“He had some good ideas. I remember when we met, he was eating an incredible amount of ice cream”: David Byrne on what happened when Talking Heads met Lou Reed

(Image credit: Jim Bennett/FilmMagic; Gus Stewart/Redferns via Getty Images)

Never meet your heroes. That’s what they say. Well, that’s terrible advice. What’s the worse thing that could happen? If they disappoint you, maybe you invested too much in them in the first place. And if they don’t, you just might learn something – and you might have a cool story to tell in the process.

Like when David Byrne met Lou Reed. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Byrne looks back on a young Talking Heads negotiating the burgeoning art and music scene of New York City in the 1970s. Reed used to come see them play.

“When we were starting out, we were big fans of the Velvet Underground,” says Byrne. “John Cale and Lou Reed came to see us at CBGB.”

This was a time when New York was not at its best – and yet it was. The housing might have been crumbling, the city’s economy flatlining, but that meant cheap rents, making it possible for artists and musicians from all kinds of backgrounds to live and work.

Could Talking Heads have happened today? There’s no way Byrne could afford to live on the Lower East Side on a part-time wage. But he could in 1974.

“It’s shocking how low the rent was, but that’s how funky the neighborhood was,” says Byrne. “And that allowed all of us to get a foothold. I had a part-time day job, but that was enough for me to contribute rent with the band roommates. So you could make your way. God forbid my parents would’ve visited.”

David Byrne – “The Avant Garde” (Official Lyric Video) – YouTube

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That milieu allowed young bands like Talking Heads to get noticed. When Cale and Reed would traipse up to the Bowery to catch their sets at CBGB, Reed liked what he saw. Reed saw the potential in the band. Anyone could. He wanted to make it official.

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“We met with Lou Reed a couple of times,” says Byrne. “He wanted to sign us to a management-production deal. But it was a little bit too much like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if we’re ready for this.’”

He wanted to sign us to a management-production deal. But it was a little bit too much like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if we’re ready for this’

Byrne offers Rolling Stone a fascinating perspective of that time. He admits Talking Heads were in “awe” of people like Reed and Cale. But knowing them opened doors. Cale introduced them to Brian Eno on their first trip to London.

Reed left quite the impression. There was the offer, sure. But never meet your heroes? You’d miss out on so much. How else would Byrne have learned that Reed had such a voracious appetite for ice cream?

“I remember when we met, he was eating an incredible amount of ice cream,” says Byrne. “I think he went through two of those quart containers of Häagen-Dazs ice cream in one sitting. We were like, ‘Whoa.’”

These are the kinds of Zen surrealist moments you can only get in cities like NYC in the 1970s. Reed had some good advice to share, too.

“We were playing through some of our songs, just strumming a guitar,” recalls Byrne. “And I remember he was showing us how if you slowed some of them down a little bit, that might not be the worst thing in the world, rather than trying to blurt out all the words really quickly. So, yeah, he had some good ideas.”

Byrne recently shared the second track from his forthcoming studio album, Who Is the Sky?, which is out on September 5 via Matador. Titled, The Avant Garde, it is a meditation on the risks every artist takes when they step outside of convention.

“Edgy and untraditional work is hugely inspiring to me, as it often changes the way I think and influences what I do (without me simply appropriating the ideas, I hope). That said, trying something unproven and radically new is risky,” says Byrne. “Sometimes, as with anything risky, it doesn’t quite hit the bullseye. There’s no guarantee that it will achieve what it aims to do, but when it does, the emotional and intellectual rewards are worth it.

“That is the risk one takes while making something new and unconventional. So yes, there are times when it doesn’t mean shit, but often there are times when something wholly original comes into being and it’s all worth it.”

Who Is the Sky? is available to pre-order. On September 14, Byrne heads out on tour. See David Byrne for full dates and ticket details.

Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to publications including Guitar World, MusicRadar and Total Guitar. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.