The Louis Theroux Podcast - S6 EP5: David Byrne on clashes in Talking Heads, neurodivergence, and culture wars

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Louis sits down with David Byrne, the musician, author and iconic frontman of Talking Heads. David tells Louis about personality clashes within the band, how his neurodivergence plays a role in his music, and being at the centre of a culture-war storm. Plus, they discuss whether Donald Trump stole his ‘big suit’. Warnings: Strong language and adult themes.     Links/Attachments:   Book: Bicycle Diaries, David Byrne (2009)  https://www.waterstones.com/book/bicycle-diaries/david-byrne/9780571371266     Album: Who Is The Sky, David Byrne (2025)  https://open.spotify.com/album/5xDqZQlSx2gRrAyAgHQ8AB     Song: ‘The Book I Read’, Talking Heads (1977)  https://open.spotify.com/track/4OT7Ndu29Z7JfhwRS2iCJX     Song: ‘That’s the Way (I Like It), KC & The Sunshine Band (1994)  https://open.spotify.com/track/0RQTbMBgSq7xgdZSHFZg4R      Book: ‘An Anthropologist on Mars’, Oliver Sacks (1995)  https://www.oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks-books/an-anthropologist-on-mars/     Song: ‘She Explains Things To Me’, David Byrne (2025) https://open.spotify.com/album/5f6f5JMGxgNa0LAJqtaUXY      Song: ‘Psycho Killer’, Talking Heads (1977)  https://open.spotify.com/track/7dSCxR4LqkmxoBrq9MzVSD     Artist: Randy Newman  https://open.spotify.com/artist/3HQyFCFFfJO3KKBlUfZsyW    Artist: Alice Cooper   https://open.spotify.com/artist/3EhbVgyfGd7HkpsagwL9GS     Album: Talking Heads 77, Talking Heads (1977) https://open.spotify.com/album/0r7o2FeARRr23EZ0TJ0a8S     Artist: Ramones   https://open.spotify.com/artist/1co4F2pPNH8JjTutZkmgSm     Artist: The Clash   https://open.spotify.com/artist/3RGLhK1IP9jnYFH4BRFJBS     Artist: Sex Pistols   https://open.spotify.com/artist/1u7kkVrr14iBvrpYnZILJR     2002 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Talking Heads performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBr0FJsDk1g    Stop Making Sense (1984)  https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/stop-making-sense/umc.cmc.4qcn1p5rridjzo742xirf9j8m     The Silence of the Lambs (1991)  https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/the-silence-of-the-lambs/umc.cmc.vo1hrvp25kr64fq8irp5jx75?action=play     True Stories (2016)  https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/true-stories/umc.cmc.7ffwwfhraf765c0l9l1v7a4tw?action=play     Weekly World News:  https://weeklyworldnews.com/     David’s online magazine:   https://reasonstobecheerful.world/      Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Artemis Irvine  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards   Shownotes compiled by Elly Young  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1-2-1-2. Are we rolling? Hello there, welcome to the Louis Theroux podcast. Today I'm sitting down with New Wave Pioneer and Cultural Polymath. He's basically a singer, okay, let's not overcomplicate it. David Byrne. David is perhaps best known as the founding member and lead singer, I said that, of the brilliant Talking Heads, originally formed in the mid-70s in New York. Talking Heads became known for their distinctive blend of punk, art, rock and world music influences. They were part of that whole downtown New York scene.

Blondie, Patty Smith, television, Richard Helen the Voidoids. I'm getting quite far off pieced. but a seminal moment in the culture that also had an influence, I think, on the UK punk scene. They're big hits, you'll know, Psycho Killer, we talk about that. This must be the place, brackets, naive melody. That's not going to help. Once in a lifetime, doom doom doom, doodoo doom, I think I'm getting the baseline a bit wrong. Burning down the house.

these will all be featured on the forthcoming covers album that I've mentioned before and many others since the band broke up in the early 90s David's continued a prolific solo career releasing numerous albums composing soundtracks and collaborating with a wide range of artists from iconic producer Brian Eno to American songwriter St Vincent I listened to some of his solo stuff in preparation for the chat and it's great no surprise there Strange Overtones is a very strong standout track. I put that on my Spotify LT 2025 playlist. That is probably not something you needed to know,

but we'll go down very well in Stockholm where Spotify is headquarters. Please keep me employed. No, that's a joke. If you're lucky, I'll stay working for you. In 2019, he debuted American Utopia, a critically acclaimed Broadway show that was later adapted into a concert film directed by Spike Lee, that is also well worth a watch.

There's loads where I could tell you he's a keen cyclist like me. We talk about that. He's a cultural vulture. Is that the term? He's just curious about all forms of production, cultural production. And he has a new album out, which is the peg for the conversation. It's called Who is the Sky? The Sky?

I think it's a deliberate. Could I call it a pun? It reminded me of the lyric, the Jimmy Hendricks lyric. excuse me while I kiss the sky, which people sometimes mishear as this guy. So there's that. This one was recorded in person in June this year. He arrived without fanfare on a line bike outside the studio. He was dressed in a black polo neck. It was the middle of summer. So we join it in Medias, Res, with some bike chat. A warning, there is a bit of strong language in this episode as well as adult themes. All of that coming up.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete. I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space. As it happens, neither of those dreams came true. I had to settle for being an award-winning documentary maker and international celebrity. Oh, well, we've all had big dreams and it's never too late to make them happen. This is your sign to stop holding back and go for it, especially if your dream is to run a business,

because Shopify is making it easier than ever. It's there to support you every step of the way, from designing your website to marketing to product descriptions to sales. The list goes on and on. So give it a shot. Turn those dreams into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at... Shopify.com slash Louis, L-O-U-I-S. That's Shopify.com slash Louie, L-O-U-I-S.

