After more than five decades of searching for new ways to connect music, movement, and ideas, David Byrne is still most energised by the unknown. The musician, writer, visual artist, and filmmaker will return to Singapore with his Who Is the Sky? tour on 7 August at The Star Theatre, opening the tour’s Asia leg.
The production brings together 13 musicians, singers, and dancers, including members of the American Utopia band, with every performer free to move throughout the set. It accompanies Byrne’s first album since American Utopia, produced by Kid Harpoon and arranged by New York chamber ensemble Ghost Train Orchestra.
Ahead of the Singapore show, Byrne spoke to Bandwagon about starting each project without all the answers, finding clues to human behaviour in ordinary details, and creating a live world in which everyone shares the spotlight. He also reflected on younger listeners discovering Talking Heads, what cities reveal about their values, and the mystery that continues to run through his work.
After more than five decades of making music, what still excites you about beginning a new project?
Although there’s a connecting thread, I assume that I should try and do something different with each project. Start over, almost. Go where I don’t know all the answers ahead of time and see what happens. Learn as you go. I’ve failed sometimes, but what surprises me is how often my collaborators and I manage to figure it out.
In putting this tour together, I got asked, “What’s it about?” “What are you trying to say?” Well, I didn’t know at first — I trusted that, as we all began to work on it, it would reveal what it wanted to be. That’s all exciting for us who are making it, and the audience senses that excitement as well.
You’ve said that ‘Everybody Laughs’ came from wanting to take “an anthropological view of life in New York.” What is it about observing everyday human behaviour that continues to inspire you creatively?
By pairing opposites — laugh/cry, live/die — I imagined I could paint a place where both exist simultaneously, without judgement. Then mix in some beautiful but mundane details and places — subway station ceilings, mobile phones in restaurants — as a way of celebrating the ordinary. I still haven’t got myself or human behaviour figured out, but I sense that a clue might lie in the details.
The Who Is the Sky? live show features musicians, singers, and dancers moving throughout the performance. What possibilities does that kind of staging create that a traditional concert setup doesn’t?
On my previous tour, I discovered I could untether all the musicians — it was possible to allow everyone to move anywhere on the stage rather than being rooted to a drum kit or an amplifier. It was liberating. It also meant that everyone got to share the spotlight — no one was stuck in the shadows at the back of the stage. The audience got to meet everyone and know them a little bit as unique personalities.
So, with this show, I couldn’t go back. I had to build on what we’d done before. I added more dancers who are also incredible singers, and I put us in various locations using a curved video screen: a forest, a New York street, my apartment, a party, above the clouds.
In Bicycle Diaries, you wrote about cities as physical expressions of social and personal values. Singapore has such a distinctive urban landscape — when you arrive in a city for a show, what details tend to tell you how that city works?
It’s in the details. How do people interact, and how do they relate to one another? Do the structures they’ve built for themselves reflect how they see themselves? Other places have a lot to learn from Singapore — the availability of housing, the mandatory public service, the mix of cultures — these values are physically manifested.
Since the restoration of Stop Making Sense, many younger listeners have been discovering Talking Heads and your solo work for the first time. Have any of their reactions surprised you?
That a generation much younger than me is enjoying what we did back in the day is very moving and, yes, a little unexpected. I sense that they find there is something authentic there, that we weren’t consciously striving for hits, and we tried things that were a little unusual and didn’t care who was watching — maybe that’s been inspirational for folks.
Looking back at your body of work, is there a question or idea that you find yourself returning to again and again, even if the projects themselves look very different on the surface?
The mystery of what it means to be human — to fall in love, to work with one another, to dance together, sing together — how does that beautiful thing happen?
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You’ve spoken about becoming more willing to step outside your comfort zone as you’ve gotten older. Is there anything you’re creatively curious about now that you might not have pursued earlier in your career?
Yes, I got curious some years ago about the phenomenon called “Sleeping Beauties” — when a good idea or work gets forgotten and then, at some point, is revived, appreciated again, and awakened. We all have examples of this that we know. I decided to spend time collecting examples of this phenomenon, and after many years of work, I have a book about it.
As you prepare to bring Who Is the Sky? to Singapore, what are you most looking forward to sharing with audiences on this tour?
I have noticed that while the singing, the playing, the dancing, and the songs are all important, what really comes across is the world of possibility we imagine and create on stage — it’s hard to explain, but audiences sense it.
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