For the first time in over 20 years, Talking Heads reunited at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11 and participated in a Q&A. The reunion took place in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Stop Making Sense (1984), Talking Heads’ concert film.
According to NME, the band did not perform nor discuss details on their break-up, but rather focused solely on the film. Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrn tells Spike Lee, “When I was watching this just now, I was thinking, ‘This is why we come to the movie theaters’. This is different than watching it on my laptop – this is really different.”
In the film, Stop Making Sense, Byrne dresses in an unforgettable oversized suit. He explains, “The origin of that was…we were in between tours, and I was thinking, ‘What are we gonna do next? Maybe I should rethink what we wear onstage.”
He recalls what a designer said to him, “Well, David. In theater everything is bigger than real life’. He is referring to like gestures…you sing louder and all that.”
Bryne says his response to this was, “Oh, my suit should be bigger too.”
Chris Frantz tells Lee, “It’s so good to be here with my bandmates tonight… I’m so grateful to be here tonight and to be able to watch this and to enjoy it so much.”
Jerry Harrison chimes in shortly after, “I had to walk up to the back and watch it up there so I could dance around a little bit.”
Lee speaks directly to Tina Weymouth asking about her role as the bass player in Talking Heads. “My big contribution was I never turned my amp up past 3…and that way it left room for everyone else to shine. Cause if the base player gets too loud, forget about it,” she responds.
Accompanying the reintroduction of Stop Making Sense is a deluxe edition of its soundtrack with two brand new songs. To read more about this deluxe soundtrack visit this link.
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