David Byrne (b. May 14, 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, and filmmaker, who was a founding member of the American new wave band Talking Heads.
Byrne made his musical guest debut, as well as the Talking Heads made their only musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live on February 10, 1979, the eleventh episode of Season 4, hosted by actress Cicely Tyson. They perform "Take Me to the River" and "Artists Only" from their album More Songs About Buildings and Food.
He returned to Saturday Night Live to make his 2nd musical guest stint, as well as his solo musical guest debut on the November 18, 1989 episode, the sixth episode of Season 15, hosted by actor Woody Harrelson, star of the NBC's hit series Cheers. He performs "Dirty Old Town" and "Loco de Amor".
He returned to Saturday Night Live for his 3rd musical guest stint, his 2nd solo musical guest appearance and his first appearance for the first time in three decades on February 29, 2020, the fourteenth episode of Season 45, hosted by former SNL writer, stand-up comedian and actor John Mulaney. He performed "Once In A Lifetime" and "Toe Jam" with with the cast of the Broadway show American Utopia. He also appears in "Airport Sushi" sketch as a baggage handler.
By January 1975, they were practicing and playing together, while still working normal day jobs. They founded the band Talking Heads and had their first gig in June. Byrne quit his day job in May 1976 and the three-piece band signed to Sire Records in November. Byrne was the youngest member of the band. Multi-instrumentalist Jerry Harrison, previously of The Modern Lovers, joined the band in 1977. The band released eight studio albums to great critical acclaim and commercial success. Four albums achieved gold status (500K sales) and two others were certified double-platinum (2 million in sales). The Talking Heads were pioneers of the new wave music scene in the late 1970s / early 1980s with popular and creative music videos on the fledgling MTV network. This success lasted until the band went into hiatus in 1988. Byrne desired to go solo, but it took three years until 1991 to announce that the band was breaking up. The band had a brief reunion for the single "Sax and Violins" in 1991 before dissolving again. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, where they reunited to play three tracks, including "Psycho Killer" and "Burning Down the House".
During his time in the band, David Byrne took on outside projects, collaborating with Brian Eno during 1979 and 1981 on the album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which attracted considerable critical acclaim due to its early use of analogue sampling and found sounds. Following this record, Byrne focused his attention on Talking Heads. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was re-released for its 25th anniversary in early 2006, with new bonus tracks. In keeping with the spirit of the original album, stems for two of the songs' component tracks were released under Creative Commons licenses and a remix contest website was launched.
Rei Momo (1989) was the first solo album by Byrne after leaving Talking Heads, and features mainly Afro-Cuban, Afro-Hispanic, and Brazilian song styles, including popular dances such as merengue, son cubano, samba, mambo, cumbia, cha-cha-chá, bomba and charanga. His third solo album, Uh-Oh (1992), featured a brass section and was driven by tracks such as "Girls on My Mind" and "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now)". His fourth solo album, titled David Byrne (1994), was a more proper rock record, with Byrne playing most of the instruments on it, leaving percussion for session musicians. "Angels" and "Back in the Box" were the two main singles released from the album. The first one entered the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, reaching No. 24. For his fifth studio effort, the emotional Feelings (1997), Byrne employed a brass orchestra called Black Cat Orchestra. His sixth, Look into the Eyeball (2001), continued the same musical exploration of Feelings, but was compiled of more upbeat tracks, like those found on Uh-Oh.
Grown Backwards (2004), released by Nonesuch Records, used orchestral string arrangements, and includes two operatic arias as well as a rework of X-Press 2 collaboration "Lazy". He also launched a North American and Australian tour with the Tosca Strings. This tour ended with Los Angeles, San Diego and New York shows in August 2005. He also collaborated with Selena on her 1995 album Dreaming of You with "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)".
Byrne and Eno reunited for his eighth album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (2008). He assembled a band to tour worldwide for the album for a six-month period from late 2008 through early 2009 on the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour.
