1 Year Later: Talking Heads' 2023 Reunion

For decades, Talking Heads fans have wondered whether the four band members would ever appear together again. The band has had a rocky history following their 1991 breakup, both before and after the performance at their 2002 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. That was the last time they were all in the same places - until they were brought back together thanks to Stop Making Sense, A24, and a gradual rebuilding of bridges. On September 11th, 2023, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison appeared publicly together once again for the first time in over twenty years. After several years of revived Talking Heads activity (reissues, a new social media presence, and a website including merchandise), this appearance marked the beginning of a series of reunions that would occur throughout the following months. It's been a very exciting time to be a Talking Heads fan - and now, one year later, it's time to look back through how we got here, where we've been, and where we're going.

How Did We Get Here?

After releasing five landmark albums between 1977 and 1983, Talking Heads embarked on their final tour, which included filming concerts for Stop Making Sense in December 1983. Following Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads released three more albums, although without any live performances, and in December 1991 it was revealed they had broken up. Prior to their breakup, all of the members of Talking Heads had released albums and toured outside of the band in the 1980s, but their individual output during this time was mostly side projects and Talking Heads remained their main focus.

The band’s relationship became messy in the 1990s. The public rift between the band grew, including a lawsuit and badmouthing in the press. Despite David Byrne’s decision not to return to the band, Tina, Chris, and Jerry regrouped as The Heads. They released a single album together (No Talking, Just Head) and toured together with different vocalists in David’s place. The first time in the 1990s that David, Chris, Tina, and Jerry all publicly appeared together was in 1999. In very similar circumstances to the 2023 reunion, the band members got back together for a one-off Q&A at a film festival to answer questions about Stop Making Sense during an event celebrating its 15th anniversary with a remaster and rerelease.

It was only three years later, in early 2002, when Talking Heads reunited again, appearing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, after being voted to be inducted in their first eligible year. They played four songs together- “Psycho Killer”, “Burning Down The House”, “Life During Wartime”, and, during an often forgotten moment from the ceremony, “Take Me To The River.” This performance was a fleeting moment, as the four never publicly gathered together for over 20 years after that night. In the time that passed, Chris and Tina remained married and active as Tom Tom Club, Jerry Harrison continued as a producer, and David continued his solo career. When interviewed, the band members would often be asked whether they'd ever get back together, and David, in particular, was always quite clear that he had no intention of reforming Talking Heads.

By the late 2010s and early 2020s, there seemed to be more activity around the band. Jerry announced that he would be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Remain in Light by touring with Adrian Belew, who was a member of the extended band on the original album and tour in 1980. Chris Frantz was working on his book, Remain in Love. David Byrne was performing his show on Broadway, American Utopia. In December 2019, an official Talking Heads account was created on Instagram, which then fuelled rumors the band would be getting back together, although this was not the case. Around this time, the band was gradually improving its online presence, with this initial move mainly being made to prevent impersonating accounts. However, I think it can be looked at as sort of the first (or 0th) action in a chain of events of new band activity.

Things really kicked off in 2022. The first post on the band's Instagram account was made in May, with a photo of one of their performances from the 1970s. People interpreted this as hints of a tour announcement - the assumptions make sense, considering how any typical broken-up band doing this would likely represent a reunion announcement. But Talking Heads are not a straightforward band. A few months later, in September 2022, fans witnessed a shocking sight, as photos were shared of David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Jerry Harrison together on Zoom calls. Before this, Jerry had met with Chris & Tina as well as David, but David had stated that the most he had communicated with Chris over the years was by email and that he had not communicated with Tina at all. The photos of the Zoom meetings got people very excited to find out what Talking Heads was working on. September 16th was the 45th anniversary of the first Talking Heads album, and it was marked with an announcement of Atmos mixes for all albums, as well as the launch of the official Talking Heads website.

Also on the 45th anniversary of Talking Heads: 77, a conversation between Jerry Harrison and two Talking Heads technical collaborators, Ed Stasium and ET Thorngren, took place in Los Angeles. Across the following weeks and months, the band’s activity grew. Music videos were remastered, more merchandise was released, more vinyl was reissued, and the band's Instagram was regularly posting photos of the band and promoting the new releases.

