The set has gone down in history as one of the finest live concert films of all time. From the emphatic performances, it seemed the band were having a whale of a time. I wondered whether, behind the scenes, it might have been a different picture, given the stress of such a demanding production. "No, no! Making that [film] was a great, great time," Weymouth told me. "That was a wonderful band. It was just the travelling, and the work were exhausting. But every time we got on stage, we were so energised. And we were young, you know, so we could do it, we could really go there. But no, it was great fun. I actually think - this is kind of a fantasy - but I felt that I was watching the show. I had a prime position to be able to watch and enjoy the show, and I was just awed by everyone".

Weymouth added: "And I just love the fans. I actually believed that we were doing something good. I thought, 'This is really spiritual; we're really communicating some love here.' So that was my feeling about it at the time. I couldn't believe it when David said to us, 'Oh, well, we're not going to tour anymore because the movie's gonna tour for us.' I just scratched my head. Like, 'What? That's not the same!'"

During the film, Weymouth, Frantz and the rest of the extended band - apart from Byrne, who was getting changed into his "big suit" - performed Tom Tom Club's 1981 hit Genius Of Love. This part of the film always gave me the impression that the side project was decidedly exclusive of Byrne as a protest of sorts against his creative dominance.

"No, no," Weymouth protested when I asked. "It never even occurred to us to go off and form our own band. What happened is we came back in December of 1980, and David said, 'Well, I'm off. I'm gone. I don't know when or if I'll come back and I'm gonna do a solo project'. Then Jerry Harrison then said, 'Well, if he's doing one, I'm doing one.'"

Talking Heads had just arrived home from a huge European tour, and with half the band off for solo exploits, Weymouth and Frantz were approached by their friend Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. "Chris Blackwell said, 'Come down to compass point and make a single and if I like it, you can make a whole album.' So we said, 'Why not?' And then we said, 'Oh God, what an opportunity! Let's ask Lee Scratch Perry to work with us.' So we were just so happy, and I think it's reflected in the music we made."

The mention of Lee Scratch Perry reminded me of Brian Eno, who singled the late Jamaican out as "one of the greatest producers of all time" at his talk at the Barbican, London last month. I had heard rumours before that there was a point in the late '70s when Eno was close to becoming an official Talking Head thanks to his close collaboration over three such pivotal albums.

"That's a narrative people came up with to be able to talk to newspapers and the press," Weymouth corrected me. "What happened is David was off again. In 1979, he'd left the band - he's the kinda guy who wandered off a little bit - so Brian Eno was living in town, and Chris and I started just jamming in our loft, the place where we actually wrote and recorded Fear Of Music, which is in Long Island City, just across the East River next to the 59th Street Bridge.

"So we said, 'Oh, Brian, wouldn't you like to come and jam with us? We're going to have some fun; we're just going to approach it like we're kids with toys that we've never experienced before. We're all going to play each other's instruments.' So Brian said, 'Yeah, sounds good.'

"So then we call up Jerry, and we say, 'Hey, guess what, Brian Eno's coming; you wanna jam with us? And Jerry said, 'Yes, OK!' And so he came, and then we called David. 'Guess what, David, Jerry and Brian Eno are coming to jam with us, and we're gonna write some songs.' And that brought David running. So, that's how we got that going. You gotta give us credit; Chris and I kept that band together for so many years. It wouldn't even have got its start without the two of us because people didn't even want David in their band. And, I mean, we had to tell people, 'He's really an interesting guy. You got to come check it out!'"

"Why wouldn't people have wanted David in their band?" I probed.

"You know... he's a very weird guy," Weymouth said hesitantly. "And a lot of people just didn't think he was rock star material. Chris put the first band together [Artistics], and he put Talking Heads together. He put the deposit down on the loft and invited David to come live there and invited me to come live there, you know, 'Let's form a band.' But other people were just very... they didn't tell us about any of their fallouts. Nobody told us about David Byrne and their personal experiences with David Byrne."

"So, we didn't find out for decades about a lot of stuff. Like people now say, 'Oh, yeah, you know, I used to play poker with him, and I couldn't understand how he was winning all the time. But then he went home, and I found all these aces hidden in the furniture.' So, that would have been a clue, but we didn't know."

Weymouth continued: "All I knew was that I liked - you know, he's left-handed, but he plays right-handed guitar - I was just a folk guitarist, but I really liked his rhythm style, and I loved that... it was something I think would be worth exploring. Being left-handed, that would mean that he's right-brained, but he's playing right-handed. So he's got his lyrics and his rhythm separated. It's bicameral. It's almost like being a woman, you know, two minds at the same time talking this way and that, and I always thought it's so interesting. And I liked his musical style. And I tell you, we had great chemistry!"

Weymouth and Frantz have been happily married for forty-five years. The rock and roll lifestyle has been shown, across countless historical examples, to throw a spanner in the works of inter-band relationships. I was intrigued to uncover this rhythm section power couple's secret. How did their relationship survive?

"Oh, I think Chris is just a saint! Don't tell him I said that; no man wants to hear that. Chris is just the loveliest, smartest person I know alive today, and he's also happy, a genuinely positive person. There's so much to be said about having an enthusiastic person in your midst. And for instance, once - David being the contrary - one time, [Byrne] told me, 'Oh, you're too emotional.' And I felt it was a way of bullying me, of trying to push me into some kind of submissive service. And so it was lovely of Chris to say, 'Oh Tina, there's no such thing as too emotional.'"

"I think everybody was always afraid David would crack or break. You really had to walk on eggs, and he could be a bully, but you couldn't do it to him. He could be unfaithful, but you have to be loyal - it's very Trumpian, in a way. One needed sacrifices in order to keep it going because we absolutely adored our fans. David never cared about people, but we did, and we loved our team."

Ostensibly, Byrne could be a challenging personality to work alongside, but through the band's strong will and the glue of their team spirit, spurred by a strong fan base, the miracle of Talking Heads could prevail.

As Weymouth continued, she identified her lifelong battle with the hereditary disease A1AT as another significant stressor. The disease inhibited her immune defences, so she recalled becoming very ill following long, exhausting tours. "So, all these sacrifices, they're worth it," she concluded. "I'm a sailor; I also like riding horses. You get sores and blisters, and you get banged up, but it's worth it because you get out there, you're in nature, and it's just amazing."

Weymouth and I had a fascinating conversation; it was particularly interesting to realise the extent of her passion for performance and how she and her husband kept the Talking Heads flag raised for so long against such a strong headwind.

As we said our goodbyes, Weymouth told me she was excited to visit England next spring for the scheduled Remain In Love book tour alongside Frantz. Sadly, the tour won't stop in my hometown of Brighton, but the trip up to London's Electric Ballroom will be well worth it. Weymouth finally admitted she must try to see more of the country in the future. "I've never been to Weymouth either," she playfully added after revealing Brixton was the closest she had been to Brighton in the past.