In his 20s, David Byrne begged to return to a river. At 72, the Talking Heads frontman knows he can’t step in the same one twice.
As Byrne’s pioneering punk act turns 50, he’s forced to take a beat out of every interview to address a possible reunion. Speaking to The Times of London, Byrne said there would be no point in getting the band back together.
“On a practical level, trying to recreate the feeling that people had when they were in their early twenties? The time that they first heard that music? That’s a fool’s errand,” he said. “And besides, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing.”
Talking Heads called it a day in 1991, a full seven years after their last live performance, and have forcefully rejected the idea of a reunion ever since. An anniversary re-release of Jonathan Demme’s concert documentary “Stop Making Sense” amplified reunion rumors as the band’s members came together for interviews and late-night spots. Byrne told the Times that sometimes a promo is just a promo.
“We were on TV together and people went, ‘Well, they all seem to be getting along,” he said, before shooting down the fan-fueled hope. “But no, I don’t think so.”
Outside of hoping for the reunion, Byrne hopes his fans will remain optimistic.
“The new songs seem to be offering feelings of hope, humanity,” Byrne said of “Who Is the Sky?”, his latest solo album. “It was like therapy, given all the things happening in the world — especially in the US.”
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