During an interview with Talking Heads founding members, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz on New York Magazine, both had a lot to reveal regarding their early days as a band. One of the interests shared by Tina was that in their developmental CBGB years they originally reached out to Debbie Harry to be their lead vocals. From NY Mag:
“Eventually, that led Chris to looking for other people. One person he asked to be our singer was Debbie Harry. Debbie said, “Well, I already have a band, but you can buy me a drink.”
An exciting revelation, but one can’t help but query if this is somewhat a post-breakup dig at David Byrne particularly provided some of the other quotes in the article. Tina states Byrne ‘freezing’ throughout a TV debut with Dick Clarke:
“I couldn’t explain to the record-label people why David’s behavior could be so incredibly odd. He had a freak-out on our first television appearance, on Dick Clark, on American Bandstand. David sort of froze, and Dick Clark sort of whirled around, and hands the microphone to me.”
What would Talking Heads sound like with Debbie Harry taking over on vocals for the band instead of David Byrne? We truly experienced that as Tina and Chris had her sing on their 1996 post-breakup record title song No Talking, Just Head.
Listen to the song below: