CHRIS FRANTZ

DRUMMER Chris Frantz

TALKING HEADS ARE READY TO MAKE SOME NEW MUSIC ...IS DAVID BYRNE?

BY ADAM KLUGER

Chris, how have you and Tina been handling the pandemic?

We’ve just been observing the laws of Dr. Fauci. We’ve been self-isolating. we really haven’t been going out the way we used to. We stay home and fortunately we live in a very nice in a wooded area with lots of space to walk around.

What made you want to write your terrific new book about the band, Remain In Love (St. Martin’s Press)?

When I sat down to write the book I thought well, what makes my story different from any other person in a rock and roll band and I thought that would be Tina (laugh) because we’ve worked together lived together- we’ve lived together since 1973 and we’ve been married since 1977 and we worked together in the band since 1975. I thought my unique angle --what makes my story unique is that I’ve been married to Tina and worked with her as I was her drummer and she was my bass player for so many years and still is. We’ve celebrated 43 years of marriage last June and we are still going strong. Fortunately for me, it worked out very well... so I thought I’ll make Tina the heroine of my story which in truth, in fact, she has been.

CBGBs and the music scene of the mid-’70’s are a big part of the book

Without CBGBs there probably wouldn’t have been any Talking Heads, not as we know it. I think you could say the same about Patti Smith and Television and Blondie. CBGBs was like the incubator in which all these bands developed and matured and honed their stagecraft. Then it became their springboard out into the rest of the world. When we moved to New York, in the autumn of 1974, I had this idea that first of all, I wanted to start a band along with David and hopefully Tina, too. Tina hadn’t yet agreed to join the band...she was still thinking about painting and concentrating on that. My idea was that maybe we could find a place that was like the cavern club had been for the Beatles or the Star Club in Hamburg Germany where they could perform and get their act together and learn the art of performance and there wouldn’t be so many people watching that if they made a false move that they would be forever tagged with or forever known as a lousy band...(laugh). The great thing about CBGBs is that some nights there would be well, in our early days there would be only 10 or 20 people in the audience and so if you messed up or did a lousy show, not very people would know about it. One smart thing that Hilly Kristal, the owner of CBGB’s, did was that if ever you had done a show there --if your band had ever played at CBGB’s - then you never had to pay the cost of admission again-- the cost of admission was not a lot. On a highly rated night for a band like Patti Smith, the cost of admission was 5 dollars --so it wasn’t a lot of money or anything but what it meant was that all the bands could come down to CBGB’s and hang out --and if the bartender liked your band you might even get a free couple of beers.

I love the story about how Talking Heads once tried to recruit a female lead singer

David and I went over to CBGBs to see this band called the Snake and the Snatch (laugh) or maybe it was the Angel and the Snake. Their name changed a few times before they became Blondie. I saw this girl, and I thought holy mackerel! Not only is she an outstanding performer but she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Maybe she would be interested in singing in our band? Because it wasn’t pre-determined that David would be the singer, we were still in a very fluid state at that time. So, after their show, I saw Debbie standing by the bar and I walked up to her and I said, “Hi my name is Chris Frantz and this is David Byrne and we’re starting a band and we would love it if you could sing with our band,” Well,” she smiled, “I’ve already got a band but you can buy me a drink.” So I did buy her a drink and it was the beginning of a lovely friendship with Debbie Harry that has lasted 40-something years!

How has the relationship with David Byrne been over the years? How is it now?

Well, it hasn’t been a wonderful relationship since he decided to leave the band and go solo...it has not been wonderful...but we did have that moment in 2002 when we reunited and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let’s put it this way. When you get a call from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that you are going to be inducted, no matter what you think of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the people who run it and all that --that’s a fun call to get!

What was it like behind the scenes? Was there any tension?

I wouldn’t say there was tension...there was a little bit of apprehension, at least on my part, but once we all got together in the little rehearsal room where we rehearsed for a few days beforehand --everything was very copacetic --there was no real bad feeling at all...I think everybody felt very good and pleased to be back together again--it was also very nice to also be recognized at the same time as our old friends the Ramones --both of us were inducted that year and both of us in our first year of eligibility--so it was kind of a big deal for the downtown music scene..and that’s why we invited Hilly Krystal to come up on stage... when you get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it’s not just an honor for the band but for every single person that worked with the band through the years, like the management, the lawyers, the accountants, the road crew, the agents the promotion folks at the record company the executives at the record company,

One of the most interesting parts of the book is the band’s collaborative process and I think it started with the song Psycho Killer

We who are in bands or make paintings or write books, we’re people who have a need for creative expression--and some of us like me for example, I’m pretty good at painting and drawing and stuff like that and I can do that all by myself but I’ve never written a song by myself. Any songs I’ve been part of I’ve always written it along with someone else, be it David or Tina and David or Tina and David and Jerry altogether- I’m a firm believer that collaboration can take a song which is a good song and with the extra input of added people can become a great song.