You came on your bike, I think. Yeah, not well, not my bike, one of the line bikes. Did you, line bike? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm only here for a couple days, so. Didn't bring a bike. Because I came on my bike too, and one of the things we have in common is a devotion to not just the bike, but the idea that more people, like, it's such a great and practical way of getting around

and seeing cities and being independent and also getting a little bit of exercise into the bargain. But I am resisting the e-bike. You feel like it's cheating? It is slightly cheating. I'll... But cheating's okay. I'll do an e-bike if I know that there's hills involved. Or if it's...

If there's a distance, like if I'm in New York and I'm going to hear music in Brooklyn. I live in Manhattan. If it's going to hear music in Brooklyn or Queens or something like that, where it's a bit of a ride back at 10 p.m. or whatever, I'll go... take the, I'll get an electric one, and it'll just make that easier and make the big hump over the bridge a lot easier. But on the flat bits, I'll just do a normal bike. Normal bike.

I mentioned bikes because I read the, your book, Bicycle Diaries. You did, really? Wow. And obviously I'm a fan going back years. I was born in 1970. So in a way, I was kind of just the right age to catch talking heads in their full flowering. And then probably one of the first albums I bought was Little Creatures. And from my peer group growing up at school, the band represented something special like pop but also art. So thank you for being here is where I'm arriving. Thank you for having me on your show, your podcast.

Let's talk about the album for a second. It feels, it's the first one in a little while, is it? Yeah, it's the first one in a little while. Last one might have been 2017, 2018, that's quite a while ago. I wouldn't normally wait that long, but there was this pandemic that happened. I kept working on, I did a lot of drawings during the pandemic. I made notes for things. I was working on a book, this and things, but I didn't write songs.

It was like a pause button. on songs. I didn't, I thought, this is larger than any of the songs I might write, and I don't know how to write about it. And I don't know if I should write about it. So, yes, it took a while. It's a pop album, I would say. I would say so too.

Yeah, it's not maybe a typical pop album, but it's, yeah, it's, I realized when I was writing the songs, some of these are pretty catchy, if that's how you define. pop music. Do you, you know, it's a cliche almost when people describe you and your work that you straddle the worlds of art and mainstream pop, right? And I think that's as valid as well. There was a quote that I read, or maybe I heard it recently, where you said something like, I like art that doesn't announce itself as art. It might have been on Desert Island discs. I'll stick with that.

Does that kind of make sense to you? To what extent do you feel... Yeah, if it doesn't announce itself as art, it's not saying, oh, I'm important. If you can do it in a way that's catchy and accessible, maybe a little funny or something, then you can sometimes do things that are kind of unusual and no one minds.

It doesn't seem like, oh, he's being very arty or he's doing things that are very clever. Are you conscious of... commercial pressure in any way? I want people to hear my music. I want people to hear about what I do in most cases. Sometimes I do things that are a little more fringe or whatever, and I realize, no, that's going to have a limited appeal.

I don't fool yourself. But sometimes when I do something like this that I think is pretty accessible, yes, I want it to have reach as many people as, it can. And yes, for me, it's more about reach. It's about people hearing it and seeing if they like it or not, rather than cashing and making lots of money from it. I mean, if that happens, that's nice too. The commercial side, I've been doing this for a while, I'm kind of aware of what things cost and what I'm likely to make. So if I'm going on a tour, I'll plan, what can I do so that I don't lose money at the end?

How many band members can I have? There has been this romantic notion that artists shouldn't concern themselves with the business, that their world and their concerns are higher and greater than that. But I feel like, you can do both. In order to get my wonderful art across, I have to be. aware of the costs. And I think that speaks to a wider thing that I noticed in prepping for this interview, which is that you have a charmingly practical approach to making art or music,

that you don't mystify the process. That, in fact, there's a quote in one of the, I think it's in how music works. This might be the kind of like the heart of, of the concept of the book in some ways where you say it's assumed that I write songs because I have something I need to express. On the contrary, it's the music and the lyrics that trigger the emotions

within us rather than the other way around. We don't make our music. It makes us. Does it make any sense? Total. You then say making music is like constructing a machine whose function is to

dredge up emotions in performer and listener alike. Did that make sense to you? Yes, yes. Because there's a tendency to see, like, oh, inspiration's going to strike. But actually, well, no, maybe you just need to put the bits together. That's what I think. I think you just start doing it, play some chords, start singing a melody.

And I find, and I think it happens with other people, too, that a certain kind of melody will kind of make you feel a certain way. it triggers kind of pushes emotional buttons add some words to that that maybe do the same thing and you're kind of really getting something and I find that as far as expressing something that's on your mind that you want to say

or whatever like that happens but I find that at least for me I don't sit down at a desk and go okay here's the plan I'm going to write a set of songs that feels like this that does this now I just start doing it

and then it sort of reveals itself Do you, it's someone who thinks a lot about the technology behind music or as in, you've done a TED talk where you talk about the spaces that music is played in and different ways in which either churches

or concert halls or pubs or Maybe Shabines have shaped the music that takes place in them. We're in this era now of social media platforms and streaming and TikTok. How aware of you, are you of all of that? And to what extent do you think it's been healthy for music? I don't know yet how, what seems to me, a very intimate listening experience. A lot of people who listen to streaming or these things are listening. It's one-on-one often.

They're listening either on their phone with their earbuds in or headphones, or it's just them listening. It's not a group experience. And I thought, oh, that's really different. How does that affect the music? I think sometimes I've heard music in the last decade or so where it's allowed the music to be really stripped down. You hear like a few sounds, a few beats.

It's not totally fleshed out. It's really stripped down, and then there's the voice. I forget the first time I heard that. I might have been one of Lord's songs or something else, and I just thought, whoa, that's something new. The fact that it's so stripped down. And it's odd because actually more so than streaming with TikTok and now increasingly Instagram and YouTube, there's this default where you get, you just scroll through short video clips that often have music that go with them. So the side effect is that you get exposed to very, very short sections of songs.

It's just this very decontextualized snippet. It's quite odd. I can't confirm this, but I think that. with streaming, the fact that, as you said, things are decontextualized, you might have, when you listen to a song, you have the artist's name and maybe the song name and maybe the album that came from, but you don't know anything else. That's right.

