Arts & Entertainment

Talking Heads Jerry Harrison And Adrian Belew Bring ‘Remain in Light’ Retrospective To Music Hall

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Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads. (Photo credit: Michael Weintrob.)

July 17, 2024

By W.B. King–

On the heels of a nearly five-year run with the proto-punk band the Modern Lovers that penned seminal songs like “Roadrunner,” Jerry Harrison was invited to jam with the Talking Heads in 1976. The Harvard University graduate kept an open mind as he had plans to return to his alma mater to pursue a master’s in architecture (his bachelor’s thesis focused on painting, sculpture and drawing).

Earning a Magna Plus Cum Laude degree in Visual and Environmental Studies, Harrison was intrigued by many forward-leaning thinkers, including Claude Shannon and his classical information theory—a simple model of communication that focuses on signals and how they can be transmitted accurately and efficiently.

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“The amount of information in a given message is actually proportional to the degree of how unexpected it is,” Harrison said of the theory, which, in a sense, prepared him for what came next. Scheduled to audition as a keyboardist, the multi-instrumentalist bootstrapped it from Boston to New York City to see how things would shake out with Talking Heads lead singer and guitarist David Byrne, drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth—the trio had met while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design.

“A number of other keyboard players tried out for them. And they’d all tried to show off. I think the other members of the band were going, ‘Yeah, that guy was really great but I don’t get the feeling he was appreciating what we did,’” Harrison told The Hudson Independent, noting that he couldn’t manage to travel with his keyboard and showed up with a guitar instead. Regardless, when Harrison played with the group, the chemistry was undeniable—there was “magic” in the room, he shared.

“Chris is a fantastic drummer. He has this great feel that allows you to believe his beat. When you believe the drummer, you give up the idea that you’re setting the time and you play with that person’s time and that’s freeing,” Harrison said, adding that during subsequent jams he played keyboards and later double duty on guitar and vocals.

“David is also a fantastic rhythm player and had been playing with Chris since they had the band The Artistics.’ And when Tina joined, she had been listening to them playing together for a long time and, to a degree, David taught her how to play bass, and then, of course, she went on to become such a great bass player on her own,” he continued. “So, it was organic…they were off in their own world creating their music and the same thing was true of the Modern Lovers. We were off in our own world.”

Getting Away from Pomp and Circumstance

Prior to Harrison officially joining the Talking Heads in 1977, the new wave band had made a name for itself in the Lower East Side’s burgeoning art-rock, punk scene. While the group of upstarts played regional gigs, the epicenter of their lives was the now defunct CBGB, located on the Bowery and owned by the infamous Hilly Kristal.

“One of the things that was special about the bands coming out of CBGBs is that we were all ignored for quite a long time by the major music establishment,” Harrison said, adding that if you played at the club in those days, you could get into any show for free (they were all living hand to mouth on little money). “And so, for a few years, it was a very neutrally supportive scene. And I give great credit to Hilly Kristal…Hilly got the bar [proceeds] and the bands got the door [money].”

In Harrison’s estimation, there was a throughline from the music he subscribed to prior to joining the Modern Lovers and what came after. “You sort of have a chain that goes from the Velvet Underground to The Stooges to the Modern Lovers, and then to Patti Smith. And then it exploded with The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, and the various other bands that came out of CBGBs,” he said.

“Then, cross the Atlantic, with The Clash, the Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, all of these people and then to L.A. to X and The Blasters,” he continued. “What all of these bands shared is that a) they were not blues based and b) they were getting away from pomp and circumstance that started to infect music around the time of the Modern Lovers.”

Fertile Seat for Creativity

Growing up in Milwaukee, Harrison’s parents were creative types—his mother studied and taught art and his father, an advertising executive, played music. Their son followed suit playing guitar and other instruments in several groups, including The Walkers. After graduation in 1967, his high school bandmates also went on to have interesting careers.

The guitar player, for instance, played with Leonard Cohen for 25 years. The bass player became Johnny Winter’s bass player for 10 years and later played with Bo Diddley and Mick Taylor and the singer became the head of the American Institute for Architects, Harrison explained. Another band from his high school included members Jerry and David Zucker who went on to make comedic movies such as The Kentucky Friend Movie, Airplane! and The Naked Gun franchise.

“I was in a wonderful area. This little high school [Shorewood] north of Milwaukee…was a very fertile seat for creativity,” he recalled. Back then, his band were covering tunes by The Rolling Stones, The Who and Chicago-based blues bands like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, among others.