Talk about Tina Weymouth as a Bass Player.

One reason I invited Tina to join the band, I knew that she shared a musical aesthetic with David and I, but also I could tell by dancing with her at college dances at RISD that this woman really feels the music. And I thought she’s got a great sense of rhythm and she’s really feeling this song. I knew that she could play the guitar. She played an acoustic guitar that her father gave her when she was young and she had also played classical music on the flute and had also done English hand bell ringing which not too many people have done. So, I thought Tina could do something great as an addition to our band. It wasn’t determined whether it would be bass or not. I didn’t know what it would be but as it turned out it happened to be the bass because that’s what she felt that we needed. And what was interesting about Tina’s playing was that she didn’t rely on a tired vocabulary of Chuck Berry licks and 12 bar blues licks. She came from a more classical point of view and therefore the parts that she came up with were highly unusual for a rock and roll band and also highly memorable. You hear one of the bass parts and you know what song it is. Psycho Killer is a good example. But there is also Take Me to The River.

You had to do some work to recruit Jerry Harrison to join the band?

Talking Heads was originally just a trio and we had been thinking for some time that we needed to add an additional member to enhance the sound...we needed a fourth person and preferably someone who could play keyboards and guitar. I called Jerry up and after the experience of the breakup of the Modern Lovers he was not keen to just jump into any old band right away in fact, he had enrolled in a master’s program at Harvard for architecture. Jerry said.”I’m intrigued but before we speak any further I think I should hear you play live.” I had to book a gig in Cambridge Massachusetts so that Jerry could hear us play live. I think it is the only time a band has ever auditioned for a keyboard player. We had to play a place called The Club and it wasn’t a fabulous place or anything but it was an opportunity for Jerry to hear us and after Jerry heard us he was more intrigued and we ended up sort of jamming together and it was very clear from the first jam session with Jerry that he was more musically advanced than the rest of us in terms of his technical ability but it was also that he had a musical aesthetic that jibed well with our own.

How would you describe that musical aesthetic?

It was an artistic aesthetic. It didn’t have to do with popular music so much. It was more like with Talking Heads, our whole goal, our whole aim was yes we would have liked to make some nice money so we wouldn’t have to worry about the rent and we would love to sell some records but what was most important to us was going down in musical history as being something that was good. And I think Jerry shared that feeling with us. The artistry of the band was more important to us than the financial success of the band and we liked a lot of the same things. We loved the Velvet Underground and we loved the Stooges and we loved the garage bands of the 60’S and so we had a lot in common with Jerry. I got an email from him just last week about how much he enjoyed my book and he felt that it was very honest and thoughtful.

That early Saturday Night Live performance-- was that a mainstream moment for the band?

Yeah, that was a big step for us and the other one, believe it or not, was Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. We did those very close together. Saturday Night Live, American Bandstand, and all of a sudden Talking Heads became more or less a household name. People started recognizing us. It’s amazing. If you are on TV whether it is for something good or something bad people notice...a lot of people watch TV.

What are your favorite Talking Heads songs? I love Take Me to The River there are so many... the early albums were so brilliant. ‘77 is my favorite and you have Fear of Music, More Songs About Buildings and Food, even Little Creatures was an amazing album -- what are some of your all-time favorite songs?

I guess my all-time favorites would be Psycho Killer, Thank You for Sending Me an Angel, I love that one ...um I love Once in a Lifetime, I love Memories Can’t Wait, I Zimbra, Burning Down The House, it’s always fun to play and never fails to ignite the audience. On Little Creatures I loved the song Stay Up Late.

There are so many different things that you and Tina did as an integral part of Talking Heads but I don’t know if you ever got full credit.