In 2012 he released a collaborative album with American singer-songwriter St. Vincent called Love This Giant. The album featured both Byrne and St. Vincent on vocals and guitar, backed by a brass section. To promote the album, both artists travelled throughout North America, Europe, and Australia on the Love This Giant Tour in 2012 and 2013, with each performing pieces from their career in the album’s distinctive brass band style alongside those composed for the album.
In January 2018, Byrne announced his first solo album in 14 years. American Utopia was released in March through Todo Mundo and Nonesuch Records. He also released the album's first single, "Everybody's Coming to My House", which he co-wrote with Eno. The subsequent tour – which showcased songs from American Utopia alongside highlights from his Talking Heads and solo career to date – was described by NME as being perhaps "the most ambitious and impressive live show of all time", blurring the lines "between gig and theatre, poetry and dance".
In 1981, Byrne partnered with choreographer Twyla Tharp, scoring music he wrote that appeared on his album The Catherine Wheel for a ballet with the same name, prominently featuring unusual rhythms and lyrics. Productions of The Catherine Wheel appeared on Broadway that same year.
He was chiefly responsible for the stage design and choreography of the concert film Stop Making Sense (1984).
Byrne wrote the Dirty Dozen Brass Band-inspired score Music for "The Knee Plays", released in 1985, for Robert Wilson's vast five-act opera The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down.
He wrote, directed, and starred in True Stories (1986), a musical collage of discordant Americana, as well as produced most of the film's music. He was impressed by the experimental theatre that he saw in New York City in the 1970s and collaborated with several of its best-known representatives. He worked with Robert Wilson on "The Knee Plays" and "The Forest", and invited Spalding Gray (of The Wooster Group) to act in True Stories, while Meredith Monk provided a small part of that film's soundtrack. The musician provided a soundtrack for JoAnne Akalaitis' film Dead End Kids (1986), made after a Mabou Mines theatre production. Byrne's artistic outlook has a great deal in common with the work of these artists. The same year he also added "Loco de Amor" with Celia Cruz to Jonathan Demme's film Something Wild (1986).
His work has been extensively used in film soundtracks, most notably in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987), which won an Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Some of the music from Byrne's orchestral album The Forest was originally used in a Robert Wilson-directed theatre piece with the same name. The play The Forest premiered at the Theater der Freien Volksbühne, Berlin, in 1988. It received its New York premiere in December 1988 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The Forestry Maxi-single contained dance and industrial remixes of pieces from The Forest by Jack Dangers, Rudy Tambala, and Anthony Capel. Byrne released his soundtrack album in 1991.
Byrne also directed the documentary Île Aiye (1989) and the concert film of his 1992 Latin-tinged tour titled Between the Teeth (1994).
In Spite of Wishing and Wanting is a soundscape Byrne produced in 1999 for Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus's dance company Ultima Vez.
In 2003, Byrne guest starred as himself on a season 14 episode of The Simpsons. Released the same year, Lead Us Not into Temptation included tracks and musical experiments from his score to film Young Adam (2003).
In late 2005, Byrne and Fatboy Slim began work on Here Lies Love, a disco opera or song cycle about the life of Imelda Marcos, the controversial former First Lady of the Philippines. Some music from this piece was debuted at Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia in February 2006 and the following year at Carnegie Hall on 3 February 2007.
In 2008, Byrne released Big Love: Hymnal – his soundtrack to season two of Big Love, which aired in 2007. These two albums constituted the first releases on his independent record label Todo Mundo. Byrne and Brian Eno provided the soundtrack for the film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010).
In 2015, he organised Contemporary Color, two arena concerts in Brooklyn and Toronto, for which he brought in ten musical acts who teamed up with ten color guard groups. The concerts were made into a 2016 documentary film, directed by Bill and Turner Ross, and produced by Byrne.
He collaborated with Stanford University professor Mala Gaonkar in 2016 to co-create NEUROSOCIETY, a guided immersive theater performance.
In October 2019, his American Utopia opened at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. Byrne appeared in comedian John Mulaney's children's musical comedy special John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (2019), where he performed the song "Pay Attention!" His song "Tiny Apocalypse" was also featured as the special's end credits song.
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