You can barely see what they look like, because the image is the size of your thumb, a thumbnail, and then you don't have any background information. You don't know. There's no social context or dates or anything like that. like that, which I think the effect is that people mix these older things that they find and they like that resonate with them with new stuff. And everything gets all mixed together. Whereas before, it was kind of like, oh, that's from five years ago.

We're not about that anymore. But now it's all tossed into the same bucket, which I think is pretty nice, actually. It's like a continuous present. Everything is in the present. You know, sea shanty's when... You said that as if... Yes, it's coming in and... Yes, a very ominous tone.

Could be. Technology is vaguely frightening, as well as being exciting and liberating. It seems to tick all those boxes. Would it be very basic? Would you mind indulging me? And I know, because I've done a little bit of research, you're often called upon to recount the same origin story

and it must get a little tedious but I think it might be helpful would you be okay to do that a little bit specifically how talking heads came together the fact that you know in this mid-70s and the extraordinary thing listening to the older stuff

is how contemporary I mean sort of relevant to the point we were just making how contemporary it sounds and you're thinking like this is the year of kind of the eagles. Like this was mid-70s flares and long hair rock era. Do you know what I mean?

I know what you mean. Stuart was kind of bestriding the pop chart singing I am sailing. You know unapologetic, swaggering crotch rock. I don't even know if that's a phrase. And here you were, you guys were like in tight-fitting square little

shirts and trousers like larping as commuters or geeks or something. You know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. In a way that felt just really strange and kind of brave and avant-garde somewhat or whatever it was. But how did it all take place? Kind of on a whim, I had moved to New York with ambitions to be an artist that exhibited in galleries and things like that.

I was always playing music, playing other people's songs, occasionally writing some songs, that kind of thing. Didn't know exactly what to do. Then my friends from art school arrived in New York as well, Chris and Tina, the drummer and bass player. And they said, let's make a band. If it doesn't work, well, we've given it a try and no big loss.

if it doesn't work if no one likes it and kind of at the same time I don't know which came first we noticed that there was this club around the corner from where we were staying that had recently

made its stage available to these bands that were coming up in television and the Ramones and Patty Smith and others and we started going there and realized

oh this is this is where we should try and place. So we... CBGBs. CBGBs. Which I've learned that it stands for country bluegrass and blues. Yes.

The owner had hopes of it being like a country and bluegrass bar, which it could have been, but to his credit, Hilly Crystal, he was the owner. He saw that there was these other bands that were kind of there, ready to be heard so he just said sure why not anything that brings in customers I don't know if he was about the music

it might have been about selling beers but fine fine fine fine in retrospect it seems to me that all of those acts started as live acts now with the technology and laptops

and everything else You can make a record at home on your computer. You can make a record that sounds really good that way. We didn't have that option. But the fact that we had to play live meant that we kind of got immediate feedback from the audience. And sometimes the audience was very small, 10 or 20 people or whatever.

But if they liked what you were doing, then you thought, okay, we'll keep that song. They didn't like this other song, so maybe we'll put that on the shelf. That was a way of learning what works and feedback and adapting to what the audience likes to some extent, but still keep with what your vision might be. But, yeah, you're also playing to people, which I think is, in some ways, difficult for musicians. now who will sometimes have the order reversed where they've made a record and then they have to figure out how do we present this? Not always, but there are many cases where they haven't

gone through that period of testing the songs in front of an audience to see what works. I've gone to a few shows where the artist has made a really wonderful record, but clearly they haven't had any live experience and haven't thought through, what do I do? How do I be? What's my stage person, persona? How am I going to move? I'm not going to move at all? But you were talking about your vision.

And so in this era of like flares and big, you know, how ever you want to characterize that mid-70s rock scene, what were you drawing on? How would you characterize what you were doing on stage and how you were thinking about your craft in that way? Well, I think not to take away from any of the writing or recording or any of those kind of big rock stars of that era. Some of those songs are actually quite good, but I think we felt that they weren't addressing our generation.

They weren't addressing our concerns. Maybe our concerns were too obscure or odd to be met by anything like that. But I think we and some of these other musicians and performers said, okay, we have to make our own music that addresses the concerns of ourselves and people around us, whatever that might be. I know for us we were drawing on Well, let's see A record collection in the loft that we ended up living in

Was a mix of things like Whatever, Roxy Music or Iggy Pop And James Brown and Hamilton-Bohanan and OJs And if you can imagine somehow conceptually Those things being put together there you kind of have it that kind of represented a record collection

and at the same time I think we had a few rules that we wouldn't do really long indulgent guitar solos that seemed to be something that we associated with the kind of big rock bands

did it feel dishonest or corrupt or something like that which is just it's not true None of that's true. I mean, let's... I grew up listening to her clapped in solos and things like that as well. So I thought, no, but we're not going to do that. He does that.

They do that, and they do it really well. But, no, I'm not going to do that. I also felt that there was an idea that every part that you play, every instrumental part has to be, have... integrity of its own, whatever that means, that it's not just supporting something else. It exists on its own so that you could have, for instance, a bass part that was as melodic as the melody maybe, or as melodic as the guitar part. Each part has to kind of have its own identity, its own thing, and then they all fit together. And the strange lyrics.

Oh. And again, I want to bring the audience with us. So picture me aged 14, 15. And then, I don't know, I was listening, I guess, to Depeche Mode and Human League. And it's sort of alienated synth rock about, but mainly about love or being lonely. And then here were songs that you'd written

just much more cryptic in a way. They weren't about love. That was for sure. I remember there's one, the book I read, it seems to just be about a book that you've read and enjoyed. It's not clear what the book is about. That one you picked, early enough, was intended to be a love song.

Really? I thought, oh, the person that I'm addressing is the book. Okay. And obviously that was not successful because it didn't. communicate that to me. I'm very literal sometimes. I'm willing to admit that sometimes things weren't successful.

