INTERVIEW: Talking Heads’ Chris Frantz on his decision to ‘Remain in Love’
Image: Chris Frantz’s new memoir is called Remain in Love, which details, among other things, his marriage to Tina Weymouth, bassist of Talking Heads. Image courtesy of St. Martin’s Press / Provided from official site.
Chris Frantz, drummer of the ever-influential rock band Talking Heads, recently released a memoir whose title and subtitle say it all: Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina. The first of the “t’s” is the 1970-1980s band that logged such hits as “Psycho Killer,” “Burning Down the House,” “Once in a Lifetime,” “Road to Nowhere” and “Life During Wartime.” The middle “t” is another successful band that Frantz launched in the 1980s, a group responsible for “Genius of Love” and “Wordy Rappinghood.” The final “t” is the most important of all to Frantz: his wife and fellow band mate in both bands, Tina Weymouth.
In the book, the drummer opens up over the course of several hundreds of pages on how the bands formed, how he found love (i.e. Weymouth) at the Rhode Island School of Design, what it was like to play CBGB in the early days, the thrill of opening for the Ramones on a European tour, his thoughts on working alongside lead singer David Byrne, and how he ultimately found inspiration and a second home in the Bahamas.
There are many inside stories throughout the narrative, with Frantz offering commentary on everyone from Robert Palmer, a successful rock ‘n’ roller in his own right, to Hilly Kristal, the late owner of CBGB. The early years of him finding his calling in life are detailed in the first few chapters, and then Talking Heads takes over the story — and what a story it turned out to be. The band of “artists” created a sound unheard of in the music industry, and they kept their independence and musical freedom right into their somewhat anti-cathartic ending when they split apart. Frantz also writes about his days as a producer and the long-awaited celebration of having the Heads inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Nowadays, Frantz lives in Connecticut with Weymouth, and they still have their place in the Bahamas. Additionally, they visit Weymouth’s family’s house in Brittany, France, on a regular basis. The plan in 2020 was to have an extensive book tour for St. Martin’s Press, but COVID-19 disrupted the drummer’s travel schedule. So, instead, he has been sitting tight, waiting, like everyone else, for brighter days.
Recently Frantz talked with Hollywood Soapbox about his life and career. Here’s what he had to say …
On how long he has been thinking of writing a memoir …
A good 10 years, I think. I only got really serious about it, what, three years ago, and I said to my manager, ‘I want to do this.’ He said, ‘Great idea.’ I said, ‘I think I’m going to need a good agent.’ And he found me a good agent. The agent said, ‘Here’s what you’ve got to do, Chris. You’ve got to write an outline … and three chapters, and they’ve got to be good. And then we’ll sell it for you.’ I said, ‘Oh, OK.’
So I did that, and I handed it into them. They said, ‘This is good.’ They had a few suggestions, editing suggestions, and they were good suggestions. They said, ‘Well, you know, we’re going to London the day after tomorrow to the London Book Fair. Maybe we can get you a deal there.’ I said, ‘Great,’ and they were there for one day. They called me back, and they said, ‘We’ve got not one deal, but two.’
So I was very, very fortunate. It all happened very quickly, but then I had to sit down and actually write the thing. I got a big anxiety attack. I thought, oh my God, it’s one thing to write 10 pages; it’s another thing to write 400 pages. So I took a little CBD oil, you know that stuff, and it calmed me right down. A friend of mine said, ‘You should try some CBD oil,’ so I did. And it calmed me right down. I started writing, and a year and a half later I was finished. I wrote the book in three locations. Here in Connecticut I wrote a good portion, and then at Tina’s mother’s family home, which is in Brittany in France. We like to go there, and it’s a great place to write because it’s super-quiet. Then also down at Compass Point in the Bahamas. We spent a lot of time and made a lot of records there, so it was good to soak up those vibes while I was writing about it. And here we are today.
On his place in the Bahamas, which is detailed in the book …
We still have it. We love it. I haven’t been down since last November. I would like to go again, but I’m not sure I can go there right now, maybe I can. Anyway I’m not too crazy about the idea of flying right now.
On whether he thought about becoming a painter rather than a musician …
Art and music kind of go hand in hand. They’re really parts of the same thing. … I had played in rock bands as a teenager, and I played in my school band. I love music, love playing, but at a certain point I thought, ah, I’ll never be in a successful band. It’s just not going to happen for me, so I started thinking about painting. I started doing paintings and drawings, and I love to do that. I thought I’ll go to art school, and I went to art school. And everything was great, but after about a year and a half, I started really missing playing the drums.
So I got my dad to bring my drum set up from Pittsburgh in the family station wagon to Providence, and I started playing. I played with a soul band. Then I started a band with this guy named David Byrne. We were called The Artistics, and we would play at parties, our friends’ parties, a couple of school dances. We didn’t have a whole lot of gigs, but the ones we had were really fun. It started a musical relationship between David and myself and also Tina, who was not playing with us yet, but who was a very close friend.
On his initial thoughts when he met Tina Weymouth …
It was like a lightning bolt when I saw her. … I loved her style. I loved her appearance. I loved her ability to tell stories, and she had a really keen intelligence. So, to me, she was the perfect package. But she had another boyfriend, and I had another girlfriend. So I had to bide my time, which I did until the right moment, which came after we had known each other for a couple of years. It was good. We were already friends, and we just eased into a more romantic relationship.
On Weymouth’s contributions to making Talking Heads successful …
I think I’ve been quoted as saying without Tina Talking Heads would have just been another band. She definitely made us more unique. Tina’s very musical, but she didn’t have that background in rock ‘n’ roll of playing Chuck Berry songs and Beatles and Stones songs and stuff, blues. She came from a more classical background. She had played acoustic guitar and flute, and so she didn’t know all of those rock ‘n’ roll cliches. They never even entered her mind. She came from a different kind of aesthetic, and that was really important to the sound of Talking Heads.
