Chris Frantz/David Byrne
Chris Frantz David Byrne
It seems that ex-Talking Heads drummer, Chris Frantz, has recently published a memoir and there seems to be quite a lot of David Byrne bashing involved. I just thought I tell you about my experiences with David.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with David a few times in the 90s and 2000s and from my perspective I didn’t witness any unpleasant traits or behaviors whatsoever. In fact I’d say he’s probably the coolest, most pleasant, down to earth rock star I’ve worked with.
I first worked with him in 1997, mixing his album Feelings. When my manager first told me about the gig, I was well into a solo six month road trip, driving around the US in a van - recuperating from working on an album with another 80s icon which had been extremely challenging to say the least. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to go into a studio ever again. I didn’t immediately jump for joy at the news of the gig mixing David’s record because I imagined that he could well be the epitome of a huge 80’s ego manic rock star. That he certainly is not!
Our first conversation was on the phone - I think I might have been in Death Valley, Nevada at the time. It was very awkward. David sounded painfully shy on the phone. I wanted to finish his sentences for him just to put him out of his misery.
A few weeks later I’m trying to manoeuvre my two big flight cases packed with gear towards the service entrance of the Manhattan building in which Room With A View, the studio that was booked for the Feelings album mix, was located. Out of the corner of my eye, a black bike pulled up beside me and David hopped off. Not a fancy bike at all - not something that anyone would be dying to run off with. David introduced himself and said ‘let me give you a hand’. That felt like a very good sign - empathy from a major rock star! I had quite a few bands from England coming to work in my studio in NYC and inevitably, at some point, they’d excitedly tell me that they’d seen David Byrne on his bike somewhere in the city. One band told me they’d flagged him down and taken a picture with him in Times Square. He was always out and about on his black bike. He was always out a gigs in the city too. I saw him at a few. Someone told me that if anyone ever recognized him and tried to let him in for free, he’d absolutely insisted on paying.
When we got into the studio, David produced a classy little box of chocolates to share. Another bloody good sign! There was nowhere near the awkwardness of the earlier phone call but he was definitely on the shyer side. Before we started, he asked how I’d like to work - did I want him there all the time, or would I prefer to work on my own and for him to come in to listen when the mix was close to being finished? I opted for the latter as I think that the artist shouldn’t necessarily be listening to the song over and over again if they don’t have to - best for the artist to come in fresh to listen to it after the grunt work has been done. They are hopefully going to be playing that song night after night for many tours to come - it’s better they don’t get sick of it at the mixing stage. David then listed various events that he had coming up during our mixing time - guitar lessons, Spanish lessons, an opening of an art installation somewhere outside of the city etc. I was struck with how much energy and enthusiasm he had for all of these things. I was impressed that a major rock god would still be taking guitar lessons. This was clearly a guy that didn’t want to stagnate.
Some of the Feelings album was co-produced by the guys from the UK band Morcheeba and had been recorded in a garage in London somewhere. Recording conditions weren’t exactly perfect and on one occasion I heard a dog barking on David’s vocal mic……he wasn’t bothered about it. He was extremely chilled about imperfections which seemed very refreshing.
Mixing for David was speedy and extremely pleasant. I’d do my thing for a few hours and then David would come in, notebook and pencil in hand, listen through a couple of times, make a minimal amount of notes and then together we’d swiftly adjust a few parts. He’d tick off his notes and that was it. We never slaved over a single track for hours on end or days. David always seemed to remain focused on the bigger picture. He told me that he never likes to work on a track for more than three days - and he also came to an album recording with more tracks than he needed (in the case of Feelings we had 18 tracks) because as he said, ‘I don’t want to be in the position of being in a studio with just the right number of tracks for a record and find out that one or two don’t work out as well as expected - and then be under pressure to write a couple more songs during the studio sessions’. Remarkably sensible.
We were working on Christmas Eve and the 24inch tape from a Morcheeba session in London hadn’t arrived in time for the days session. So, rather than waste a day of studio time, David said ‘let’s record a new song…..I’ll jump on my bike and go get my laptop. That day we recorded and mixed a new song. It was pretty effortless. We only had a couple of days off for the Christmas break and when we resumed, I asked David if he’d had a good time and he told me that he’d been climbing a mountain in Mexico! I thought ‘boy, this guy does not let the grass grow under his feet does he?’.
