POP ART : The Sound of One Head Talking

One of rock’s most illustrious chapters ended quietly last December when David Byrne announced the end of Talking Heads, the New York band that helped revolutionize the pop world in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Combining urgent rock with Byrne’s visionary, obsessive lyrics, the band became an exemplar of rock’s new attitudes and ambitions, and as it stretched its horizons (mostly notably by introducing African styles to American rock), its artistic reach coincided with a rising curve of popularity.

But the group became virtually inactive after 1986, the year that Time magazine put Byrne on the cover and declared him “Rock’s Renaissance Man” in recognition of his artistic restlessness: The former art student’s pursuits include music for films, dance and theater, film and video writing and directing, photography and other visual arts.

After Talking Heads began its “hiatus” following 1988’s “Naked” album, the 39-year-old Byrne became a parent, founded Luaka Bop, a record company specializing in world music, and released three solo albums: the orchestral work “The Forest,” 1989’s Latin-accented “Rei Momo” and the new “Uh-Oh,” a return to his edgy, eccentric rock. (See review, Page 65.)

On a personal level, the New Yorker, his wife Adelle Lutz and their 2 1/2-year-old daughter have been spending much of their time in Los Angeles. It’s easier to write, and the movie studios are here (he’s trying to launch a film project). It was also in Los Angeles that Byrne attended to his sister-in-law (who died in January) through a long struggle with AIDS.

Sitting recently in his manager’s West Hollywood office, Byrne appeared slightly worn, and less tense than the common image of the high-strung artiste. The end of Talking Heads has left him with mixed feelings, but its resolution has clearly been liberating.

Question: If you could go back, would you have ended Talking Heads differently?

Answer: Yeah, I would have probably said it was over earlier, to avoid being asked every time I did an interview, “Well, when are you going to make another record? If you’re just taking a break, when’s the break over?” Basically I just got tired of saying that kind of stuff.

Q: Did you think it was over even when you were saying it was still on break?

A: Yeah. But for some reason I thought that if I said, “This is over,” then somehow it could degenerate into some kind of name-calling thing. . . . It was kind of getting there anyway. I didn’t read some of the stuff (the other members said) but I heard about it. So I figured let’s just admit what’s really happening here. At the same time I wouldn’t want to say that we’re never gonna do anything together, but who knows when that would be?

Q: Are the personal relations very damaged?

A: They’re very tense I would say, and they have been for a while. They’re not relaxed. They’re not ridiculous, but they’re a little rocky, I would say. It never got to the point of the kind of Mick and Keith stuff. It never got to that kind of thing. Q: Why did you lose interest in the band?

A: I really don’t know. There’s lots of little things that made it lose its thrill, but I really can’t put it down to one specific thing. Probably just an accumulation of things. All I can think is you just kind of drift apart after a while. . . . It just didn’t seem to befun. I started to feel like I didn’t want to get myself stressed out and have a totallyunpleasant experience, I didn’t want to look forward to that just for the sake of some music. I guess you get to a point in your life where you go, “My happiness is worth something.”

Q: Do you think you’re particularly hard to work with?

A: No, I don’t think any more than any other singer-songwriter. Especially singers. I think singers are notoriously kind of egotistical. I don’t think I’m that much of an exception. You get a shot of that pretty early on, it’s hard to bring yourself back down to earth all the time. I can’t deny that it’s a pretty heady thing. You have to remind yourself that you’re getting a little carried away.

Q: Does your interest in such a variety of media and styles detract from your basic music? Would you make better records if you were focused on that only?

A: I always assumed the opposite. That if you don’t get some other experiences that you can draw on you’re going to end up writing the same songs over and over

again, doing the same thing. . . . I assume that taking a break from something, doing something else and then coming back to it gives you stuff to draw on, gives you inspiration. . . . And that’s what made it possible to continue doing songs that were sort of regular. As regular as I’m able to do.

Q: Are you sensitive to the criticism that when you incorporate these styles into your music, you’re a dilettante dabbling in exotic forms?

