Byrne isn’t on the road to nowhere with Utopia tour
Latest solo album to be aired by ex Talking Heads frontman
Talking Heads’ icon David Byrne brings his critically-acclaimed American Utopia tour to Ireland next week.
The legendary US musician will play Dublin’s 3Arena on October 24, where he’ll be joined by special guest, the Mercury Prize-winning Benjamin Clementine.
The tour is in support of his latest album American Utopia, his first solo album – following numerous collaborative projects over the years – since 2004’s Grown Backwards.
Earlier this week, Byrne announced that he will release the complete soundtrack to his 1986 foray into feature film-making, True Stories, for the first time ever.
Byrne, 66, starred in and directed the film, which is based on real stories from tabloid newspapers.
The Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe Awards winner once described the film as being “like 60 Minutes on acid.”
The album True Stories, A Film by David Byrne: The Complete Soundtrack captures the music of the quirky vignette-style movie which co-stars John Goodman, Swoozie Kurtz and the late Spalding Gray.
The album will mark the first time the music from True Stories will be released as it appears in the film.
“I always imagined that the music written for True Stories should be heard as it is in the film,” Byrne said.
“It makes the most sense this way. Me singing the song that was written for
John Goodman’s character always felt weird to me. It was written for that character, not for me.”
Meanwhile, the Psycho
Killer hitmaker has also dashed any hopes of a
Talk Heads reunion.
Formed in 1975 in
New York the band, pictured right, released eight albums before splitting in 1991.
Once described as “one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the
80s, the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with avant-garde sensibilities and an anxious, clean-cut image.
The band hit its commercial peak in 1983 with the US Top 10 hit Burning Down the House and released the cult concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme.
Byrne said he has little interest in reuniting the band, “I see what happens with other people when they do their reunions – and then it turns into a second reunion and a third reunion.
“With someone like the Pixies, it’s different – they’re getting the audience now that they deserved ages ago. But with a lot of them, it just seems like you don’t have anything new to say, and you go, “OK, this is just some kind of nostalgia exercise.”
And I’m not interested in that,” he told Rolling Stone. But, thankfully, Byrne isn’t adverse to adding his Talking Heads mega hits to his current tour.
The concerts feature Byrne, surrounded by a 12-piece band, performing songs from his new album in addition to favourites and deeper tracks from his solo career.
“We’ll be doing some new songs, and many others that will, I assume, be familiar,” he said.
“I’m excited. This is the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense, so fingers crossed.”
David Byrne plays Dublin’s 3Arena on October 24, tickets priced from €49.50 available at Ticketmaster.