Background
David Byrne was born on May 14, 1952, in Dumbarton, Scotland. Son of Thomas and Emily Anderson (Brown) Byrne. He has one sibling. His family moved to Canada when he was two, and then to Maryland, United States when he was nine years old.
1009
982 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94102, United States
David Byrne and his band backstage after their show at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco on the Rei Momo tour on June 10, 1990. (Photo by Clayton Call)
1976
New York City, New York, United States
American singer and songwriter Patti Smith performing at the Ocean Club, New York, 21st July 1976. At far left is John Cale on keyboards and at far right is David Byrne of Talking Heads. (Photo by Michael Putland)
1977
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Talking Heads posed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in June 1977. (Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot)
1980
David Byrne holding a guitar (Photo by Aaron Rapoport)
1980
David Byrne by Pink Building (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith)
1980
David Byrne in a Pool (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith)
1980
David Byrne, lead singer and guitarist for the Talking Heads, works with record producer Brian Eno in a recording studio. (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith)
1980
The rock group The Talking Heads posed in a studio. Left to right, in the back: Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth. Kneeling in the front is bandleader David Byrne. (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith)
1980
5000 Euclid Ave #101, Cleveland, OH 44103, United States
Adrian Belew, David Byrne and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads perform at Agora Ballroom in Atlanta Georgia. November 18, 1980 (Photo By Rick Diamond)
1982
Scottish-American musician and Talking Heads founding member, David Byrne, August 1982. (Photo by Peter Noble)
1983
David Byrne in 1983. (Photo by Chris Walter)
1983
2001 Gayley Rd, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
David Byrne performing with Talking Heads, wearing a large oversize suit, at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on September 4, 1983. (Photo by Clayton Call)
1983
2001 Gayley Rd, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
David Byrne with the Talking Heads performs at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, California on September 2, 1983. (Photo by Larry Hulst)
1983
2001 Gayley Rd, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
David Byrne with the Talking Heads performs at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, California on September 2, 1983. (Photo by Larry Hulst)
1983
American singer-songwriter David Byrne, of American new wave group Talking Heads, London, 1983. (Photo by Chalkie Davies)
1983
New York City, New York, United States
Singer, songwriter, musician poses for a portrait in 1983 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Deborah Feingold)
1983
David Byrne (Photo by Deborah Feingold)
1984
The Talking Heads line-up for the concert film "Stop Making Sense" (Steve Scales, Bernie Worrell, Jerry Harrison, Ednah Holt, David Byrne, Lynn Mabry, Tina Wemouth, Chris Frantz and Alex Weir) pose for a portrait in 1984. (Photo by Sire Records)
1987
Musician David Byrne, founding member and principal songwriter of the American New Wave band Talking Heads, photographed in 1987. (Photo by Jack Mitchell)
1987
Musician David Byrne, founding member and principal songwriter of the American New Wave band Talking Heads, photographed in 1987 with singer-songwriter choreographer Toni Basil. (Photo by Jack Mitchell)
1989
David Byrne, portrait, 1989. (Photo by Michael Putland)
1989
Koningin Astridplein 26, 2018 Antwerpen, Belgium
David Byrne, Antwerpen, Belgium, 1989. (Photo by Gie Knaeps)
1989
Koningin Astridplein 26, 2018 Antwerpen, Belgium
David Byrne, Antwerpen, Belgium, 1989. (Photo by Gie Knaeps)
1989
Utrecht, the Netherlands
David Byrne, vocal, performs at Vredenburg on 6th December 1989 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. (Photo by Frans Schellekens)
1992
157 Montague St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States
Cyndi Lauper, Iggy Pop, and David Byrne at a Rock For Choice concert at St Ann's Church in Brooklyn, New York on October 28, 1992. (Photo by Ebet Roberts)
1994
Chicago, Illinois, United States
American rock and pop musician David Byrne performs onstage, Chicago, Illinois, August 19, 1994. (Photo by Paul Natkin)
1996
Talking Heads' David Byrne, Seymour Stein and Madonna (Photo by KMazur)
1997
Torhout, Belgium
Singer David Byrne performs on stage, wearing a pink furry suit, at the Rock Torhout Festival in Belgium on 6th July 1997. (Photo by Paul Bergen)
2011
Venice, Italy
Jury member musician David Byrne attends the "Damsels In Distress" premiere and closing ceremony during the 68th Venice Film Festival at Palazzo del Cinema on September 10, 2011, in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Ian Gavan)
2012
30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217, United States
David Byrne performs with Jherek Bischoff during the 2012 Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 3, 2012, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Mike Lawrie)
2014
London, United Kingdom
Musician, singer, and artist David Byrne is photographed for Independent on September 16, 2014, in London, England. (Photo by Dan Burn-Forti)
2015
881 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019, United States
David Byrne performs onstage during The Music Of David Byrne & Talking Heads at Carnegie Hall on March 23, 2015, in New York City. (Photo by Larry Busacca)
2015
London, United Kingdom
David Byrne poses in the "David Byrne Reading Lounge" at the Meltdown Festival launch at Southbank Centre on August 17, 2015, in London, England. (Photo by Ian Gavan)
2017
200 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11238, United States
David Byrne attends the 2017 Brooklyn Artists Ball at Brooklyn Museum on April 3, 2017, in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur)
2017
New York City, New York, United States
David Byrne speaks onstage during IFP's 27th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 27, 2017, in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris)
2018
1751 Gentilly Blvd, New Orleans, LA 70119, United States
David Byrne performs during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fair Grounds Race Course on April 29, 2018, in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Erika Goldring)
2018
222 SW Clay St, Portland, OR 97201, United States
David Byrne performs on stage at Keller Auditorium during his American Utopia tour, May 27, 2018, in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Anthony Pidgeon)
2018
222 SW Clay St, Portland, OR 97201, United States
David Byrne performs on stage at Keller Auditorium during his American Utopia tour, May 27, 2018, in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Anthony Pidgeon)
2019
141 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036, United States
David Byrne performs during the opening night of "David Byrne's American Utopia" at Hudson Theatre on October 20, 2019, in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill)
3800 Hollins Ferry Rd, Lansdowne, MD 21227, United States
David Byrne went to Lansdowne High School in Baltimore County.