Yeah, well that’s one reason I wrote this book was to try to explain to people that Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club was very much a shared experience. It wasn’t just like the David Byrne Show and people have asked me, “Do you resent that?” and it’s not so much that I resent it being unaccredited for things that I did. It’s just that you know that in the future when people look back on the band Talking Heads and the read an album cover or something like that they want to know well who wrote that song and they look at the album cover and it says that song was written by David Byrne and Brian Eno. Ok fine, but really that song was written by David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth. David, for some reason, at the last minute, after all of us had approved the credits...he went and changed them... you know he went to the printer and he changed them and without consulting with us or anything so that was a shock, you know?

There are a couple of instances in the book where you, I think very kindly, describe what you see as the facts of the matter as to David thinking more about himself and less about the other band members and it seems to me that that was a source of great tension throughout what was a very successful period of creating incredible music together.

Yeah, well you could call it Machiavellian or you could call it whatever you want...bad character, but he certainly exhibited it...we always thought, well we are doing so well and everything is going so great, David is going to be happy and everything is going to be fine but he was never happy. He was just not a happy person. There are moments of great excitement and success and reward, financial reward, artistic reward, critical acclaim but David just...that never satisfied him. He’s insatiable when it comes to getting credit ...taking credit... well how shall I say this? Selfaggrandizement. He just can’t seem to help himself and I notice that nowadays he has a whole different personality than he used to have when he worked with us. Hopefully, that’s more fun for his collaborators (laugh) than we had. Am I making sense?

Yeah, I would say don’t stop making sense ...as a Talking Heads fan, I’ve watched David Byrne’s career over the years and he has done a variety of cool things from My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, The Catherine Wheel, and Rei Momo and now he’s getting incredible reviews with American Utopia, but just from a musical standpoint I don’t think he will ever, or has ever touched the greatness that he achieved as part of Talking Heads. I think many Talking Heads fans might agree with that...that while David has had a very varied and prolific career it hasn’t been as exceptional as the music he created in the early albums and concerts with you, Tina and Jerry.

Well, I’m not going to be critical of David’s solo albums or anything like that, but yes, I agree with you. (laugh)

And it’s very sad because the first time I interviewed David and I’ve interviewed him twice and the first time at CBGBs for the twentieth anniversary I was talking with him backstage and he had hurt his back and I

told him I hurt my back playing basketball and I said “I’m with CNN can we do a quick interview?, “ he said, “Let’s go downstairs to the basement.” We talked about CBGB’s and Hilly and I asked David, “what are the chances of the Talking Heads getting back together again?” and he looked at me he gave me, I guess it was a cold stare and he said, “that’s kind of like asking someone who has been divorced when are you getting back together again with your ex-wife..you know... snowball’s chance in hell.” It was like a kick in the stomach because I felt this is not the David Byrne that I always looked up to and admired artistically and creatively. It just made no sense to me and I thought something really bad must have gone down whether it was lawyers or money with the other members of the band. Why do you think this relationship, and it’s so sad for us Talking Heads fans, has soured irrevocably and you have never been able to just bury the hatchet and move on and create together again with David?

Well, I can tell you that the other three members of the band, Jerry, Tina, and I would be happy to bury the hatchet and do something fun, especially for our fans but David just doesn’t see it that way and he wants to be a solo artist. He doesn’t want to be a band member. I think that’s really what it boils down to.

He likes to be the boss, it sounds like of his own career?

Yeah, he likes to be the boss sometimes at the expense of other people’s well-being.

So, it’s ego really, like with most bands that break up there is a clash of ego-- and money is also typically a part of it?

Yes. All of that. And there’s something in David’s brain too that ...he just doesn’t operate the way Tina and I do or Jerry does.

Did you recognize that early on that he might be on the spectrum with Aspergers or something like that? Has that ever been a conversation?

There was always something about David that was difficult to understand or challenging as a friend and so we dealt with that from the very beginning of our relationship. There was a time when David seemed to need us ...he really needed the rest of the band to get over...but when there came a point in time when he felt he no longer needed us that’s when he quit the band. How did that feel when you found out that David had quit the band?

It felt terrible. It felt f*cking terrible but we saw it coming for a long time but we somehow managed to keep it together for like what 10 albums or so?

Why was Remain in Light such a great Talking Heads album?

It’s so good and so inventive and so different from what anyone else was doing at the time...and what’s especially great is that it still sounds hip today. I think you could say that about almost any Talking Heads song...but the songs from Remain In Light are kind of definitive.

With YouTube, you can see a lot of old Talking Heads footage, and still, even to this day Talking Heads fans are online asking can these guys ever get back together...if you were to talk to David now and say “listen I wrote this book I said it the way I saw it but we are open to being friends and collaborating again”... what do you think you would have to say to David to make that work? Would you want to? Do you consider David Byrne a friend?