When Feelings came out, I saw David play a gig in Manhattan and it was very odd to see this pretty shy guy being completely out there on stage. He was wearing kilt and doing the awkward white man dancing that he specializes in…legs and kilt flying all over the place. At another gig I went to, when I arrived, David was outside having a smoke and casually talking to the fans standing in line to get in the gig. What rock star in his right mind does that? Didn’t he realize that he’s supposed to remain aloof and wait it out in his lonely dressing room to keep the mystery alive? When it was time for him to go in, he said ‘see you guys soon’ - leaving a bunch of deliriously excited fans feeling extremely special. What a great piece of PR!
My next David Byrne experience was in my own studio when I was mixing four songs for Jim White in 2001, a cool and quirky artist that David had signed to his label Luaka Bop. David came along for part of the mixing. It was great to have him there, he was very reassuring to Jim and his calm and understated presence helped the mixes go extremely smoothly. Jim told me stuff about David that was good to hear too. Jim had been supporting David on tour. He told me that David took his bike with him and whenever they hit a new city, David would jump on his bike and find the local record shops. He’d then ask the staff to ‘give me four cds of local bands that I won’t of heard of’. Jim also told me that David was more often than not in the crowd watching his set and he was often invited by David to join him on stage too.
David Byrne, Jim white and myself at my studio in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC
Next up I think was the recording of a song called ‘Glass, Concrete and Stone’ at my studio. This was to be for the soundtrack for a film called ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ This was a very pleasant experience too. We had some great musicians including the great percussionist Mauro Refosco (also an integral part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers). It was a typical quirky Byrne song and equally quirky arrangement. Vibes were a big part of the song and the hired vibes that arrived at the studio had a problem. When certain notes were played there was a nasty vibration coming from the frame. I tried stuffing some kitchen towel in it to get rid of it, but then the vibration moved elsewhere. There had been plenty of people I’d worked with in the past that would have insisted that we send those vibes back and rent some more which would have have probably wasted a couple of hours at least - but with David, I just asked him if it bothered him and after listening to all the instruments playing together, he very quickly concluded that he was fine with it. Again, he was seeing the bigger picture.
On that session I was extremely impressed how David handled the musicians. Everybody had their chance for their creative input and to try different things - but what was so cool to witness was the very gentle way that David guided everything towards the way that he wanted it to be. There was no ‘I’m the big star here….do it my way’.
After the track was laid down, it was just David and I left in the studio to record the vocals. At one point he was showing me the lyric options he had and asked me which lines I preferred. I was thinking, ‘Christ, here’s the guy that wrote Pyscho Killer that was released when I was 16 and now, many, many hits later, he’s asking me my opinion about one of his lyrics!’
After mixing a song called UB Jesus for Davids album ‘Looking Into The Eyeball’, David asked me to mix some live recordings for him. He sent me a few gigs worth of material as he was going around. However, there was usually a spanner in the works. Being the frugal guy that he is, David decided that instead of taking a string quartet on tour with him, he’d just hire one in each city that he was playing in. So, a string quartet would show up for soundcheck and run through the set and then that was it, the next time they played with the band would be the actual gig! This didn’t work out so well. I would listen to the live recordings and hear strings playing totally in the wrong places. On one gig, I soloed the string players’ mics and heard one of them saying desperately ‘where are we?!’ and another string player responding ‘I don’t know….maybe bar 64!’. Well, when David got to Nashville he hired a quartet called Tosca Strings. These guys were on a whole different level. David immediately realised this and hired them on the spot for the rest of the tour. These guys improved the string arrangements no end and were a very rock n’roll friendly quartet. One of them ended up singing background vocals too. The gig I ended up finally mixing was the last night of the tour in London - Union Chapel. By this time, the band was as tight as a duck’s derrière and it is a very excellent gig. The strings are amazing and there are some great new arrangements of old Talking Heads hits. I loved mixing this gig. I realised too, during the mixing, what a fantastic guitar player David is. He’s a rock solid rhythm player and pretty funky for a white guy! My mixes were used for the BBC broadcast and then I did 5.1 surround mixes for a DVD release which I highly recommend if you are a Byrne Fan. ‘David Byrne - Live at Union Chapel’
I’ve come to the conclusion that because David has so many outlets for his many creative talents that he doesn’t need to get bogged down in the minutiae of any one of them. He had no big ego getting in his way either. He may well have been a different person back in the Talking Head days - but I’ve loved working with the guy.