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Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz has revealed what happened when the band finally split in 1991.
Speaking in his new biopic Remain In Love, the sticksman documented the band’s final meeting and said frontman David Byrne was so exasperated that the other members kept their cool when he announced their split, that he yelled: “You should be calling me an asshole.”
It’s believed that Byrne had been telling the other members for years that he wanted the band to break up, but they ignored him for their own purposes.
“We had heard this before, so we thought, ‘If we keep our cool, this will blow over and we’ll get to do another Talking Heads record’,” Frantz told The Guardian.
Despite their plan, the band never made another album and have only played together once since, for their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002.
Frantz insists he isn’t bitter about their history or jealous of the sustained success of the band’s former frontman has gone on to enjoy.
“It’s true that his public image has changed. But friends of mine assure me that he hasn’t. I think he probably just decided that he could catch more bees with honey,” he said.
“Believe me,” he added, “if you knew David Byrne, you would not be jealous of him.”
Frantz’s latest comments come after he recently admitted that he would like to reunite with the band, saying: “It would be nice if it could happen because unlike many of our contemporaries, we’re all still alive.”
“The last time I spoke with David it was regarding a reunion,” Frantz added. “First he said, ‘Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.’ I said, ‘Fine.’ That was on a Friday night.
“The following Monday I got an email saying, “I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again for the last time. I will never reunite with the Talking Heads. Please don’t bring this up again.’ This was 2003. I remember it was snowing, so it was winter time.”
Byrne has since dampened speculation about a Talking Heads reunion on many occasions – in 2017, he said that the prospect of getting the band back together would “probably be [taking] quite a number of steps backwards”.
Late last year, fans believed that a potential Talking Heads reunion was finally in the works, after the band appeared to launch an official Instagram account. The account hasn’t shared a single post, and isn’t verified as of yet.
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