I would like to but I’m afraid that’s not really the case.

According to Remain In Love, David crossed the line a bunch of times with you, Tina and Jerry. How would you get together with David again? Would you send him a tape of your music and say we need lyrics? How could you possibly collaborate with David again in the future?

That would be a good way...I was thinking of sending him a galley of the book but what David said to me was, “no, I’m not going to read the book because when people will ask me what I thought of it I would have to answer but if I haven’t read the book I can just say oh I’m sorry I have no idea I haven’t read it.” So, I didn’t send him a copy because he didn’t want to read it anyway so that’s how it has been with David for a while. We don’t really speak to each other socially, unfortunately. We do have email correspondence because we have a business together still with licensing to films and television.

Are you and Tina still making music or are you mostly in family mode right now? have families (laugh) but yeah we still do music together. We were supposed to have some Tom Tom Club shows in April but that didn’t happen because of the virus. I don’t know when live performances are going to come back but Tina and I have been talking about doing some electronic music together just she and I.

Why was Tom Tom Club such a huge success? It was a total surprise to many Talking Heads fans, I’m sure, to discover how truly talented you and Tina were as the musical engine to Talking Heads.

The first Tom Tom Club album was really like magic to me...we never had any intention of doing something outside Talking Heads but then David told our manager, he didn’t tell us, “I’m going to be doing a solo album, this collaboration with Twyla Tharp called The Catherine Wheel and I don’t know how long it is going to take,” --then Jerry said “well, I’m going to do a solo album,” and then Tina and I looked at each other and said what are we going to do? Our accountant said, “you better do something because you only have two thousand dollars in the bank.”

Why was that?

That was because the Remain in Light tour was a nine-piece band and we had toured the world and it was a very successful and historic tour, people are still raving about it... that was in 1980 but because we were flying nine musicians and a half a dozen crew around the world and paying for hotels and per diems and insurance and everything, there was no money left after that tour. We were still happy we did it but anyway --so we were more or less broke. Our manager went to Chris Blackwell of Island Records and he said “Chris and Tina would like to do a solo project or a duo project what do you say?” and we knew Chris Blackwell because he had come down to see Talking Heads at CBGBs on the same night that Andy Warhol had first come to see us. He came down with the singer Robert Palmer. At that time we loved Island records and we bought almost anything that came out on Island Records whether it was Roxy Music or Burning Spear or Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Chris Blackwell said to us, “well, I can see you have something really interesting going on but right now I’m devoting all my time to breaking Bob Marley and the Wailers and I can’t possibly sign Talking Heads right now,” so we knew him for a long time and then we had made More Songs About Buildings and Food, and Remain In Light at his studio in the Bahamas. Compass Point. So, knowing that Chris Blackwell said,” I understand the value of a good rhythm

section, why not have Chris and Tina come down to Compass Point and cut a single and if I like the single, then they can do a whole album.” So, we went down to Compass Point and we cut a song called Wordy Rappinghood and when we finished the recording and we are in the mixing stage, we said, “Chris come on in and hear this and tell us if you like it or not.” And he came in and we played him Wordy Rappinghood and he said, “play that again! “ We played it again and he said, “I love this”--I’m going to release it as a single as soon as possible in the UK, Europe, and Latin America ...and he said while I release this as a single I want you to get to work on the rest of the album.” So, that’s how that all happened. And Wordy Rappinghood went to the top of the charts in like seven countries in Europe. I think it went to #7 in the UK...and then we followed it up with Genius of Love which was also magical. Genius of Love was our only crossover hit because it crossed over from the DJs who played it in nightclubs in New York and San Francisco and places like that to the urban or black radio stations. Chris Blackwell sold 150,000 12 inch singles of Genius of Love in the United States. After he sold 150,000 singles Seymour Stein woke up and said whoa, I better make a deal with Chris and Tina (laugh) Does it feel better to set the record straight on the history of the band with Remain In Love?

It feels good to me that there is now a book about Talking Heads that is the inside story. Previous books about Talking Heads and there have been a few and most of them are regurgitated stories from music magazines and music newspapers. Most of them from the ‘70s or early ‘80s. It’s like somebody went to the internet and just cut and pasted a lot of things. My book is not like that. My book is like a story about a kid who wanted to be in a rock band that was different from other rock bands and who finally achieved that and it’s also about my great, fantastic romance with Tina Weymouth which continues to this day.

