INTERVIEW BY LISA ROBINSON
PASTE | NOVEMBER 19, 1984

ROBINSON: Why did you call it Stop Making Sense?
BYRNE: Why Stop Making Sense? Um, it's advice to myself.

ROBINSON: Really?
BYRNE: Yeah.

ROBINSON: Do you think you make sense a lot?
BYRNE: Well, I think I have a tendency to try to put things into neat parcels and hope that they make logical sense, when actually that's not the way I work at all. When I look at a lot of the stuff I’ve done, it's been intuitive or out of feeling rather than because it makes sense.

ROBINSON: You think the best stuff is that?
BYRNE: Yeah, a lot of it. I don't know if it's the best, but it seems the best to me because I can't figure out where it came from.

ROBINSON: Do you now allow for that to happen when you're doing any kind of project, musical, or writing, or any kind of creative thing? Or even with this tour, how fixed was all of that, or how much space did you leave for that kind of improvisation?
BYRNE: I wanted to have it fixed enough so that it couldn't go wrong, let's say. If nothing spontaneous happened on a given night, that it would still be a lot happening and still be enough to be a good show. So it was like laying a framework. It was really pretty meticulously planned out, but only enough so that there was a framework to allow kind of spontaneous things to happen off of that. And a lot of the things that got formalized and put into the show were the result of somebody doing something spontaneously one night and then we said, “hey, that was real good. You should keep doing it.” And sometimes they'd keep doing it. Or sometimes I'd keep doing it and sometimes they'd forget.

ROBINSON: Did you plan to do this as a movie? I mean, when you first started this tour, was it something that you knew you wanted to do, or did it evolve sort of midway through?
BYRNE: Well, it evolved midway through. When I saw that the show was working, and worked as a show, and everybody was enjoying it, then I thought, boy, I'd really like to capture this. And I thought about doing it the easy way on video. But then I thought, well, the whole thing was, the way it was designed was kind of cinematic, so I thought, well, film would really be the ideal, so I thought I'd hold out for…to try and capture it that way.

ROBINSON: Why would it have been easier on video?
BYRNE: Um. Cheaper. It's cheaper than film stock.
ROBINSON: Did you edit on video or did you edit in film?
BYRNE: Yeah, we edited on video.
ROBINSON: So you filmed it and then you edited it on video? 
BYRNE: And then turned it back into a film.
ROBINSON: That's the good way to do it.
BYRNE: And that really worked out well for this because when you have a whole bunch of cameras shooting say the same thing simultaneously and then with video you can run them all on separate TVs simultaneously and just pick out what's the best shot or the most appropriate one to cut to if, if you don't know which one to go to. Whereas with narrative films, you don't need to do that quite as much.

ROBINSON: You had an awful lot to do with the creation and the design and the look of the show, with the way it started, or did you do it with the whole band? I mean, it's pretty much given credit to you.
BYRNE: Yeah, I kind of drew it out.

ROBINSON: Did you tell them what to wear?
BYRNE: Not specific things, but, yeah, put what, kind of feel or what kind of color.
ROBINSON: Colors, yeah, you did?
BYRNE: Yeah, or what color range. And it was partly just, it wasn't…I wasn't trying to impose my taste in dress. It was kind of said, well, anything within this color range, but whatever style you like. And that was because, say, uh, if someone wore a bright yellow shirt, um, and the lights at some points are kind of yellowish—a lot of stage lights are…they'd glow like a beacon and throughout the whole thing and for no appropriate reason.

ROBINSON: What I'm curious about is how you could maintain the amount of control that you did in not telling them exactly what to wear. Because, I mean, you really, there are some things that sort of stand out visually in the film that look like they could be a little more streamlined in terms of costume things. And I would imagine if you had really had your choice, there would have been other things.
BYRNE: Yeah, I would have been more specific and say…”this is what you have to wear every night.” But, I felt like, I felt like, gosh. I, I didn't, I felt like, well, what we're doing is, is really a lot, the whole show is going a lot further than anything we've done before and I couldn't swallow the idea of telling people, you know that I've worked with as musicians for so long, what to wear. That seemed, uh, I couldn't. Now I can understand it, it seems perfectly logical, but at the time it just seemed like, “Gosh, these are my friends and everything. I can't tell them how to dress.”

ROBINSON: But they didn't resent you sort of doing the rest of the show?
BYRNE: No. No.
ROBINSON: So that's the last bastion of dictatorial realm.

ROBINSON: Why did you wear the suit? How did that costume come about, that big suit?
BYRNE: I don't know, that was one of those inspirations that I mentioned earlier, that kind of came out of the blue, and kind of fully blown in my mind.

I drew it out on a napkin, and it seemed perfectly right at the time, because I was thinking, “well, what, I'd like to wear some kind of costume, or do something with my body or do something like that. And I just sort of let that idea sit for a while, and all of a sudden it's like, “ah, that's it!” This big square boxy suit, like a businessman gone geometric or something.

