David Byrne Rules Out Talking Heads Reunion Plans: ‘You Can’t Turn the Clock Back’

Close to 34 years since their split, the chances of a Talking Heads remain as distant as ever, with frontman David Byrne asserting such an event will never happen.

Byrne’s comments were shared in a recent interview with Rolling Stone in anticipation of his Who is the Sky? album, which arrives just days before the launch of a global tour in September.

According to Byrne, the forthcoming live dates will likely see him “mix and match” some older Talking Heads material into the set, though he’s aware that doing so is 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,” he explains. “You cash in really quick, but then you’ve dug yourself a hole.”

Byrne’s new album is his first since 2018, and in the ensuing years, there have been plenty of discussions about whether a Talking Heads reunion may ever occur. In 2023, Bryne and his former bandmates – Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison – appeared together for the first time since 2002 as part of the Toronto International Film Festival to celebrate the re-release of their Stop Making Sense concert film.

However, chances of a reunion seemed slim even then, especially following news the group had turned down a reported $80 million offer for a series of shows in late 2023.

Reflecting on the experience of reuniting with his bandmates for the Toronto International Film Festival, Byrne told Rolling Stone the experience was “OK.”

“We were all very proud of that show and the film that [director] Jonathan Demme did,” he explained. “We’re thrilled that audiences still wanted to see it. So we put aside whatever differences we have. I said, ‘OK, we’re not going to go there, but we’re going to help promote this thing.’”

Admitting that they “felt more comfortable with one another,” Byrne added that the experience didn’t make the notion of reuniting musically become more attractive. 

“Musically, I’ve gone to a very different place,” he explained. “And I also felt like there’s been a fair number of reunion records and tours. And some of them were probably pretty good. Not very many. It’s pretty much impossible to recapture where you were at that time in your life. For an audience … that was formative music for them at a particular time. They might persuade themselves that they can relive that, but you can’t.”

However, Byrne also admitted he understands the constant pleas and speculation from fans in regard to a reunion.

“I’m a music fan like other people. And there’s artists that stopped working, or bands that broke up, that I heard at a period in my life where music was very important,” he noted. “Maybe I never heard it when it was happening, I missed it. 

“I would love to see it live now. But you realize you can’t turn the clock back. When you hear music at a certain point in your life, it means a lot. But it doesn’t mean you can go back there and make it happen again.”

Talking Heads lasted from 1975 until 1991, with their 16-year career resulting in eight studio albums. 1983’s Speaking in Tongues was their most successful, peaking at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, with lead single “Burning Down the House” giving them their highest-charting single when it reached No. 9 on the Hot 100.

Though the group would split in 1991, their final live performances would take place seven years earlier as part of the Speaking in Tongues tour in 1984. They would later reunite for one solitary performance for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.