In February 2023, the band announced that on Record Store Day (April 22nd) they would be releasing an expanded double vinyl of each of their 1981 albums released outside of Talking Heads: The Catherine Wheel, Tom Tom Club, and The Red And The Black.

In March 2023, the Stop Making Sense revival officially began. For a long time, there had been demand to release the live album in full on vinyl and comments on Reddit from Jerry's manager had confirmed that they were working on doing this for the first time. The announcement on March 16th was even more than people saw coming - a full re-release of Stop Making Sense. Talking Heads released a trailer where David Byrne wears his big suit again, with details that the film would be coming back to theaters later that year, distributed by A24. They also announced a long-awaited double LP of Stop Making Sense, which would be released in August. In May, the band shared photos that demonstrated the difference in the new restoration of the film. In July, Talking Heads released their first single in 30 years - a live version of “Cities” from Stop Making Sense. The song was not included in theatrical versions of the film but had been available as a bonus feature on physical copies. On August 16th, Talking Heads announced that the premiere of the Stop Making Sense restoration would take place at Toronto Film Festival on September 11th. On August 17th, the band released a new trailer for the film and announced release dates as September 22nd for IMAX theaters and September 29th in standard format. On August 18th, Talking Heads released the full Stop Making Sense live album, for the first time including “Cities” & “Big Business / I Zimbra”.

Oh, and there was also one other little detail that people discovered on August 10th - David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison would all be appearing together at Toronto International Film Festival on September 11th.

Where We've Been

As the Talking Heads fan community counted down the days to the band’s Toronto reunion, there was a lot of anticipation - both good and bad. Obviously, there was a massive amount of excitement about seeing their favorite band together again after so long - such a rare occurrence that people didn't expect to ever happen with Talking Heads. Among fans who were more familiar with the band's conflicts, there was also a sense of dread for the ways this reunion could go wrong - but in the end, everything went well!

The increase in public activity from the band culminated in their first public appearance together in over twenty years on September 11th, 2023. At that point, the last photos of Talking Heads in one place had been taken in March 2002, which was 21 and a half years before this. It was a special, emotional moment when the first photo emerged of David, Jerry, Chris, and Tina all standing side by side. It felt surreal, almost unimaginable, yet here it was - they were together!

While A24's restoration of Stop Making Sense premiered at the film festival, it was also simultaneously shown in various IMAX movie theatres across the US (in what was called a "simulcast"). After the film and a short break, Talking Heads sat together at the side of the TIFF screen, ready to participate in their first Q&A together since 1999. The Q&A was also broadcast live to the theaters that had one of the early screenings of Stop Making Sense, and was shown at screenings across the UK in the evening on September 12th.

The Q&A featured questions by film director Spike Lee, known for films such as Do The Right Thing. He had already crossed paths with David Byrne a few times, most notably directing the film version of David Byrne's American Utopia (2020), David's Broadway show that ran from 2019 to 2022. Spike Lee was very enthusiastic and energetic to be asking questions to Talking Heads, as I'm sure most fans would be in that scenario - although some people found that this dampened the quality of the interview.

This article is focused on listing the events that happened relating to Talking Heads reunions, so it won’t get into the details of the questions and answers - some other articles out there do that, although the best way to experience would likely be recordings on YouTube. At the time of writing this (September 2024), no official recording of the interview has been released yet, but there are a few audience recordings on YouTube from TIFF and the other theaters that showed it.

In addition to appearing for a Q&A, while in Toronto the band took part in a photoshoot session with Joel Ryan and was interviewed by Jake Coyle for AP. While appearing on the red carpet and mingling with others at the festival, they were also interviewed by Ella Kemp, listing their favorite films for Letterboxd's "Four Favorites" series. There were also cookies!

Although it wasn't given a prominent announcement, Talking Heads continued their reunion Q&As throughout the middle of September. After the film festival in Toronto, they headed down to New York City. On September 13th, they held their first-ever public Q&A (I don't think a small film festival audience really counts, and considering the "press" in their 1999 "press conference" I don't think that does either - this was the first time the general public could casually buy tickets to see them answering questions), which took place at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), and featured John Heilemann as the moderator who asked the band questions submitted online by audience members before the event.