And that just seemed the perfect solution. Although it took ages to get it to look the way.

ROBINSON: Really? 
BYRNE: I mean, drawing it on a napkin takes about 30 seconds, but then getting it to look that way.
ROBINSON: Who made it?
BYRNE: A woman named Gail Blacker who works downtown, does clothes for boutiques and that kind of thing.

ROBINSON: Was there something in it, like some kind of padding, or a stiff thing, or something to keep it from moving?
BYRNE: There's a whole lot of padding in the shoulders. So that my arms, instead of coming out really where your shoulders are, they come out somewhere closer to my waist. And, uh, under the pants, I wear this big girdle that expands my hips by about six or seven inches on each side. And then I put the pants on on top of that.

ROBINSON: That must be comfortable [joking].
BYRNE: It's not that bad.
ROBINSON: Really? You could move around in it? Dance in it?
BYRNE: We had it made out of linen. So that it could breathe and it wouldn't turn into a little sauna in there and even the stuff the padding is made out of mostly fabric where the air can circulate through. So it wasn't that bad.

ROBINSON: Did you have more than one?
BYRNE: Yeah. Yeah, I had two different styles.
ROBINSON: Really?
BYRNE: Yeah, the other one was built by a different place, and that one was a pinstripe polyester one.
ROBINSON: Polyester? That must have been hot. That doesn’t breathe.
BYRNE: Yeah, that was hotter.
ROBINSON: I haven't even seen that, I don't think. You didn't wear that in New York?
BYRNE: No.
ROBINSON: No, well, that's good.

ROBINSON: Having put out the live album and the name of this band is Talking Heads, did that reinforce your awareness of the evolution of the band? You know, listening to all the old stuff and putting it in that kind of order, did that sort of focus it in that way for you?
BYRNE: Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah, that made me realize how much, how different we sounded before and how some of it was pretty good, some of it was kind of…silly.

ROBINSON: What was silly?
BYRNE: Uh...sometimes just the presentation was very, was um…kind of squeaky. Sounded like a toy band.

ROBINSON: Well now I read something that you said in retrospect. Well I don't know if it's in retrospect or you were aware of it at the time, but when someone had pointed out that when you first started out in CBGBs and you were standing on stage looking terrified or awkward or shy or quaking or quacking or whatever it was that you were doing and now you've grown into this wonderful kind of confident performer and you said something to the effect that “when you started you did that purposely because it was very minimalist and that you wanted to sort of, it was a reaction to everything else that was going on and you wanted to sort of strip it down to the bare bones.” Were you really aware of it in that way at that time?
BYRNE: No, I was aware of what this, the fact that there wasn't any lighting and all that kind of thing and that we were wearing our street clothes, but my stage demeanor, I was pretty unaware of. I wasn't aware that I looked so terrified.

ROBINSON: Did you feel terrified?
BYRNE: A little bit, but not...I mean, I always do when I go on stage. I still do…get, you know, real butterflies and stuff before you walk on stage.
[pause]
No, I wasn't, I was aware that it was a pretty bare bones approach, but I wasn't aware that I looked as disturbed as I, as I seemed to have looked.

ROBINSON: What did you want this movie, Stop Making Sense, to be? Sort of, in terms of concert films, what were you determined to avoid, or what sort of things were you hoping about it? Did it turn out the way you wanted it to?
BYRNE: I think it did. I wanted it to be like a movie. In that it has...
ROBINSON: You mean as opposed to a concert?
BYRNE: Yeah. I wanted it to almost cross that barrier. You walk away with it feeling like you've seen a movie, rather than that you've seen a documentary about a concert. And it kind of does that. It definitely has a progression, a kind of a beginning and a middle and an end and a lot of concerts don't have that, they just have a succession of songs.

ROBINSON: What do you perceive of as the differences between this live album and The Name of This Band is Talking Heads live album?
BYRNE: This one, the way it's mixed and whatnot, it almost doesn't sound like a live album. It almost sounds like a live performance in a studio.
ROBINSON: Is that what it was?
BYRNE: No.
ROBINSON: I mean, did you enhance it a lot? Did you change it?
BYRNE: No. No, it's just really well mixed. And well recorded. The other one was more, uh, kind of documenting some of the different styles we played in. And this one is more…documenting this one event, this one tour.

Do you ever think of doing anything just again with the four of you?
BYRNE: Yeah, yeah.
ROBINSON: The next record or no?
BYRNE: Well, I don't know. It seems like we can't go on just trying to get bigger and bigger. That's kind of a dead end. And it would cost a lot of money too. So I'm not sure what to do next for a live performance.

ROBINSON: Do you think it's going to get to the point where you're not going to want to perform live, that you can do everything you want to do through either video or film? 
BYRNE: Nah.