A: Oh yeah. Or any criticism, no matter what it is. I can’t pretend that I’m not aware of it, ‘cause although I haven’t read it very much, everybody says it’s there. I don’t know exactly how to respond to it. As a musician my impulse is, you hear a groove or something that you love, you want to get closer to it. If I’m not allowed to work with other musicians whose playing and styles and backgrounds are different from my own, if I’m only allowed to play with art school students, it’s kind of limiting. So that part of the criticism is easy to defend yourself against, on a purely musical level.

But the whole thing really is about economics I think. It’s about who benefits economically from this music. . . . It’s hard to answer. To me the real exploitation would be if I took a song or the whole deal by somebody else, kind of sweetened it up and resold it to America as being my thing, saying I made this up. I don’t think that’s what’s going on.

It’s something that deserves to be really opened up and talked about in a real serious way, rather than just sniping at a few artists who are broadening their musical horizons.

Q: Why did you start Luaka Bop when there are already established companies distributing world music?

A: It seemed I had some idea of how I could package the stuff and collect things in a way that was different from the way some of these other world music labels are doing. Not necessarily better, just different. . . . I would say that a lot of it represents bastardized forms--a lot of what we are attracted to are the impure forms, not what would be considered pure traditional music. Whatever that means. And I always thought we would get beyond being a quote “world music label,” which we’re gradually doing.

Q: What kind of commercial potential does world music have?

A: There’s always been resistance to music from outside the United States, unless it’s from England. Other countries I think will be much more open to having a hit single by some African band or whatever. I could see that happening, especially in someplace like France or Germany or Japan. Whereas here it would seem like a real fluke, It would be on the order of Nirvana in the Top 10. . . .

There’s a lot of people (in the United States), their tastes have been broadened but they don’t know where to go, they don’t know what to listen to. They don’t listen to the radio much, because the radio is kind of narrowcasting. So I think that there’s a really diverse audience for this stuff, but they’re hard to reach, because they’re not a core demographic group. And it’s hard for them to know where to look.

But who knows, it might change.

Q: Compare life in New York and Los Angeles.

A: In New York there’s a great temptation to just walk out on the street. . . . You’re hit in the face with all this stuff. Whatever you do, when you walk in the street you’re gonna have to participate and be involved in that life. And here the car is a buffer. You kind of go in this bubble, and you turn on the radio or pop in a cassette or whatever, and that’s great too.

But in New York it makes it more difficult to get things done. The little record label and office and stuff that I have there is kind of right next to where I live, so there’s a great temptation for me to just hang out there. It’s very small, but there’s a little bit of activity, and anything’s better than locking yourself in a room and staring at a blank page, or picking up a guitar and not knowing what you’re going to do. So I found it more conducive to writing out here.

Q: How has parenthood changed you?

A: If anything I’m more (angry) than ever about the state of the nation, the state of the world. Maybe it’s the cliche of, “Well, my kid’s gonna have to live with this.” So it’s kind of funny. Instead of making me a nicer guy it’s making me into more of a curmudgeon.

Q: What about the future? Talking Heads were so influential, you’ve always had to compete against huge public expectations. How helpful or harmful is all this attention on an artist? Do you sometimes wish you could start this new chapter more anonymously?

A: I think by being somewhat in the public eye, you see your life being subjected to a lot of analysis, for better or for worse. . . . I will say that I’ve never felt the need of going into therapy because I get this kind of talking cure. I also get to get my ya-yas out on stage and on record. I get analyzed by however many amateur psychoanalysts there are out there writing in the press. That might be a benefit.

It does make me aware of some things. When I see in a number of articles for instance that I’m whatever, Mr. Nerd Rocker, something like that, you can’t help but be aware that that’s an image that’s coming across, whether it’s intended or not. And that forces you to confront that: “Well is that what I want, is that really me?”--all that kind of nonsense. . . . It doesn’t seem desirable. Of course when they tell you you’re wonderful, that doesn’t feel so bad.