That song also was very much a failed attempt to imitate club music that was around at the time. In this case, I think it was a group called Casey and the Sunshine Band. And I thought, oh, I want to write

a song like that. That's the way I like it. Yeah, I want to write a song that has that kind of vibe and feel and whatever. but do it in my own way didn't quite hit the target in that department but I mean sometimes

by missing the target you hit something else create a new target and you can hear Parliament Funkadelic in some of it too and it's I don't want to play the race card but it feels like white people

expressing a love for funk and very enjoyably so yeah I mean, we liked a lot of funk music, a lot of dance music, but then we're kind of mixing it in with art rock and like that. We felt that any kind of funky stuff we do did in that way, we had to do in our own kind of nerdy white person way.

We couldn't just be like, okay, here's some great funky rifts that we're going to do, which I thought, no, we have to, it can have that kind of, to feel and make you want to dance, but it has to come from our own kind of nerdy white person place. I felt the same way about my movements on stage. At first I didn't move at all, and then eventually I thought, okay, I feel like moving. It makes music, makes me want to dance, but I can't just adopt the move. that I've seen others do, I have to come up with something for my own, which little by little

I could do that, not all at once, but a little by little. Would you say you, I felt like, it feels like you were quite an awkward person? I don't mean that as a judgment. Yeah, yeah. But also playing up to that a little bit, steering into the skid somewhat. Like if I'm a little awkward, then let's be awkward, kind of. Yes, it's going to be, you know, be what you are. And if you try and be someone, you're not, you're doomed to fail there.

So just, yeah, that certainly worked for me. It was a kind of healing experience for me in some ways. So I talk about that. And I think for some listeners and audience members, too, they felt like, oh, well, they felt like, he's like me. He's like me But look, he's doing it Had you felt somewhat at loggerheads with the world

Because obviously there's dislocation There's a sense of like As I say, awkwardness So when you say healing How much healing did you need? At that time I felt very uncomfortable In say social situations Just having more conversations

Like what we're doing right now But, oddly enough, I could get on stage and express myself, blurt things out and yelp and do whatever it was. I had no fear of doing whatever on stage. But then I could go back into my shell in the dressing room or whatever. But look, I'd managed to get myself and my identity and my thoughts and what was going through my head or how I was feeling. I managed to get it out there through music.

And I couldn't do that just in a one-to-one thing. But here I can do it for whatever along our set was, half an hour, 45 minutes. That's pretty good. I wasn't all trapped inside all the time. Was there, I don't want a trauma find. Is that the term? Like how...

Trauma farm. You know what I mean? No, I mean, it's a new... Yeah, I know. That's a new term. I think it probably exists, but you've spoken a little bit about possibly being on the spectrum. Which kind of, when I read that, I was like, I didn't know that, but it kind of, that sort of adds up, right? There's a part of that.

Yeah, I didn't know about it either. When it was this, probably, that might have been in the 90s or something where a friend And there were articles in magazines and things like that about this idea of the spectrum. I mean, there's fairly severe autism where people don't talk at all. It's very difficult for them to communicate. And then there's milder and milder until it's on the very mild side, it tends to be people who can be very focused on an idea, Maybe I have difficulty in social situations and things like that.

And I said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I've recognized that. I've never thought of it as a disability. But, yeah, I can see that part of me is like that. Maybe. And again, this is a little bit of a cliche, but that sense of a disability having certain advantages or that it's your superpower, as they say,

I think applies here, doesn't it? it, like the sense of you being at a remove from the world somewhat? I've heard other people say that. I think Greta, the activist. Yeah, the activist says, this is my superpower. And it is a kind of ability

to be able to intensely focus on something like you're writing or the music you're making or whatever it might be. But also that you're curious about the how of things almost as much as the why that people get caught up on. What was the psychology behind it?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been referred to as an anthropologist from Mars. Right, which is the Oliver Sacks phrase. Yes. You could get a collection of case studies on Mars, in fact, although from Mars. Shame, you're on the wrong planet. So, yes, I realize it's an ongoing thing with me.

Writing songs that ask questions and why do we do that? Why do I do that? Why do people act like that? What's going on there? How can I understand that? It's kind of trying to make sense of the world, the world of people and everything else.

And you can kind of express that curiosity and questioning in songs. On the new album, there's a song which jumped out called She Explains Things. to me. I'm going to be super literal. You've noticed I have a habit of taking lyrics literally already. That one's easy to take literally. She explains, it's the lyric. She explains what is happening to me in the movies we watch. I say, why did they do that? Why did they stop? Why did they do that on that TV show? And I asked myself, wow, how does she know? I went into the

melody. Yeah. It's like you have an interpreter. And actually, I could relate to that. Like, I've noticed in my relationships, I come out of a movie and my other half. has always noticed more, but she understands the motivations. I know because he was in love with her, that was why he left. I'm like, but that doesn't make any sense. Yes. Is that what we're talking about? Yes, it does seem to be fairly common.

I mean, I played it for people and I go, and I want to go, oh, yes, my husband or my partner does exactly the same. It's exactly the same thing. Do you think, if you are, you're not? divergent or if there is any little bit of that, having spoken about the ways in which that can be advantageous or that, you know, it forces you to maybe navigate things in a different way that you break things down and figure out processes or you become curious about different things that then feels fresh and gives you an insight that people can connect with. But I could imagine at times it might be, make things difficult as well, especially if you

struggle at times to read emotions or if there's parts of life that feel less intelligible. I mean, do you think in any ways it's been a challenge for you? Oh, occasionally, yes, which is also addressed in that song where I've had the experience where someone will say, well, I clearly said no, and then I'll kind of replay the conversation and the word no was not there but they expected their expressions or their facial expression or the nuances of what they were saying

to be read and clearly interpreted as a no this is not me trying to do something inappropriate I'm just I wasn't able to read that that said I'm a lot better at that now than I was in the past and I'm a lot more comfortable

with people now than I was in the past so it changes I'll give music credit for that too making music working with other people on music playing together with musicians on stage

that becomes this very ecstatic, transcendent kind of social thing And I thought, okay, that's, over the years, that time passes and, yeah, you kind of change after a bit. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut, or an athlete.