On living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1970s …
It was like a hellhole, but it was our hellhole. It was a neighborhood where I could play loud music. We could play loud music into the wee hours of the morning. Nobody would stop us because there was nobody around. For three kids who grew up in very pleasant suburban homes, this was a real challenge. It was a concrete loft. It wasn’t one of these quaint wooden ones with a tin ceiling. It was all concrete, and sometimes when we played, if I hit the drums really hard, little bits of the ceiling would crumble and fall onto the drumheads. The bathroom was in the hall, which we shared with about 40 or so ladies who worked in the sweatshop next door. We had no shower. We had to go to our friends to take a shower. Our friends were so nice. They never said, ‘No, you can’t take a shower.’ I used to arrive with a towel, and I’d say, ‘Look, I brought you some soap.’ It was really rough. We didn’t so much live in the area where there were a lot of junkies, but we did have prostitutes and thieves and stuff. It was a challenge.
On how he remembered all of this history for the memoir …
I have the setlists still in my archives. I’m kicking myself because I didn’t keep a diary. All along I was saying to myself, Chris, you should be keeping a diary. Start a diary. But I never did. I even bought a couple of journals and never filled them in. I guess things were too distracting or something, but I am blessed with a good memory. And Tina had datebooks. Tina was our tour manager at the time, our road manager, and she would keep little calendar books. On each day, she would say what the venue was, how many tickets were sold, whether or not she thought the promoter was a good promoter, and how many encores we got that night. So I was able to look at those, and that was a big help because that triggered memories, you know.
On his memories of CBGB and Hilly Kristal …
He was very paternal that way, at least he was with us. He was generous, you know, and one of the best things Hilly did was if you had ever performed at CBGB, even just one time, you didn’t have to pay admission to get in in the future, so all these poor musicians could go there and hang out. You might even get a free beer if the bartender liked your band, so CBGB became a real clubhouse where people would hang out, even if their band wasn’t playing that night. When we were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Tina had the idea to invite Hilly to come up on stage with us. We did that, and I’m so glad we did. Without Hilly and CBGB, there might not be any Talking Heads or Television or Patti Smith, you know.
On heading to Europe as the opening act of the Ramones …
It was a very happy day when we got that call because for me personally I had never been to Europe or England before, so it was going to be my first time. We had never done a tour before. I mean, at that time, we couldn’t even get a gig in New Jersey, so when we were offered to support the Ramones, we thought, yeah, let’s do that. It was a very, very exciting time because we arrived in Europe during the explosion of punk rock, and the Sex Pistols had just released their album. ‘God Save the Queen’ was the #1 song. The Clash had just released their album. The Slits, the Damned, the Jam — all these great bands — Elvis Costello, everything was happening. It was such a great time to be in England and Europe, and the Ramones killed it every night. And so did we in our own way.
On whether Talking Heads was better live or in the studio …
I think we became a pretty good studio band, but in the beginning we were definitely a live band.
On his memories of working with David Byrne …
Well, David is just one of many characters in the book, and I didn’t want to in any way say anything that I didn’t think was important to say. I didn’t want to beat up on David or anybody else. I just wanted to tell the story that I thought was important to tell.
On what happened to their Long Island City loft …
We finally let that go. It was in the early ‘90s. For a long time, we went back and forth between our place here in Connecticut to our place in New York, and then we just decided it’s too hard, let’s just stay in one place. So if we want to go into New York and spend the night, we stay in a nice hotel. It’s much easier.
On whether he travels to the old New York City neighborhoods …
I do. I do. I think the building we lived in on Chrystie Street is being demolished and some new building put into its place, which is a shame. Actually it’s not such a shame because it wasn’t an architecturally great building or anything. The place in Long Island City is still there and still looks exactly the same, which is quite something.
On finding success with Tom Tom Club ….
It was a very, very pleasant surprise. Yes, it was amazing. … We had done very well with Talking Heads, especially our reputation as artists was very, very good. We were very fortunate in that respect, but we hadn’t had big commercial hits or anything. But that was fine because we weren’t really about quantity; we were about quality. The same is true for Tom Tom Club. We weren’t really about quantity, but we just managed to come up with something that totally connected with a lot of people. It was a lot of fun while it was happening.
On his memories of producing albums in the Bahamas …
It was a wonderful time. Being down there at Compass Point, you never knew who was going to knock on your door. One time it was [Mick] Jagger. Another time it was Joe Strummer. Another time it was Lene Lovich. The bands that came through there — AC/DC, the Stones, Sade, Madness … U2 came down — it was a real happening scene. Our neighbor across the street was Robert Palmer who became a good friend. He was a very interesting guy.
On how COVID-19 has disrupted his life …
Well, it’s a little weird. I was really looking forward to going out and meeting people and doing a real book tour where you shake hands and you sign books, lots of hugs and stuff like that. That’s not going to happen, so I’m a little disappointed about that. But, on the other hand, I wouldn’t really want to get in an airplane and fly America right now. Not a good idea. We’re kind of self-contained here. We do have a personal shopper now who goes to the grocery store for us, a nice college girl, but we’re pretty self-contained. I miss the parties on the beach in the summertime, but we’ve just got to grin and bear it, I guess.
On future plans for more music and tours …
I think there’s a good chance because I can still do it. Tom Tom Club might do something down the line in the future. Tina is talking about working on a book, which is a wonderful idea.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Remain in Love by Chris Frantz is now available from St. Martin’s Press. Click here for more information.
