TINA WEYMOUTH

Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club co-founder and bassist Tina Weymouth talks to Headliner about her and husband Chris Frantz’s upcoming Remain In Love tour, her incredible life in music, and how she became one of the most iconic and influential musicians of the 20th century…

She may be best known as a founder member of one of the most inspirational bands of the 20th century in Talking Heads, but Tina Weymouth is one of those unique talents whose influence extends far beyond a singular guise. A trailblazing bassist who emerged at a point when rock was an almost exclusively all-male affair, she not only paved the way for a new generation of women in bands, but also went on to co-found another hugely significant act in the form of Tom Tom Club with her husband Chris Frantz. The couple also produced records down the years for the likes of Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. And, as we quickly discover, she’s an incredibly captivating storyteller.

What was initially scheduled to be a 20 minute chat about her and Frantz’s upcoming Remain In Love tour – a run of ‘in conversation’ sessions taking place across the UK in May following the launch of his memoir of the same name in 2020 – turns into a two-hour sojourn through early-‘70s New York, a remarkable lifetime in music, and how it has felt to have the love of her life by her side through each and every twist and turn. “I’ve had the gift of living with the happiest man in the world… what a gift that is,” she beams.

Remain In Love is a joyful reflection on a hugely successful career, made all the more unique by his and Weymouth’s 45-year marriage and musical partnership. For two people to stay so happily married for so long while working in music is a rarity. To do so while in the same band/s is unheard of.

“We became friends in art school and I knew his dream was to form a band, which he did with a band called The Artistics, with David Byrne,” says Weymouth, taking us back to their first encounter. “I would drive the band everywhere. Then one day, the band had just started doing shows, and David came to our painting studio and said he’d written a song called Psycho Killer. He had a title and part of the chorus, but he needed more words. So, we sat down and we wrote this song. That was our first song, in January ’74.”

Before long, Weymouth, Frantz, Byrne, and the newly recruited Jerry Harrison, were looking at ways to evolve what was already a sound quite unlike anything else coming out of the city. The band’s first two records Talking Heads ’77 and More Songs About Buildings And Food were scratchy, twitchy post-punk affairs that had their roots in the CBGB, Mudd Club scene of the late ‘70s. The following album, 1979’s Fear Of Music showcased a more experimental rock side.

But it was 1980’s Remain In Light that saw Talking Heads elevated from innovative post-punk icons to bona fide musical pioneers. Free from genre, convention, or any obligation to commercial success, despite spawning arguably the band’s most famous song in Once In A Lifetime, Remain In Light represented a seismic leap in what a ‘guitar band’ could be and what could be achieved in a recording studio.

Before sessions began on the record, Byrne, whom Weymouth suggests was essentially on a ‘sabbatical’ from Talking Heads at the time, started working with Brian Eno on what would become their joint album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. However, knowing that Eno was in NYC, and with Harrison in the midst of making a solo record, Weymouth and Frantz invited Eno to their studio for a jam.

“In 1979, David and Brian had been making My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, although that came out after Remain In Light,” Weymouth explains. “We ended up not knowing what was going on between them, but we knew Brian was in town. So, we told Brian we were jamming in our loft, and Brian said, ‘I don’t really play any instruments.’ We said that’s OK. Chris and I are just having fun. We have decided we’re just going to play each other’s instruments and try to be like children who are excited again and not take ourselves too seriously.”

Having worked ostensibly within the confines of a traditional rock band setup prior to Remain In Light , how did they find the process of adapting not just to a new way of writing, but a new way of recording?

“The songs were not constructed normally. We were almost limited to two chords, but like jazz you can take two chords and put things on top and create new dimensions on top of that. That was an eye opener for us, and we worked that way again on Speaking In Tongues. It would always start with drums and bass until we got to the albums that David wanted for his True Stories movie (True Stories and Naked). He went to a very old-fashioned pop format of songwriting. He had these sketches in mind for his film. We did those albums back-to-back, one is the songs from the film and the other album is the outtakes, but they worked very well in their own right, but very differently.”

It was after these two records that Talking Heads came to an abrupt and unexpected end, when Byrne reportedly announced that he had left the band in an interview with the Los Angeles Times before informing the group.

“We weren’t prepared for it at all as we’d just signed a big contract that had taken six years to put together - a five album contract,” Weymouth says, still with a hint of incredulity. “So we were not prepared and we were not told. It wasn’t right the way it was done, it wasn’t the proper way. And that’s about all I have to say about that.”

Despite the unexpected conclusion of Talking Heads, the body of work they amassed continues to stand as one of the most formidable and influential of the past 50 years. To this day, echoes of the sound they spearheaded all those years ago can be heard in the work of new artists, not least on account of Weymouth’s instantly recognisable bass playing style and her interplay with Frantz’s beats. At once minimalist and highly inventive, her sparse bass parts are not just crucial in anchoring the oftenfrenetic nature of the Talking Heads catalogue, but regularly serve as the lead instrument – think Psycho Killer, Once In A Liftetime, Pull Up The Roots, Warning Sign, the list goes on.

“It was always about adapting,” says Weymouth of how she developed as a bassist. “And it was thanks to both Chris and David. They knew I shared their sensibilities and they wanted to mould me. But after six months of jamming and rehearsing for four or five hours every day of the week for five and a half months, it just gelled in my mind.”

Despite feeling that we could continue comfortably for another two hours, the clock finally catches up with us, and our conversation draws to a close. If the time we have spent here is anything to go by, the Remain In Love ‘in conversation’ sessions with her and Frantz promise to be every bit as joyous, insightful and entertaining as one would expect from a couple who have not only spent their lives making music for the ages, but, evidently, have had so much fun doing it.

Remain in Love tour dates:

May 25th Shelodian Theatre, Oxford

May 27th Electric Ballroom, London

May 28th Brudenell Social Club, Leeds