While in New York, the band visited A24's office, and Andy Cush interviewed them for Pitchfork. It was released as an article on September 21st then as a podcast episode on September 28th, and aside from Stop Making Sense it also covered topics including Speaking in Tongues, P-Funk, and CBGB's. Before leaving New York, Talking Heads also attended a private invite-only screening of Stop Making Sense at Metrograph, which included family, friends, and other musicians such as Jerry Harrison's former Modern Lovers bandmate Ernie Brooks, Laura Lee of Khruangbin, and Kimbra who had previously been a supporting act for David Byrne's American Utopia tour.

Talking Heads next took their little Q&A tour to Los Angeles, with appearances scheduled after two screenings of Stop Making Sense. On September 18th, the first of these Q&As took place at Vidiots and was moderated by the legendary bassist Kim Gordon (who played in another influential band from New York, Sonic Youth). On the 19th, the band continued on to Santa Monica's Aero Theatre with the director Paul Thomas Anderson moderating. Like in New York, both of these Q&As included questions submitted by audience members before the event.

Throughout all of these events, there were several Talking Heads associates following the band around and sometimes appearing during their photoshoots and Q&As. This includes some people from the band's management teams like Shawn Dailey and Tomas Cookman, as well as Stop Making Sense producer Gary Goetzman who made a special appearance on stage during the Q&As. There was an extra special surprise at the Aero Theatre, as the crowd was lucky enough to witness Stop Making Sense percussionist Steve Scales and backing vocalists Lynn Mabry & Ednah Holt join the stage! This event became a reunion of 7 out of the 9 performers in the film, with the absence of keyboardist Bernie Worrell (who had sadly died in 2016) and guitarist Alex Weir (who would later appear with the band for a Q&A in June 2024).

At the time, the screening on September 19th was the final event lined up for the band. On October 2nd, David Byrne was also announced to be appearing for an interview with Seth Meyers on October 5th, where he ended up discussing the Stop Making Sense reunions and his ongoing Broadway musical Here Lies Love. The next day, October 3rd, news emerged that Talking Heads would be regrouping for their own TV appearance, being interviewed by Stephen Colbert on October 18th on The Late Show, although this was postponed by a week to Wednesday October 25th due to Stephen Colbert being ill with COVID-19.

Talking Heads gathered together again in New York City, and during those days together they participated in photoshoots and interviews, as well as David Byrne and Jerry Harrison hanging out and visiting Here Lies Love together. The 25th arrived, and Stephen Colbert gave the band a very warm welcome during their second full-band interview on late-night television, with the only other instance being when the band was interviewed by Dick Clark on American Bandstand in 1978. After the interview, the band's promotional tour seemed to come to an end. Stop Making Sense was in theaters worldwide, and although people were still waiting for the physical release and streaming release, there were no events featuring the band in the remainder of 2023.

After the initial theatrical run of Stop Making Sense, monthly screenings of Stop Making Sense were scheduled across certain cities, starting on the final Saturday of January 2024 (the 27th) and continuing on the final Saturday of each following month. Those attending January's New York City screening at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn were in for a treat. It wasn't quite a full reunion, but just before the film started there was a surprise appearance by the founding trio of Talking Heads - David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth. They didn't stop for long, but they said a few words to introduce the film, in an unexpected moment that the audience will never forget (and anybody who arrived late will forever regret). Jerry Harrison also appeared at a screening in San Francisco to introduce the film

On January 10th, Talking Heads Fans were given a completely different surprise when A24 teased an upcoming Stop Making Sense tribute album featuring 16 artists covering the 16 songs. The first track to be released was “Burning Down the House” covered by Paramore. At the end of the month, the full list of artists was revealed including a few other big names like Lorde, Miley Cyrus, and Girl in Red. The album was fittingly titled Everyone's Getting Involved, a line taken from the same part of “Girlfriend is Better” as "Stop Making Sense". Over the next few months, singles were gradually released and eventually a release date was announced of May 17th.