I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space. As it happens, neither of those dreams came true. I had to settle for being an award-winning documentary maker and international celebrity. Oh well, we've all had big dreams and it's never too late to make them happen.

This is your sign to stop holding back and go for it, especially if your dream is to run a business because Shopify is making it easier than ever. It's there to support you every step of the way, from designing your website to marketing to product descriptions to sales. The list goes on and on. So give it a shot, turn those dreams into, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Louie, L-O-U-I-S. That's Shopify.com slash Louis, L-U-I-S. Dialing back for a second. So, correct me if I'm wrong,

the second song you ever wrote was Psycho Killer. Could that be right? That could be right, yes. It was a very early one, in other words. It was very early. It was sort of a test to see, can I write a song? At all. At all.

And so I just had an idea Oh, let me write a song That's as if Alice Cooper and Randy Newman Wrote a song together Right, that's an interesting mesh-up Yes Let's see what that would sound like Randy Newman's kind of rye and faintly satirical

Would you say? Yes, and he writes from inside the character And Alice Cooper is what kind of goth horror rock. Yeah, so I thought, oh, let's pick that kind of nasty subject matter, but then write it from inside, something like that. Anyway, and I was in a band with some of the, the drummer from Talking Heads in art school, and we started doing that song, and people seemed to like it. So I started writing more songs, but after that, everything I wrote was in some way, more personal. It wasn't

so much an exercise of can I write a song. Now I thought oh I can write a song but now I'm free to write in my own way instead of this trying to do this mashup of other people's things.

Extraordinary how it connected with people and... Why is that? You tell me. I don't know maybe it's the tune maybe It's your most list Of all that it's 610 million on Spotify Whatever that means

Like it's the most streamed By some place The second one is this must be the place Naive Melody 339 million One is this kind of Frightening amount of data A song about a murderer And then there's a really sweet love song

Yeah Which got half as many listens I think people enjoy attention, don't they? Yeah, they enjoy attention. There's probably some lines in the song that say things that people wish they could say. Yeah. Or that they've said to themselves, but they would never say out loud.

And it's a great song. Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Once in a Lifetime is third, which was the first one. I remember seeing that on top of the pops. Did you, around this era, when the first album came out, you went to the UK at a certain point. Did you break here first or you were just here to see what happened? Well, obviously we'd been playing in clubs in New York and we could play in clubs in I think we maybe had a gig in Boston and some other places where you could drive within a few

hours. So within a radius. And then, yes, the next audience we found was in UK. And I thought Yes. It's a bit of a waste to go to play in a club, but it was... You didn't have a huge following here. No, no, no, not at all. The album had sold some copies. A little bit, a little bit, but I think there was a lot of curiosity. There was curiosity like, oh, there's this new thing coming out of New York. Let's see what this is.

So we played at a little club and coven garden, and I think maybe on the same trip, were a support act for the Ramones at the Roundhouse they'd been around a little bit longer than us and it's kind of a tribute to that moment that

a curious audience would be interested in us and the Ramones musically worlds apart but right they're sort of primitive not in a bad sense quite basic chord change

kind of guitar Yeah, but an audience could go Oh, we like both bands Yeah Would you recall Did you rub shoulders Elbows

Whichever part of the body With the UK bands At that time I think you went and saw the clash Yeah, went to see the clash Somewhere, it might have been Brighton Possibly, something like that It was I think it was out of town

You didn't think that much of it Oh no Well, I enjoyed it. We were aware of the sex pistols? Yeah, I think they had just kind of come out at the time, maybe. I'm not sure the whole timeline. But, yeah, I became aware that the music scene here in the UK was more kind of consciously political and rebellious and kind of. angry and all that

and whereas and it's reflected in the album covers and their stage presence and everything so I remember going to Virgin Records and we weren't signed to Virgin Records

but everyone was kind of friendly and sitting I don't think he was there maybe sitting in Richard Branson's office and watching a bunch of videos of Sex Pistols performances and I thought this is I mean they're really good songs but I also thought this is some of the funniest performances I've ever seen what did you find funny about it was so it was kind of Keystone Cops it was really kind of here you might

say shambolic or something like that but in but the songs are really good yeah so I thought, oh, this is really a kind of wonderfully entertaining combination. That's interesting. Maybe not the way it was being perceived here at the time. Maybe not intended, but maybe, you know, Malcolm McLaren probably had a good sense of humor. I would imagine, yes. We should Anna Medbert on the fact that you have a Scottish heritage, had been born in Scotland, and at that time, I think, had a British passport.

and not an American one, right? That is true. And so just dialing back for a second, your parents had emigrated, right, from Don Barton, which is what New Glasgow? Yeah, from Glasgow, yes. I was born into Barton, but they lived in Glasgow, really. And you'd come over quite a bit, well, every couple of years growing? Yeah, every couple of years they'd come over it because all their family was there.

Their parents, sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, everyone was. around Glasgow. So they'd come over and bring me. Boy, Glasgow was black in those days. Was it? It's covered in soot. How old were you? I started to associate the smell of coal fires with family,

with grandma and granddad and all that. So it became this kind of ode to family. Yeah. How old were you when you left? Oh, really young. Two. It was two when left Scotland and then went to Canada for some years. And following work, there was very little working, Scotland at that point.

Your dad was an electrical engineer. That's correct. And what did your mom do? She, I think, had worked in Glasgow, had worked in the post office. And later on when she got to the States, she got a degree, going to night school, got a degree and started teaching, teaching kids in school. So growing up, there was this sort of somewhat of a sense of being a little bit apart from your peers. And you basically, at a certain point, you arrive in Baltimore, right? Yeah, yeah.

The other kids couldn't understand a word my parents were saying. Obviously, at that age, I want to fit in, so I lost my accent really quickly, but my parents didn't. I remember the other kids would say, are they speaking English? And then my mother would say, we're speaking proper English. Yeah, it's the right answer. Queens English. In the notes it said that your dad once fixed a submarine with a coat hanger. Can that be true?

