Hear our full chat on my podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.”
He played keys and guitar on countless Talking Heads hits from “Take Me to the River” to “Once in a Lifetime.”
Now, this Thursday, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Jerry Harrison plays the Lincoln Theatre in D.C. alongside Adrian Belew of King Crimson for the “Remain in Light” tour, which began in 2021 for the pair’s first live performances since 1996.
“Adrian and I kept in touch because we’ve both lived in Wisconsin,” Harrison told WTOP. “We kept talking about how we had such fun on the [Talking Heads] tour in 1980 in support of ‘Remain in Light,’ an album that Adrian played wonderful solos on. … We’re including songs like ‘Life During Wartime,’ ‘Psycho Killer’ and others that we did on the tour in 1980, then we decided we should give a little respect for what we’ve done for the past 40 years.”
Born in Milwaukee in 1949, Harrison first formed the proto-punk band The Modern Lovers before meeting Scotland-native David Byrne, who grew up in Arbutus, Maryland. That’s right, the eventual frontman of Talking Heads grew up near Baltimore and graduated from Lansdowne High School before meeting Harrison in the ’70s rock scene.
“It was a really fascinating time,” Harrison said. “The scene that developed around CBGB [club in New York City] was really special. Many of these movements that we all think of so fondly, there was a club or two that made that happen, usually a place the musicians hung out when they weren’t playing. There were clubs in Seattle around the grunge scene. … The Black Cat and 9:30 Club in D.C. … They provided a comforting, yet edgy environment.”
Talking Heads’ first album, “Talking Heads ’77” (1977), featured the hit single “Psycho Killer,” which rode an ominous bassline to become one of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
“Tony Bongiovi [cousin of Jon Bon Jovi] was our producer, who was known for ‘Disco Star Wars,’ so he was as far away from the punk scene as you could get,” Harrison said. “There were moments where he didn’t get us, like we had done a version with a cello. … We went on tour and played it as a far more aggressive, distorted rock song. … I said, ‘Tony, the version is the one we’re doing live! We have to rerecord this,’ and we did.”
Their second album, “More Songs about Buildings and Food” (1978), included the Al Green cover “Take Me to the River,” which later became fodder for singing mechanical fish on the walls of grandparents’ homes everywhere.
“I remember that fish,” Harrison said. “Talking Heads knew the song and were big fans of Al Green. David taught me the song, but I never went and listened to the original, I just learned it. It’s one of our few songs that’s really dominated by keyboards. … It’s a very didactic presentation and, interestingly, when we released it, Bryan Ferry, Foghat and Levon Helm released it, so it was a race between these four versions and, fortunately, we prevailed.”
Their third album, “Fear of Music” (1979), featured the influential social commentary “Life During Wartime,” the music video of which showed a revolutionary hiding in a deserted cemetery in an apocalyptic landscape.
“That song, to a degree, was like what The Weathermen would be thinking, someone underground,” Harrison said. “I think it’s pretty appropriate to a lot of what’s going on right now in the country, unfortunately. I sing that song in our show and David’s lyrics are so wonderful … ‘Life During Wartime’ has some of the most fabulous lyrics.”
Their fourth album, the aforementioned “Remain in Light” (1980), featured their most iconic hit, “Once in a Lifetime,” with Byrne repeatedly telling listeners, “You may find yourself,” building to the refrain “days go by.”
“‘Once in a Lifetime,’ I think that song also came alive because of some of the movies that it was in — ‘Down and Out in Beverly Hills’ so perfectly captured the contrast between life,” Harrison said. “It’s a terrific song, it’s like you’re underwater a little bit with those choruses singing. It’s probably my favorite Talking Heads album and everyone’s going to get to see that when we come play in Washington.”
Their fifth album, “Speaking in Tongues” (1983), was chronicled in Jonathan Demme’s live concert documentary “Stop Making Sense” (1984). It featured the catchy tune “Burning Down the House,” which cracked the Top 10 charts in America. Drummer Chris Frantz says that he was inspired to write the song after attending a Parliament-Funkadelic concert at Madison Square Garden where the crowd kept chanting, “Burn down the house!”
“I understand that it’s a favorite in restaurant kitchens,” Harrison said. “They’re all sitting there in about 120 degrees heat … so they play that and it helps keep them going.”
The band’s sixth album, “Little Creatures” (1985), featured the catchy song “And She Was,” which was featured in the movie “Look Who’s Talking” (1989). Other highlights include “Wild Wild Life” off the album “True Stories” (1986), “Nothing But Flowers” off the album “Naked” (1988) and “Sax and Violins” on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ film “Until the End of the World” starring William Hurt with a haunting biblical title track by U2.
Outside of his Talking Heads work, Harrison has also produced hit records for other artists, including The Violent Femmes’ “The Blind Leading the Naked,” Fine Young Cannibals’ “The Raw and the Cooked,” Crash Test Dummies’ “God Shuffled His Feet” and Live’s “Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here.”
Add it all up and Harrison was finally inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Talking Heads in 2002, followed by a Grammy Life Achievement Award in 2021, while Maryland’s own David Byrne was recently featured in the Emmy-winning documentary “David Byrne’s American Utopia” (2020) directed by the great Spike Lee.
“I’m really looking forward to coming to Washington,” Harrison said. “See you there.”
Hear our full chat on my podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.”