ROBINSON: Did you ever think there was? I mean, was there like ten minutes when you were thinking, like, “this is the way out”?
BYRNE: Yeah, yeah, there's times when I thought, oh, I think everybody thought about it, that with the advent of cable TV and video and all that sort of thing, everybody thought, “hey, you won't have to tour again, you do one performance somewhere, and now they’ll satellite everywhere to every city and everybody can catch it simultaneously and your tour will last about a week.”

But it's not the same. I think the band and performers learn something about what they're doing by doing it in front of an audience. But I don't think you have to do that all the time, but have to jump out there occasionally and see how you're doing and keep in contact with, um, I don't, what would you call it? Perf um…
ROBINSON: People…
BYRNE: People. But I'm thinking of something else.
[pause]
It sort of tells you what the songs mean in a way, or what the music means, or what it feels like to perform it live. Because when you just record it in the studio, you play it once and you get a good take and that's it, you never have to play it again. And so it never really sinks in, what the energy of that song is about…or what it could be about.

ROBINSON: Talking Heads is a big band now. Can you accept that as such? I mean in terms of the whole rock genre?
BYRNE: No, I don't, I still can't.

ROBINSON: Well, you don't think it's some kind of cultist avant garde.
BYRNE: No, I think we've transcended that a bit.
ROBINSON: Mm hmm.
BYRNE: But I think we're thought of as a band that people have discovered for themselves, rather than a band that's so pervasive in the media that you couldn't help but know about us.

ROBINSON: Well, what's a band like that? You mean like Van Halen or the Rolling Stones or something?
BYRNE: Yeah, yeah, where everybody knows about them, even if they're not into it.
ROBINSON: Do you want to be a band like that?
BYRNE: Not necessarily, but I like the idea of being a part of the culture and not being thought of as an outsider who comments on it. I like being thought of as being part of it, but also you can comment on it at the same time.

ROBINSON: Do you think that's possible?
BYRNE: Yeah, yeah.
ROBINSON: Well, do you think it's a question of the culture catching up with you or you assimilating more into the culture? 
BYRNE: Oh, a little bit of both, I guess. I guess you're supposed to keep your ears open or try and articulate things that everybody's thinking or feeling.

ROBINSON: But you do have also a sort of a quirky look at things. You don't want to give that up? You can't…abandon it.
BYRNE: No. It's kind of hard.

ROBINSON: Do you think you look crazy on stage?
BYRNE: No, I think I look like I'm expressing the craziness in all of us. But I'm not actually nuts. I'm just, it's just, I'm letting it come out. What's, what's already there.
ROBINSON: You sure of that?
BYRNE: Yeah, yeah. I think I'd know by now if I was nuts.

a few more things from David Byrne on Stop Making Sense…

PLAYBOY 1985 

Playboy: The success of Stop Making Sense and your videos has made you known to a huge audience. Has that affected you?
Byrne: The effect has been minimal. I pretty much always shave before I go out now; that's about it. Otherwise, as long as I look presentable, which is really childish, I don't mind being seen at the supermarket buying toilet paper.

Playboy: Explain the magic of Stop Making Sense—which has been acknowledged as the best rock-performance film yet.
Byrne: We originally were going to use weird stage lights and stuff—it would have been controlled and perfect. But then I realized that it would lose the energy of the performance that way. In the end, we got a tasteful, or sympathetic, reporting of what was there. We went backward. Instead of using all the latest tricks and gimmicks, we opted for a really conservative approach. Really, nothing happened that didn't happen in front of your eyes. Maybe that's why it communicates to people—because it has that kind of honesty.

Playboy: Who is your tailor, anyway? That suit you wear in the film is a little large, isn't it?
Byrne: The belt is somewhere around a size 58 or 60. I don't know what size the suit is, but the idea was that I wanted to be a big Mr. Man. He really is someone else. I transform myself. I almost adopt a different character when I'm singing. That's performance. When I saw myself slip out of character—when this guy was stumbling around, looking for a microphone or something—I recognized myself.

Playboy: How important is it to you that your audience understand what you are trying to say?
Byrne: I don't know yet. I want the meaning to be in there but not specified. I do have an idea about the meaning of my song. If enough people come back to me and think it's about something completely different from what I intended, then the song wasn't very well crafted, because nobody got it. Quite a number of people thought that in Once in a Lifetime, I was trying to make fun of suburban middle-class life. But I was trying to write from the point of view of these people suddenly opening their eyes and realizing where they were. They were shocked by it and wanted to know how they got there. I juxtaposed that with a sense of surrender and relief, as if they were saying, "It's all right, even if it's a little absurd on the surface." Writing songs is a process of letting your own consciousness run loose and then reining it in. You spew out a bunch of phrases and words, almost at random. Then you have to be kind of schizophrenic about it and go, "OK, let's shape this stuff up and push it together and make a song out of it. Make a verse here. Make this rhyme with the other one." Pure emotion is sitting there like a blob and you have to whip it into shape.