Could be He didn't go into details But that's the sort of thing He would do If something needed fixing around the house Sometimes it would be With a coat hanger or duct tape Or

A wedge a bit of whatever in there And that'll hold for a while That'll do it And that'll hold for a while And I thought Yeah Submarine Yeah

Did they appreciate your musical efforts And then once you became successful? What sense did they make of all of that? As far as I can tell, they appreciated my focus and passion for what I was doing, whether it was my little drawings or the music I was doing. It wasn't, certainly not to their taste. Occasionally, they would say, David, David, that's not a rhyme, those words right there. Not a full rhyme. Yeah. But I, but I, I'm a full rhyme. Yeah, but I think they really appreciated that I was fully committed to doing this. And to their credit, they didn't say, or you've had your fun now get a real job.

But then when you hit the big time, would they come to shows? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And be grooving around? Yeah, they'd see all the audience having a great time and I think made them very proud. even if they still didn't quite get what it was why that was but they could see that we'd connected with an audience so it was like oh look it actually did pay off eventually

how when was the last time you played with talking heads I think when we got inducted into the rock and roll Hall of Fame Which was 2002, something like that. Probably something like that. And we can pass over this if you prefer. But it's part of Talking Head's law that there was friction within the band and that you were difficult to work with at times. I won't deny that.

I think, as I said, my social skills were limited. But if I had kind of an artistic vision, like, the Stop Making Sense show, that tour, that performance. I'd say, okay, here's what I think we should do. And we're all going to wear gray. And we're going to do that. I got to be a little bossy, a little bit of a bossy pants. And it was kind of, I knew what I wanted.

And I thought I didn't know how to get it in a kind of, nice cooperative way it was more like okay it has to be this which is often true of musicians and bands when they're younger they have an idea of what it has to be

and so it'll be like no the drum sound has to be like this and that means the world it's actually not as important as all that but when you're that age it can be everything Yes, so I know that I was not always

The most pleasant person to work with And it's bringing you to mind The old Keith Richards' expression About Mick Jagger, I think He's like, I mean, that's actually That's a Mick Jagger impression Keith Richards, what does he sound like? I can't do it anyway, he'd say he's got LSD

Do you remember this one? No, no. And he said, what's that? It's a lead singer disease. And there was this sort of tension between Because as a consumer you think Well, the guy in front is singing and he's got the best lights and he or she is obviously the most important one. And then you find out, oh, actually, you know, Roger Daltry didn't write the songs Pete Townsend did, right?

And maybe it's more of a cooperative than you might think. Exactly. So with respect to Talking Heads, sometimes I hear it described as your band, you know, David Byrne and The Talking Heads. Or sometimes it's Talking Heads, like a band, which is a band, which is a band, a kind of collection of equals, right? Which was it, do you think? Well, a bit of both. I think sometimes, as I said,

sometimes I had an idea stuck in my head about this is what we're going to do and I would kind of push for it. But it would have never worked if it wasn't a great band. We didn't play incredibly well together. And the songwriting duties were shared? Or somewhat...

Sometimes they were shared. Sometimes not. Yeah, really depended. Sometimes we would... There were records where we kind of jammed, and then I would write words in a tune on top of some kind of improvisation that we'd come up with. And now all these years on, are the four of you in a good place, would you say? Pretty good, yes.

the Stop Making Sense film came out a year or two ago. They did a remaster. Yeah, remaster. Which means what? They cleaned it up and cleaned up the sound. They found the original negative in Kansas. And managed to have it looking better than it ever did. So, yeah, did all that.

And lo and behold, there was an audience, not just the original fans, but a whole younger generation that was discovering this stuff, which was really kind of wonderful. It's been described as one of or maybe the greatest concert films of all time. And again, I remember when it came out and there's a lot that could be said about it,

the staging. It was directed by Jonathan Demi. It also directed Silence of the Lambs, speaking of Psycho-Killers. Do you want to explain what it was about the staging that made it felt special and what kind of the impulse was behind it?

Well, one part of the staging was that I wanted to reveal how the music was put together and let the audience in on that, like pulling back the curtain in a way. So we'd start with just me and then add Tina playing bass

and then add some singers and then add this and one by one adding the thing so as each person, person came in, you heard what they were adding to the sound until the whole thing was assembled and then we're off to the races. So I thought that was one part of it. I think the other part was in some of the staging and lighting and movement, there was the movement that was emerged out of improvisations and there was, the lighting was almost entirely.

What would be referred to as white light, but white light from different instruments, different lighting sources. So it might be fluorescent light or it might be incandescent. And each one has a different quality. To the eye, after you've become accustomed to it, it all seems white. But it actually is very different. Of course, fluorescent light is very, you know, on the blue-green side of things. but our eye kind of and brain kind of filters that out and it looks like it just a cold office light

so I thought okay I'm not going to do the typical rock band things with colored flashing lights color flashing in time to the song or kind of washing us on and all these colors let's keep it again in a way that reveals rather than obscures so that was a lot of it And I think that whole, all those things gave it a kind of narrative arc in a way, which at least then that was kind of rare for a concert. Concerts were you play one song after another,

sprinkle the hits in there and you're done. So this was something where you actually go on a kind of journey and you start in one place and you end somewhere very different. So I think that may have been the strength of that and what Jonathan captured as well. It's putting me in mind of, because you made that film, you also made a fictional feature film, which has a musical element as well, true stories, right?

Yeah. I remember being aware of it when it came up, but I didn't see it, so I watched it in preparation for this. And it's a really interesting piece of work. The tone in particular, the way it's pitched, where it's about a middle American town in Texas with kind of quirky stories of different people who happen to live there

there's a main character played by John Goodman and a young John Goodman and what's striking is it's you know because it came out at a time when I suppose there was things to like about America and things to be less keen on whether it was the politics or aspects of the culture that might have seemed small-minded

I mean that was kind of a long summation But I guess I'm curious about how you come to make it, but also in general, this relationship that you have with America, certainly at that time, that was ambivalent, but was neither obviously critical, but nor was it fully comfortable. Yeah, I'll take that. It started off as a series of images. I was kind of, I loved a lot of Fellini movies and other films like that. And I thought, oh, I can start with kind of images. of America from a slightly surreal point of view, how kind of odd it can look when you just really just look at it in a straight-ahead way.

