{"id":43688,"date":"2025-08-13T14:02:47","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T14:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/13\/new-album-talking-heads-olivia-rodrigo-tour\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T14:02:47","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T14:02:47","slug":"new-album-talking-heads-olivia-rodrigo-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/13\/new-album-talking-heads-olivia-rodrigo-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"New Album, Talking Heads, Olivia Rodrigo, Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\t\t<\/span>avid Byrne<\/a> strolls into his downtown Manhattan office around noon and promptly removes all of his footwear. He\u2019s been in this prewar building only for a few months, but it\u2019s already unmistakably his own, looking as much like a work space as it does like a museum of the unusual items he\u2019s collected throughout his decades as one of pop\u2019s most curious minds. Meticulously organized metal shelving lines one long wall full of music books, art books, history books, and enough DVDs to put the Criterion Closet to shame. An Oscar, a Grammy, and an MTV Video Music Award are positioned unobtrusively among kitschy treasures like an ancient can of macadamia nuts with Spam and a cassette of a speech by Bob Dole. \u201cIt took a while before everything was up and on the bookshelves,\u201d he says. \u201cBut once that happened, it was like, \u2018OK, we\u2019re home again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tNot long after we finish talking, Byrne will head into rehearsals for a 50-date North American tour in support of his excellent new album, Who Is the Sky?<\/a><\/em> (out Sept. 5 on Matador Records). At 73 years old, he\u2019s as full of restless energy as ever, eager to talk about the creative process behind this album, which he made with Top 40 producer Kid Harpoon, or about his recent onstage collaborations with stars like Olivia Rodrigo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s also well aware that much of the world would rather see him perform with Talking Heads<\/a>, the peerlessly inventive rock group he led with bass player Tina Weymouth, drummer Chris Frantz, and multi-instrumentalist Jerry Harrison before splitting under less-than-friendly circumstances in 1991. Byrne has built an impressively flexible solo career since then, making catchy and fascinating records with a widely varied cast of collaborators and selling out hundreds of nights on Broadway with his 2019 American Utopia<\/a> <\/em>show. But none of those triumphs got the public more excited than the promotional appearances he made last year with Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison for an A24 rerelease of Stop Making Sense<\/a>,<\/em> the 1984 concert film that is in many ways Talking Heads\u2019 magnum opus.<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tAnyone who\u2019s hoping to see Byrne reunite with Talking Heads is out of luck. At least they can look forward to seeing brilliantly reworked versions of some of their favorite songs in Byrne\u2019s current stage show. \u201cI can mix and match and have it adapt to the sound that I\u2019m doing at the moment without completely destroying the integrity of the older songs,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019m also aware that there\u2019s a real trap. If you do too much of the older material, you become a legacy act that comes out and plays the old hits. You cash in really quick, but then you\u2019ve dug yourself a hole.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographs by SACHA LECCA<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption>Grooming by Jennifer Brent with Forward Artists using Oribe<\/span><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe title of your new album originated in a misheard phrase, right?<\/strong>
Yes. Somebody was sending me a text using voice-to-text, and the algorithm got it a little bit wrong. And what came up on my phone was \u201cWho is the sky?\u201d And I thought, \u201cThat\u2019s a beautiful phrase.\u201d I know what they were really saying \u2014 it\u2019s pretty easy to tell, in English anyway. But I thought, \u201cI\u2019m going to put that on the list of album titles.\u201d And I realized that it fit in other ways. There\u2019s a lot of songs where I\u2019m asking, \u201cWho am I? Who is this? What is that about? Why do we do this?\u201d I also had this thought that the image on the record cover would be me partly hidden. So: \u201cWho is this guy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s an interesting question to ask about yourself this far into your career. It\u2019s not a debut album.<\/strong>
You\u2019d think at my age I would know who I am. But no, we\u2019re always still figuring it out. Figuring out who we are and where we belong and how we feel about things. We\u2019ll never really know all the answers.<\/p>\n

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