On February 15th, the band announced yet another surprise Talking Heads release - their first live album since Stop Making Sense, Live at WCOZ 1977 which featured the full concert that was partially included on The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads in 1982. At time of writing, it has only been released as a Record Store Day exclusive 2LP on April 20th 2024. Another exciting item released for Record Store Day vinyl was a single featuring Paramore's cover of “Burning Down the House” and a brand new cover of Paramore's song Hard Times,” performed by David Byrne.

Throughout the first half of 2024, A24 continued to roll out more Stop Making Sense merchandise, as well as the DVD and Blu-Ray releases of their restoration - with a variety of deluxe bonus features available. This notably included newly reconstructed scenes for the outtakes "Cities" and "Big Business / I Zimbra", which had never been upgraded to the same quality as the rest of the film. Due to problems with the source material, they had to use angles never seen before - the first time that any new angles of Stop Making Sense footage had been released from the master tapes in the 40 years since the film released!

On April 26th, Talking Heads announced "A Night of Stop Making Sense" - a pair of special screenings that would once again include Q&As with the band. Just like September 2023, the locations would be New York City and Los Angeles, although this time the New York screening would take place at Brooklyn's Kings Theatre, and the Los Angeles screening would take place at Hollywood's one and only Pantages Theatre - where Stop Making Sense was filmed back in 1983.

On June 4th, the Pantages Theatre once again hosted the legendary concert that Talking Heads performed there over 40 years earlier, except this time as a film. Before it started, Blonshell performed “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel”, the song she covered on Everyone’s Getting Involved. And after the luckiest crowd of our time got to party through this concert film projected onto the same stage where it took place, the band members came on stage to answer questions submitted by the audience. Clearly the answer to David Byrne’s “does anybody have any questions?” was yes. The moderator for this event was originally scheduled to be Fred Armisen (who had performed in the style of David Byrne during a Stop Making Sense parody band called “Final Transmission” in the show Documentary Now!, but unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts he couldn’t attend so the role was filled by actor Andy Richter. Although Ednah Holt and Steve Scales did not appear for this Q&A, Lynn Mabry was in the audience again, and this time the Stop Making Sense guitarist Alex Weir attended, receiving a lot of applause when Tina brought attention to him.

On June 13th, the band was back in New York City for the final date of their Q&A tour, this time moderated by The Roots icon Questlove, who had already held a public conversation with David Byrne and performed with him several times. Before the screening, this event also featured another artist from Everyone’s Getting Involved, The Linda Lindas, who performed their cover of “Found a Job”. The same night, an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon aired in which Fallon interviewed Talking Heads in the same fashion as their October interview with Stephen Colbert. The interview, recorded on June 12th, was then released on YouTube and included more extended moments not broadcasted on TV. The Linda Lindas also performed “Found a Job” on the show that night.

Where We're Going

Now we know where we’ve been, but do we know where we’re going? For the most part, yes! There aren’t any events scheduled featuring Talking Heads together, and they’ve not expressed any intentions to perform music together, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Most notably, the band recently announced that in November they will be releasing a super deluxe edition of their debut album, Talking Heads: 77, featuring a range of new material, with different options available including a 2LP where the second LP is entirely outtakes and demos, many of which were already available but never so nicely packed together, and a 4LP (or 3CD) version featuring a recording of Talking Heads playing on October 10th, 1977, which was their final show at CBGB’s. The super deluxe release also comes with a special book that includes photos and brand new liner notes written by each band member.

It likely won’t be too much longer after that before we get more expanded editions of each Talking Heads album, and we still have a wider release of Live At WCOZ 1977 to hope for. Stop Making Sense returns for screenings around the world on October 2nd, and will continue being a popular choice for years to come. Meanwhile, outside of the band, David Byrne has been at work on a brand new solo album featuring Ghost Train Orchestra. It may be a few months away from getting an official announcement, but a lot of details are known and it’s looking very exciting! David will also be appearing at two events related to his organization Reasons To Be Cheerful, one in New York on October 8th and one in Texas on October 16th. Tom Tom Club have also revealed that they have a new album in the works. 2023 and 2024 have both undeniably been two of the most significant years in Talking Heads history but there’s plenty that’s yet to come!

(Note: this article will receive several edits across the next few days with additional images and links)