David Byrne Regrets Talking Heads’ Bitter Split: ‘I Was a Little Tyrant’

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The forthcoming re-release of the Talking Heads’ 1984 classic “Stop Making Sense” — which is universally regarded as one of the greatest concert films ever made — has put the long-defunct group more in the spotlight than they’ve been in decades.

A day after it was announced that the four members will be onstage together for the first time since 2002 for a Q&A at the Toronto Film Festival, frontman/songwriter David Byrne has expressed some regret over the group’s contentious split in the late 1980s. “As a younger person, I was not as pleasant to be around.

When I was working on some Talking Heads shows, I was more of a little tyrant,” he told People magazine in an interview published Thursday. “And then I learned to relax, and I also learned that collaborating with people, both sides get more if there’s a good relationship instead of me telling everybody what to do. “I think [the end] wasn’t handled well,” he concluded. “It was kind of ugly.” The other members of the group — cofounders Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth (who are married) and keyboardist-guitarist Jerry Harrison — have spoken out often about Byrne’s behavior; Frantz in particular took several shots at him in the 2020 memoir “Remain in Love.” He has long said that he read in a newspaper that Byrne had decided to leave the band, after nearly 20 years and eight albums.

Byrne says now, “I have regrets on how that was handled. I don’t think I did it in the best way, but I think it was kind of inevitable that would happen anyway,” he says.