Talking Heads took their name from a TV Guide phrase: all content, no action
Three Rhode Island art students moved into a New York loft, opened for the Ramones at CBGB in June 1975, and borrowed their band name from TV slang for a head-and-shoulders shot. Within five years Talking Heads were fusing punk nerves with funk grooves and West African polyrhythms.
David Byrne and Chris Frantz had played together at the Rhode Island School of Design in a covers band called the Artistics, while Frantz's girlfriend Tina Weymouth often drove them to gigs. In New York they could not find a bassist, so Weymouth learned the instrument, partly by playing along to Suzi Quatro records, and Byrne made her audition three times. Jerry Harrison, formerly of the Modern Lovers, joined on keyboards and guitar in January 1977, and the debut album that year produced Psycho Killer, which many linked to the Son of Sam killings, though Byrne said he had written it years earlier.
Working with producer Brian Eno transformed them. Across three albums from 1978 to 1980 they absorbed Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti, reached the Top 30 for the first time by reworking Take Me to the River, an Al Green song, and gave the world the line about this being no party and no disco. Remain in Light layered West African rhythms, disco and found voices, and its single Once in a Lifetime slowly became a standard thanks to a video Time ranked among the greatest ever made.
Their commercial peak came in 1983 with Burning Down the House, their only American Top 10 single. Jonathan Demme filmed the tour as Stop Making Sense, often called the best concert film ever made, and Little Creatures in 1985 became their biggest seller. Tensions grew as Byrne took more control, and after Naked in 1988 the band drifted apart; Frantz said he found out Byrne had quit by reading the Los Angeles Times, with the split announced in December 1991.
The other three toured as Shrunken Heads and later recorded as the Heads, prompting legal action from Byrne. All four played together once more at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2002, and Rolling Stone later ranked them No. 100 among the greatest artists.
Source: Talking Heads