An incredible musical career, successful marriage what are you most proud of?

At the moment I’m most proud of my sons’ accomplishments both of them are artists and it’s not easy right now especially for young artists. My older son Robin has a record label called Kraftjerkz. He is also a DJ and he does his own electronic music but he has recently released an album by a person from Philadelphia called Plastic Ivy. It’s just about to come out. Our other son Egan is a painter and he’s doing really fantastic work and he has a show up right now in Berlin. He has upcoming shows in Seoul and Taipei. I’m very proud of both of them because we never asked them to follow in our footsteps but they have been and they have been doing a really good job of it.

According to Remain In Love, it seemed like in the past you could invite David to an impromptu jam session with Lou Reed or whoever it might be and he would gladly show up to be part of it. Is that something you could still do? If David were to accept an invitation to jam--what could you guys possibly do together? Could you create another album- do you still have the musical chops or the ideas to come up with a new Talking Heads album? Is that something you think is even feasible, to create new music with David, once he is done promoting American Utopia?

Yes, I think it’s absolutely possible. Witness the new Bob Dylan album. Who thought that he had that in him, but it’s fantastic. So I think that yeah, we may be elder statesmen at this point but we still know how to rock the party (laugh).

A TALE OF TWO DOWNTOWNS

BY LISA SHERIDAN

It was the coolest of times, and to the fainthearted, it was the cruelest of times. Long before the plague shuttered NY City’s nightlife, and before the underground club scene shifted to Brooklyn, the city’s beat pulsated on the stages of Max’s Kansas City,

CBGB, and the Mudd Club.

That driving rhythm echoed and summoned me from a distant Springfield, Missouri. With $350 in my pocket, I followed the city’s siren call and hitched a ride to New York with a group of musicians who were friends of friends.

During that summer of 1980, the Midwest had an unprecedented heatwave. Still, I stowed away in the band’s rickety and windowless panel van. We were all packed in the seatless back of the vehicle on a bare metal floor, sandwiched between amplifiers and guitars. Worse still, a faulty radiator required blasting the heater to prevent the engine from boiling over. It was so hot that I thought the graffiti covering the van’s exterior would melt off into technicolor puddles. Too broke to afford a hotel room, we drove a grueling 28 hours straight. The air was thick and salty. It would take days for me to wash off that travel funk.

Somewhere around 3:00 AM, we emerged out of the Holland Tunnel into the pre-Aids West Village, back then still packed with gay bathhouses. The smell of sweat, sex, and rotting garbage was everywhere. My first city view was a trans sex worker under the West Side Highway’s hazy streetlights. She was dressed in a merry widow holding up stockings that exposed her shapely thighs. In the highest heels imaginable, she was straddling the k-rail — sashaying in a seductive trance. In that instant, I knew only a place allowing such freedom could be home for me.

My new transporter-musician friends, The Marbles, helped me land in the art and music world’s epicenter. The Marbles, who held a pivotal position in the New Wave/Punk scene, secured a front-row seat within the demi-monde for me. When I saw the classic cult film “The Blank Generation,” a primer for the downtown music culture, I was thrilled to see my friends featured so prominently.

Max’s closed shortly after I arrived, but I became a regular at CBGB and the Mudd Club, where I brushed shoulders with members of The Talking Heads, Blondie, and The Heartbreakers. As an uninitiated Midwesterner, this was an unbelievable stroke of luck and the ultimate cool. I studied and appropriated their disaffected brand of style. I was becoming a New Yorker.

But since I arrived fashionably late to the party, the sub-culture had already hit its apex. New York was clawing its way back from bankruptcy, rents were rising, and investment bankers started collecting Soho lofts. Time passed. I went on to become a designer, hoping to translate some of my newly acquired counter-culture chic for the Midwesterners who didn’t break away.

New music venues opened, and relocated, and reopened, and shut down. The next wave of young and impressionables arrived. Unfortunately, the Marbles never realized the fame they deserved, perhaps because they were too nice and just not edgy enough for those gritty times.

Today, my old Village neighborhood is an unrecognizable landscape of NYU outposts, corner Duane Reades, and bubble tea stands.

Before, I found myself in the epoch of the endless dance party. I could never have fathomed our current era of social distancing and the personal pod.

How did we get here? Where will the Future Punx play?

Tomorrow’s artists know this is just a moment — so they are ready and waiting until this moment passes.