I thought, okay, now we need a story, and I remember reading stories about these people who are curious lifestyles or done odd things in their lives in kind of tabloid newspapers in the supermarket. I thought, oh, those will be the people who live in the town. So then I started doing some location hunting and things like that. Stories like, from the Weekly World News? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Weekly World News. A woman doesn't leave her bed for 30 years.

Exactly. Woman doesn't leave her bed for 30 years. She has a fruit brought in and everything. A man advertises for a wife. There was another one. Coupled and hasn't spoken? Yeah, a couple lives together, but hasn't spoken directly to one of them. Was that a real story?

Yeah, those were all real stories. Well, I can't verify that they're all true, but they were presenters if they were true, hence the title of the movie. And so I thought, oh, these will be the people that have found very quirky and creative ways to make a life that kind of works for them. Anyway, so I spent a lot of time kind of looking around. in Texas for where it would shoot these different things and found that a lot of people in Texas are quite eccentric and they're proud of their eccentricities. So when the film came out, quite a number of critics and viewers thought I was making fun of these people.

But the people in Texas who saw it thought, no, that's us. we're proud of our kind of individuality and the strange things that we do. What do you think your attitude is? I feel like I'm asking you. How did you do the trick, you know, magician? But in a sense, like, if you were to show your hand, because I couldn't tell sometimes,

does he love these people? Does he feel a little bit of metropolitan disdain? Because he came from a Manhattan art scene. So they obviously weren't your try. and I couldn't quite tell where you were landing. I think that confused a lot of people. People assumed that because I was from the kind of Manhattan art scene, as you say, that I was looking down at these people.

I didn't feel that way. I felt they were just as creative in their own way as any of the people I was kind of normally associated with. I felt like I was celebrating their creativity and originality. I was obviously meant to be amusing as well. So I didn't feel that way, but I knew, I became aware relatively quickly that people assumed that because I was part of this already seen, that I couldn't be truly sympathetic with these people. What do you feel, you know, about someone who, in some ways it's been, you know, you've been a student of America and American culture. do you

it's such a big kind of grand question but to what extent do you feel comfortable in America you know you've got quite a political outlook at times even I remember it's striking reading something you wrote when the first Gulf War was going on and you said this would have been 2004 I'm guessing

it made me feel like I didn't know my country and its people or even my own friends anymore I felt lost and adrift in my home I felt angry and fucked up every day. That was when the United States invaded Iraq with basically no cause. But I'm curious, so now, in a weird way, don't you feel even more that way now? I mean, as we speak, the National Guard has been unleashed in Los Angeles. And probably in other cities, but today.

There's some of the hallmarks of a kind of coup d'etat in some respects, right? And that feels like that's been going on for a few years now. Exactly. The process that I think resulted in this is long going. I think it began in the 80s, maybe, maybe even before, but definitely in the 80s, where there was a shift in laws and financial situations and laws governing, finance, laws governing, voting, all kinds of things that caused, say, a good part of the country to their wages and jobs to be stagnant. They maybe went up a little bit, but for the most part they were kind of stagnant,

and then kind of the rich just got richer and richer and richer. Reagan Bush kind of era. Reagan Bush, but it continued through Clinton and Obama. They didn't stop it. They just continued the same policies. Boss divergence of incomes. Yes, exactly. I mean, you have to remember, it was Clinton who was involved in repealing a lot of the laws that were regulating finance.

And those kinds of things, you go, well, see what that did. Not too long after that, you have like 2008 and you have the whole finance collapse of almost the whole system and the government bailing out the banks, but not the people who lost their homes. And so you have all that and people are going to be really angry, really feel like, We don't trust the government. Look what they've done to us. So I get that. Yeah, so I'm kind of torn because I completely empathize with where those feelings are coming from.

But I feel like there's been an effort to kind of prey on those. Have you met Trump? No, no. I feel like he's copying your big suit. Have you noticed how big his suit is? It is pretty big. It's long, the tie, as everybody knows of the tie. Yeah, he thought he believes it has a slimming effect to have this long tie.

And also a very long suit jacket as well. Yes, it's very kind of presentational. So, like, it's TV, it's a show. He has a sense of theatrics. Do you see him as a showman? Absolutely. Because his live events are like live. shows and you know you've spoken over the years about your adoption of preachally cadences or a kind of

call and response I guess gospel influenced preachally delivery famously on once in a lifetime where you set repeated phrase you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. Apologies for maybe you won't appreciate the comparison. But I think he's doing something similar at his live events and his ability to command the crowd. So that power clearly resonates with people. Yeah.

I haven't been to one of his rallies either, but I gather. It's kind of a riveting performance, even though when you literally translate, what he's saying sometimes, it's complete gibberish. Yes, I feel like you appreciate gibberish. Yes, yes. I'm aware that how things are said is as important as what's being said. You know, I think we're doing great. How's your energy?

Are you okay? I'm okay. Have I dragged you into political terrain? Are you, how comfortable are you there? I'm okay. I'm okay. I mean, I have an online magazine, reasons to be cheerful. and we try and find people who've found solutions to things.

