David Byrne On The Evolution & Breakup Of Talking Heads | Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend

I mean obviously you've always had a a strong inclination to combine there's the music but you've always in in a way that I I feel like uh very similar to David Bowie you've always wanted it to also be a great theatrical experience you've wanted it to I mean I remember the the giant suit and stopped making sense and how arresting that was what how how um what a great idea that was and so you have this your physicality and the way you moved and then the suit and how they're fighting each other but also complementing each other and it it burned a hole in my brain at the time and I think for a lot of people it did but um where did that sensibility come from do you think were you always interested in that in in making it Visual and Theatrical um little by little I think at first I mean I again growing up seeing like David Bowie shows and some other kinds of things I realized oh that is a thing that can can be done you can do a kind of theatrical show with where costumes or whatever that's not completely out of the question and but I thought no but we don't know what to do so we started off trying to take it down to ground zero and not do anything just wear street clothes on stage and not have any kind of look of course not having a look ends up being a look yeah there's no way you can't escape it uh so after a while little by little started incorporating things like a little bit of movement this and that more and more a little bit of lighting at first we had no lighting we would say to the we'd go into a club and just say just turn them on when we start and then turn them off when we're done really really an on off just someone with an on off switch basically yes sorry I know you want to be creative but please um we're not ready for that yet right and yes and I living here I started seeing kind of downtown experimental theater and things like that people doing different things and I saw uh various kinds of performances and whatever and I thought oh oh this all different ways of doing this it doesn't have I don't have to be like the various rock stars that I that I know about that I might love but there's other ways of doing things I didn't necessarily copy those other people but it kind of opened up a world of uh yeah think outside the box think of what you can do and yeah I was trying to we'd finished a tour uh I was in Japan talking to a friend over there and I said I'm not sure what to do on on stage for our next tour and this guy said well being kind of facetious saying well you know in the theater everything has to be bigger and I'm thinking about what I'm wearing at that moment I was thinking what I'm gonna wear so he drew on a napkin a really really big suit now being in Japan I was also thinking of the kind of traditional theater there like this uh genre of theater called no they wear these are very wide shoulder I've seen them outfits yes and they look kind of flat when they turn to the side it's like a big rectangle in front with a head in the middle and the shoulders are very obviously very Square yeah very square and I thought do that not have it look Asian but have it look like a kind of business person's suit I don't know what that means but I thought that could be nice it's it feels like it means something did you feel that the glasses also were part of the aesthetic you know what I mean or was it just I need to see no no I didn't wear glasses then yeah and you did in some videos yeah I did in some videos but just for the look they didn't have any glass in them uh I don't think yeah it was just for the look that I thought this person this character so but I mean then you come from that you start there but then as the you need to as you evolve and start playing with things you start adding more and more but it starts very stripped down yes I didn't know what to do so thought let's eliminate everything no guitar solos maybe they're just a hint of a guitar solo uh weightless we're gonna wear our street clothes the lights are just going to come on at the beginning and go off at the end right all those kinds of things uh no no choreography all the sort of take away everything and see what's left we kind of did that musically too it was kind of let's remove all the extraneous musical elements so we only play what's absolutely necessary and then you can start to add other things can creep back in when the band breaks up I think the last time you played together was at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction yeah yeah how did it feel when you guys were up there together it was fun but it was tense yeah uh I remember there were some musical mistakes that drove me around the bend yeah so thought oh geez really now yeah yeah here yeah there's the pluses and minus of being in a band yeah and I have always really admired the decision not to reform the band because I've always thought um you know when something happens and it's pure and then it's done there's a real Beauty to stepping away from it is that how you have felt I love collaborating with people but being with a band is yeah I have to say it's it's really wonderful you're like a family you're like a little team a little army all those kinds of things but then after a while it gets all the kind of for all the kind of negative stuff in a family is there as well as the positive stuff right who took my toothbrush yeah yeah do you have to chew like that yeah I think it was Lauren Michael said to me once he was describing I don't know if it was Rowan and Martin or some famous comedy team but he said when when you're down and out and you're working your way up in the clubs you look at your part and you think thank God he's up here in on stage with me at this dive but then when you hit it the huge big time you look over at that guy and you go what the hell is he doing here it's not it's just human nature but also things run their course yeah did you ever work with a team like that no I mean I worked I was I've always been very collaborative uh in in my I started out as a writer and I was a comedy writer for a long time and that was very collaborative and uh and I enjoyed that but um I also started to when I started performing I I found that oh I'm kind of a control freak and uh it's easier when not everything is a collaboration so it's the yin yang it's uh you want it to be the way you have it in your head you want to hear it the way you hear it in your head whether it's comedy or music um and it's a it's a struggle it's a struggle to the collaborations are great but then there's those moments when you think can I can I just tell everybody exactly what to do and then of course your Mussolini yes who did not make it in comedy by the way uh I remember being like that at various points being a control freak and say it has to be this way it has to be this way I'm gonna do it again we're gonna do it again um years go by and I realized you know you whatever uh whatever the phrase is you catch more flies you get more something with sugar or whatever it might be flies go into sugar and die whereas honey can cover sugar no so I'm not making this any better but but I know what you're saying it's supposed to be like catch more flies with honey than vinegar something like that so I knew that now I'm a control freak we've got to get this right yes so there's a fly okay I'm sorry completely broke down over this got into a fight and then you left it was over the same I'm gonna go look this up yeah exactly I'm going to the New York Public Library I want to choose your phone I want to go to the library um I don't trust the Internet it's stealing my soul uh this is just apropos of nothing but just because you mentioned that are you kind of a lot are you comfortable with technology are you comfortable with internet uh phone or I use it I mean I use the internet I uh you don't have a mobile phone of course but uh I'm not on social media right I'm kind of suspicious of yeah what what that does to people um there's other things that I'm kind of suspicious about uh that whoops that the big tech companies know so much about us and therefore are kind of manipulating Us in various kinds of ways uh it sounds I mean when the way I say it it sounds like science fiction but it's more like manipulating you to stay on their platform and buy stuff that yeah in subtle ways yeah um do you ever use a typewriter yes I have but I don't use it anymore I I know you we all did use a typewriter I still use a typewriter because I love the look of them the same way I love the look of a guitar I also love the look of uh certain kinds of typewriters and I love having them around and there is a little niche cult out there of people like me that still type people letters and put them in the mail I'm sure people love getting online they love getting a typed letter um even if it's quite abusive I've written the creepiest most abusive letters people like you type this this is incredible I don't know you seem like you would maybe fall into that pocket of sometimes you know you want to ride a bike you want to keep it simple yeah to some extent to some extent I feel like yeah enjoy your life and you don't have to you have to obsess over all this stuff

Channel: Team Coco

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Keywords: team coco podcasts, team coco podcast, podcast, conan obrien needs a friend, conan needs a friend, conan o’brien needs a friend, needs a friend, conan o’brien podcast, conan o’brien needs a friend podcast, celebrity interview, comedy podcast, conan podcast, matt gourley, sona movsesian, david byrne, talking heads

Id: BTFWylYxf64

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023