David Byrne reveals ‘how the trick is done’ in HBO’S ‘American Utopia’
In at least one way, David Byrne was well prepared for quarantine.
From last October to this past February, the former Talking Heads frontman performed six nights a week on Broadway as the star of “American Utopia,” a theatricalized version of a touring concert he’d taken on the road behind his 2018 album of the same name.
Which meant that for about four months this longtime habitue of New York’s cultural scene essentially had no nightlife.
“Actors in shows can’t meet people for dinner, they can’t go out and see other shows or see music,” he said the other day. “You go to work at 6 o’clock, you come back home. Your life really changes.”
So when “American Utopia” closed in February (with plans to return to Broadway in the fall), Byrne, 68, was looking forward to reconnecting with the city and with his friends.
Then the coronavirus shut down every place he might’ve met them.
“It was like, Nope! Still can’t go out to dinner,” he said with a glum little laugh in a Zoom call from his home. Dressed in a faded Austin City Limits T-shirt, his dark glasses and floppy white hair as cool-professorial as always, he added, “I miss being around lots of other people. You don’t realize how big a part that is of who we are as human beings until it’s taken away.”
Indeed, Byrne fans from back in the day may be surprised to hear how important other humans are to the famously standoffish singer who took an electric lamp as a dance partner in Talking Heads’ iconic 1984 concert movie, “Stop Making Sense.”
Yet the joy of togetherness undeniably suffuses a filmed rendition of “American Utopia” that premieres Saturday on HBO. Directed by Spike Lee, this new concert film based on the Broadway production presents Byrne as a kind of peptalking philosopher leading a large and lively band — each member of which wears a tailored gray suit to match the singer’s and carries his or her instrument across the Hudson Theater’s empty stage — through a well-chosen set of Byrne solo cuts and Talking Heads classics including “Once in a Lifetime” and “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody).”
Inspired in part by recent tours by Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce, the visually stark, lushly emotional concert also features a riveting performance of Janelle Monae’s call-and-response protest song “Hell You Talmbout,” which Lee punctuates with stirring images of surviving relatives of Black people killed by police.
The night before our talk, Byrne — who’s now set to bring “American Utopia” back to Broadway in September 2021 — said he’d actually gotten out of the house to take in a drive-in screening of the movie in Brooklyn.
“People honked their horns instead of clapping,” he said. “And, you know, the sound can be great, depending on the system you’ve got. But you step outside your car, which you’re discouraged from doing, and it’s so weird — just silent.”
Q: At the end of film, the camera follows you and your castmates backstage after the curtain call, and everybody’s hugging and high-fiving.
A: All these sweaty people. And everybody’s shouting. You go, Ewww — we don’t do that anymore.
Q: Have you thought about how live music returns?
A: A little bit. I heard from the comedian John Mulaney, who came to our show a lot; he said he’s done a few stand-up dates either outdoors or in some situation where the audience is really spread out. He said it’s very strange, but it feels much more real than a Zoom performance.
Q: Rock fans have been trained to think of a studio recording as the canonical version of a song. But there’s live stuff of yours from “Stop Making Sense” or “The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads” that feels just as definitive.
A: I agree. My default thing is to think of the recorded version as the official version, and then everything is based on that. But there were plenty of people at the Broadway show, I don’t know if they ever bought my last record. They would experience those newer songs live — as a performance, with the dance and the movement and the lyrics all together — and they seemed to love them.
Q: When did you start thinking about a concert as something that could be thought through? As opposed to the more improvisatory experience we like to imagine.
A: Like a lot of other people, I was of the opinion that for a rock show to be authentic, you can’t have it all planned out. Choreography and patter — that’s not giving the real emotions to the audience. But in the early ‘80s we were touring, and I went to see a lot of Asian theater in Japan and various rituals in Bali. I realized this is a kind of theater that doesn’t pretend to be an imitation of real life. And so the idea that theater should pretend to be naturalistic and gain its authenticity from that — well, that’s just not true. If I can do that in a way that really works, then I might actually make something that’s more emotional and engaging than if I simply stand there and sing my heart out.
Q: You put a lot of thought into your appearance onstage. Do you think about it in real life?
A: Not so much. I took my grandson for a walk to the kiddie park this morning, and I sure didn’t dress up for that. But it is true that if it’s a public thing I’m doing, how you present yourself is a kind of performance. I mean, I’m not Lady Gaga. But there’s an element of theater to it, and to pretend there’s not — at some point, I realized you have to own it.