2 College St, Providence, RI 02903, United States
David Byrne attended the Rhode Island School of Design.
1300 W Mt Royal Ave, Baltimore, MD 21217, United States
David Byrne attended the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, Bishop's, London SE1 8XX, United Kingdom
Anna Calvi and David Byrne perform live on stage at Queen Elizabeth Hall on August 22, 2015, in London, England. (Photo by Burak Cingi)
(Gathers the screenplay and storyboards for the movie, Tru...)
Gathers the screenplay and storyboards for the movie, True Stories, the newspaper articles which inspired it, and the lyrics of its featured songs.
https://www.amazon.com/True-Stories-David-Byrne/dp/0140092307/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=True+Stories+%281986%29+David+Byrne&qid=1587716549&sr=8-2
1986
(In poems, lyrics, commentaries, and two hundred full-colo...)
In poems, lyrics, commentaries, and two hundred full-color photographs, the innovative rock musician capture the incongruities of life - and the strange juxtaposition of the modern and the traditional - in Japan, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and the United States.
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Ritual-David-Byrne/dp/0811810461/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Strange+Ritual%2C+Chronicle+Books+David+Byrne&qid=1587716685&sr=8-4
1995
(Your Action World parodies the ‘inspirational’ promotiona...)
Your Action World parodies the ‘inspirational’ promotional materials including books, tapes, and corporate advertising, with which we are inundated daily. An intelligent, quirky document from one of our most innovative artists.
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Action-World-Winners-Attitude/dp/B0007QC2BW/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Your+Action+World+David+Byrne&qid=1587716843&sr=8-1
1999
(David Byrne has written a book that updates and alters th...)
David Byrne has written a book that updates and alters the Bible's cardinal sins for a more contemporary audience. Byrne wanted the book to be the size and shape of a portable Bible, and thus The New Sins resembles the sort of book a strange person in a robe would try to give you in an airport.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Sins-Translated-Translations-Diligently/dp/057121228X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+New+Sins+David+Byrne&qid=1587716964&sr=8-1
2001
artist composer director musician
David Byrne was born on May 14, 1952, in Dumbarton, Scotland. Son of Thomas and Emily Anderson (Brown) Byrne. He has one sibling. His family moved to Canada when he was two, and then to Maryland, United States when he was nine years old.
David Byrne loved music from a young age and was already playing multiple instruments like guitar, accordion, and violin by middle school. He went to Lansdowne High School in Baltimore County.
He attended the Rhode Island School of Design during the 1970-1971 term and the Maryland Institute College of Art during the next term. He dropped out of college to pursue a career in music.
David Byrne went to New York and formed a band called the Talking Heads with Chris Frantz, a fellow student from the Rhode Island School of Design, and Chris’s girlfriend Tina Weymouth. The band performed its first gig in 1975.
The band grew to include multi-instrumentalist Jerry Harrison in 1977, and the group signed to Sire Records. A series of LPs, including the debut Talking Heads '77, 1978's More Songs About Buildings and Food, and 1980's Remain in Light followed, establishing the quartet as one of contemporary music's most visionary talents. During a band sabbatical in 1981, Byrne teamed up with Brian Eno, the producer of much of the Heads' work, for the collaborative effort My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, a complex, evocative album that fused electronic music with Third World percussion and hypnotic vocal effects. That same year, Byrne also began exploring theater with the composition of The Catherine Wheel, a dance piece choreographed by Twyla Tharp.
The Knee PlaysByrne's next solo work appeared in 1985 with The Knee Plays, a New Orleans brass band-influenced project composed for a portion of Robert Wilson's theatrical epic CIVIL warS. In 1986, Byrne wrote, starred in, and directed the feature film True Stories, a series of comic vignettes based on press clippings culled from tabloid publications like the Weekly World News. He also wrote and produced the majority of music for the film's score in addition to performing his usual duties for that year's Talking Heads LP, also named True Stories. In 1988, he wrote the score to the Jonathan Demme comedy Married to the Mob and, in tandem with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su, won an Academy Award for his musical work on Bernardo Bertolucci's historical epic The Last Emperor.