So we're not just looking for cheery. It's called cheerful, but we're not just looking for cheery stories of, oh, here's, you know, someone who rescued a dog out of a tree. Which would be good, though, by the way. Yeah, if a dog could get up there. And I think a lot of the music I do is meant to be a kind of, or maybe not meant to be, but it acts as a kind of counterforce or counterbalance,

acts as a kind of resistance to a lot of the partisanship and anger that's out there. Having sort of talked a little bit about Trump and then the other kind of elephant in the room of the culture, I guess, is the idea that, oh, well, we sort of, it's not a bit past say now, but this idea of cancel culture, which hit, movies. I mean, actually, that suggests I endorse that term, which I don't know if I necessarily do. But is that on your radar at all? Do you have a view on any of that? Yeah. I think it's nuanced. If someone has actually done kind of not so good things,

kind of recently, and it tried to kind of hide them, then I thought, oh, fine to call them. that out. Sometimes people are canceled or, you know, person or non grata, if they've done something way in the past, 20, 30 years ago, I feel like, human beings can change. We can learn from our mistakes. We do make mistakes. In that case, let's look at what they've done since then. they made a mistake, and then it's not this really, really horrible thing, then let's see if they've kind of made amends and how they've behaved since then, because maybe that was just a mistake. And the thing with the internet is you can dredge up the past on everybody and embarrass almost anybody by something they've done in the past.

Yes, although it kind of seems to stop around 2000 or 2005. Like anything pre-digital media is sort of, then you have to actually go into the stacks or a newspaper or a micro feature. Yeah, a bit more work. Yeah. I, some years ago, I realized that this promotional video that I did for, stopped making sense when it first came out in the mid-80s, that I did this little, funny little thing where I interviewed myself.

as all these different characters a woman an old man a black man a whole number of characters and I realized oh God look I'm in black face for real

for real not doing it was not done as a parody or caricature or anything like that but that was one of the characters and I realized oh God I would never do that now.

That was a long time ago. This is a clip that's available online. It's probably on YouTube. It's probably available in other places as well. So I thought this is not hidden. This is not something that's on some obscure

piece of videotape or whatever. It's right there. So I said, okay. And I made an announcement and said, I did this. Here it is. I did this. I would never do this now, but here it is.

You self-canceled. I self-canceled. And I called up Spike Lee and said, you know, I did this. I just want you to want you to know that I'm going to announce that I did this. And he said, David, I know you. People know you. Don't worry about it. We know.

But at the same time, there were a few organizations that did cancel me that said, okay, you have a speaking engagement, we can't have you talk. For real? Yeah, that was a few years ago. That was the tenor of the times that anything that might appear tainted, a person that might appear tainted, well, you have to get, like, distance yourself from that. There was a little tinge of, like, the red guards.

culturally incorrect off to the farm for you there was a bit of that and it was often like the Red Guards it was often kind of younger people who were the arbiters of who was going to get sent to the work farm and I think that's receded a lot

but there are yeah people have made mistakes but there's also people who don't regret what they did and have continued to do things like that, which you should be called out. Yeah, it's complicated, isn't it? I think sometimes people get quote-unquote cancelled and people think, well, all that guy did is this.

And then you realize actually like an iceberg under the surface there's a kind of community of people who had a horrific experience with this person and that you're just seeing a small part of it And that the reason there's a swarm, it's like you, Spike Lee spoke up for you, but in a situation where you had not been a stand-up guy, then he wouldn't have, and other people wouldn't have him, people like, you know, David Burns had it coming for a while, you know.

Absolutely, and justifiably so, yeah. I think you got away with it. I think you walked that line. Saying got away with it doesn't sound that good. Well, when we, although white guys pontificate, we should be on our manners. Yeah, absolutely. What I mean? Well, thank you for coming by, David.

It's a thrill for me, like the 15-year-old me. Actually, the 25 and the 35 and the 45-year-old. They're all super excited. And thanks for indulging my slightly chaotic romp through your catalog and your life. Thank you. Thank you for having me on your show. Welcome back, and thank you to David for joining me. He is, I think we can say iconic.

He's a brilliant musician and a maker of images, a stager of extravaganzas, and by his own admission, a bit of a bossy pants. which is a nice phrase. Nice that you can own that. Maybe that was his way of doing some accountability because his bandmates have made some unguarded remarks in other forums about their feelings.

You called Trump Obese, says Millie. Yes, I did. Well, I don't think I called him it. I think I made a clinical observation because that implies, judgment. Millie's done some research. She says that in his February 2019 annual physical Trump, who is six feet three, is he, tip the scales at 243 pounds. That gave him a BMI of 30.4 just over the edge of obesity. But in the 2025 report, this is a lot of information. The president weighs 224 pounds and

stands 6 feet 2.5 inches. Where are we going? Under the BMI, Calcut. He would currently be categorized overweight, but not obese. Maybe an apology is in order, says Millie, facetiously. But the general point I think still stands. He said if you wear a tie, it has a slimming effect. And that I think came courtesy of Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey. I think he revealed that piece of information. I want to do better with my singing.

I have a gold record and I have a record label. Um, what would you say was their biggest hit? Psychicolor, surely. Milly said Psychokiller. Kiskosay. Oh, Jesus. No, that's going nowhere. Faf, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa.

I work better in falsetto. Faf, fa, fa, fa, it doesn't work. Run, run, run, run. Doesn't work. My range. It doesn't work in my range. It's interesting that he's never embraced rap, has he? You may find yourself.

is kind of right living in a shotgun shack you may find yourself it's not really singing living in a beautiful house with a beautiful i'm not feeling i'm not feeling i'm not feeling it's spirit i can't i'm not channeling it i can't dial it in burning down the house was a good one no it's not happening there what was that uh my good friend adam buxton host of the adam buckston has also done an interview with David Byrne, did it around the same time I did mine. That may be, I think we've interviewed the same person before, but never in such a short space of time. Interesting to compare them, maybe? Fun homework, fun little assignment.

That's about it. Apart from the credits, Psycho Killer, Kessi, the producer was Millie Chew. She's not the Psycho Killer. The assistant producer was Burning Down the House, Artemis Irvin. The production manager was, I'm having a run out of, You may find yourself Francesca Bassett. The music in this series was by living in a shotgun shack, Miguel Di Olivera. The executive producer was, oh, we're going to stop doing it now.

Aaron Fellows, this is a Mindhouse production for Fa fa, fa, fa, fa, far, far, far better. Spotify. It's bespoke. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete. I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space.

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