These disparate experiences, and those he encountered with the Modern Lovers years later, helped to give rise to the Talking Heads first album, Talking Heads: 77, which featured the first of the band’s many chart toppers, “Psycho Killer.”

“When I joined the Talking Heads, I realized that I was joining a trio. So, I would analyze each song and say, ‘What’s going to make this song better?’ It’s having a concise message in the music, having something to really say,” he continued. “And then sometimes not really worrying that you aren’t an expert musician, but that you can find a way to express through music, the emotion and the feeling you want to do. With punk, a lot of it, of course, was frustration and anger.”

The Talking Heads, Harrison said, would often switch instruments when practicing and writing music. “To be even more elemental or crude or just as a way to sort of shake things up.” The band would go on to release More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980). The pace at which records were made then, he said, was critical to the creative process.

“I think something got lost when people stopped making a record every year. The Talking Heads made four great records in four years. That meant that the audience and the record company didn’t expect you to repeat yourself because that would have been boring,” he said.

“Think about the difference between the [Rolling Stones’] Aftermath or Beggars Banquet or [The Beatles’] Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper’s [Lonely Hearts Club Band], I mean, they’re just completely different types of music,” Harrison noted. “I’m really happy that I was in a band back at the time that was the kind of expectation, and what people wanted was you to do something new.”

Tarrytown will Remain in Light

By the early 1980s, the Talking Heads welcomed new members to its touring company, including guitarist and singer Adrian Belew whose credits include work with Frank Zappa, David Bowie and Paul Simon, among many others. Belew performed with the band during their “Remain in Light Tour,” an experience that has always resonated with Harrison.

“Adrian and I never really lost contact with each other. And for a number of years, whenever we had dinner, we talked about how much we loved the [Remain in Light] YouTube video from 1980 in Rome…we wanted to use that as a blueprint to do something,” Harrison said. A few years back, this notion culminated in the duo forming an 11-piece band, which today channels the energy and passion from that touted time period. On August 4, the band will bring its creative stylings to The Tarrytown Music Hall.

“I’ve heard that is a great theatre,” Harrison said, adding that he is looking forward to the show and sharing this music. “It’s a big band with a very minimal crew. Everybody in this band works hard. Everyone is supportive and does everything they can to make sure our shows are great.”

The setlist from the noted 1980 show includes tunes like “Once in a Lifetime,” “Cities,” and “Take Me to the River,” among others, but the updated arrangements, including the addition of a horn section, has Harrison excited.

“Our show is pretty worked out, so if someone’s been at the show before, there’s gonna be a lot this is expected, but it’s also the beauty of listening to a song over and over again, [like] looking at a painting more than once,” he said, noting that the band will perform the album in entirety, among other standouts. “It’s not always about the freshness of stuff. It’s sometimes about the internal dialogue between what you know about something and pushing yourself to learn more about it when you when you look at it again.”

Stop Making Sense

While the Talking Heads officially disbanded in 1991, their fanbase has grown exponentially over the years. So much so that the core four band members recently regrouped to promote the remastering of their iconic documentary, Stop Making Sense (1984) that was directed by Jonathan Demme.

“The response has been very gratifying,” Harrison recalled of screenings that took place in June at The King’s Theater in Brooklyn and later at Hollywood Pantages Theatre (where the concert was originally filmed over three nights in 1983). “A great deal of this audience wasn’t born when this movie came out and yet, they are still dancing in the aisles—how fantastic.”

Harrison, who has produced numerous acts over the years, including the Violent Femmes, Live, Big Head Todd and The Monsters and Kenny Wayne Shepard, took the lead on remastering the movie. “It looks better than it ever did and sounds better than it ever did,” he said, noting that he utilized state-of-the-art media technologies. “I take a great deal of pride on the work I did on that.”

The members of the Talking Heads have crossed paths here and there over the years, including when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and performed a few of their hits. This movie screening short tour was the first time they have publicly appeared together since, although no music was performed live.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve all been collaborating on something or even in the same room,” Harrison said. “Stop Making Sense is something that we all feel a great deal of pride in and sort of really predates any problems in the band.”

As fans eagerly hope that the Talking Heads will reunite to perform or write new music, Harrison said, “I wouldn’t hold your breath,” but hinted at the possibility. “We’re really happy to celebrate what we’re doing right now,” he continued. “I’m not gonna say it’s impossible, but I think it’s unlikely. Personally, I think it’d be great to do it.”

For ticket information, visit: www.tarrytownmusichall.org.

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