Also in 1988, Byrne's fascination with world music - a longtime influence on his herky-jerky performance style as well as Talking Heads' complex polyrhythms - inspired him to form his own record label, Luaka Bop, to give widespread American release to global music. That same year, the Heads released Naked, their final proper LP, leaving Byrne to give his full attention to solo endeavors. He resurfaced in 1989 with Rei Momo, a song collection inspired by Latin rhythms, and also directed the documentary Ile Aiye (The House of Life), which focused on the rituals of Yoruban dance music. In 1991, he again collaborated with Robert Wilson on The Forest, writing music for a full orchestra.
1992's Uh-Oh marked Byrne's return to more conventional rock performance, a direction he continued with a self-titled album issued in 1994. Feelings, recorded with members of Morcheeba and Devo, followed in 1997. Four years later, Look Into the Eyeball was issued on Virgin Records/Luaka Bop and captured Byrne's signature wry humor and musical diversity. In 2003, Byrne's music for the film Young Adam (featuring members of Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai) was released as Lead Us Not Into Temptation by Thrill Jockey. Grown Backwards, his first disc for the Nonesuch label, appeared a year later. In 2007, the ever-busy Byrne released a CD/DVD version of The Knee Plays that featured the 12 original tracks along with eight demos and outtakes. Big Love: Hymnal, containing material composed for the HBO series Big Love, appeared in 2008; Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, a collaboration with Brian Eno that took in folk and gospel influences, followed later that year.
Byrne's next project proved to be another collaborative album, this one created with the assistance of British DJ Fatboy Slim. Released in early 2010, Here Lies Love was a concept album about former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos and her controversial love life. Over 20 guest vocalists appeared on the eclectic record, including Cyndi Lauper, Martha Wainwright, Sharon Jones, and Santigold. Byrne's next big project was another collaboration, this time with St. Vincent/Annie Clark, the Dap-Kings, Antibalas, and producer John Congleton. Love This Giant arrived in September 2012.
Byrne spent 2015 staging Contemporary Color, a pair of concerts in Brooklyn and Toronto which paired musicians with color guard groups; the shows were preserved in a 2016 film of the same name. Early in 2018, Byrne returned with the chart-topping American Utopia, his first solo album since 2004's Grown Backwards. The record was the first installment of a larger multimedia project titled "Reasons to Be Cheerful," which focused on optimism during an age of political uncertainty. Byrne's tour in support of American Utopia was a unique presentation with extensive choreography of the vocalists and musicians, and after a successful and well-received series of performances in the United States and Europe, the show moved to New York City for a run on Broadway. An album was drawn from the New York engagement, fittingly titled American Utopia on Broadway.
(In poems, lyrics, commentaries, and two hundred full-colo...)
1995(Your Action World parodies the ‘inspirational’ promotiona...)
1999(Gathers the screenplay and storyboards for the movie, Tru...)
1986(David Byrne has written a book that updates and alters th...)
2001"It's very important that everyone votes. Not just in national ones, but even local elections," Byrne said. "Please, I'll get down on my knees. I don't care what side or party you are. Let your voice be heard or shut up."
Byrne has called Trump a racist, criticized his proposed cuts to the arts, and even made a playlist of music from so-called "shithole" countries. So it would seem safe to assume the song Dog's Mind is a direct attack on the current president. But Byrne has also said that a lot of the songs on American Utopia were "written before the Trump election. So, although they seem to resonate with a lot of what has been happening in the last year, they were written before that."
Byrne himself struggles to put forth a solution to the hive mind of Twitter and Facebook but does suggest reading multiple, differing publications and interacting with various diverse communities in a more human way.
"I’m going to suggest that cycling or walking around in different neighborhoods gives one a slightly more face-to-face view of the diversity of humanity, especially here in New York," he wrote. "I love writing songs from different characters’ points of view - characters who are often saying things I would never personally say, but whose shoes I can put myself, sometimes."
Quotations:
"To some extent, I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that."
"Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence."
"Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style."
"I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass."
"Real beauty knocks you a little bit off-kilter."
"The true face of smoking is disease, death, and horror - not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray."
"It's not always been a happy marriage. I guess I wanted a quick fix."
"I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car."
"To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware."
"I read the NY Times but I don't trust all of it."
David Byrne plays the guitar right-handed even though he is left-handed.
He uses a cycle as his main means of transport and does not own a car.
Byrne was in a relationship with photographer and artist Andrea Kovacs from 1974 to 1976 and dancer Mary Clarke from 1976 to 1978. They were both graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design. He married costume designer Adelle Lutz in 1987 and had a daughter with her. The couple divorced in 2004.
He was in a relationship with artist Cindy Sherman from 2007 to 2011.