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David Byrne on why Talking Heads won’t return: “Reunion tours have become an exercise in nostalgia”

Fans pining for a reunion just can’t seem to face up to the facts.

David Byrne onstage

Photo: Kevin Mazur / WireImage

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David Byrne has quashed the idea of a Talking Heads reunion, suggesting that a comeback tour would simply be “an exercise in nostalgia”.

The Talking Heads are widely considered to be one of the most influential bands of the 80s; they were a pioneers of new wave music.

Bryne, speaking to MSNBC in a new interview, explained why he hasn’t been jumping at the prospect of bringing the legendary New York band back together.

“There’s a period where music really is essential to you kind of defining who you are and what your place is in the world, and you can never let go of that moment,” Byrne said. “But then again, you could never recreate and replace that moment either.”

“There’s plenty of reunion tours and things like that and it’s become an exercise in nostalgia. You can never recreate that moment when people hear things like that for the first time.”

He added: “It has to do with the moment that they heard this music in their life, where they were in their life, when this happened – more than it was us.”

After eight studio albums, the Talking Heads split up in 1991 and have only once performed publicly since. That was at their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002.

Byrne, whose career after the Talking Heads has spanned theatre productions, films and work in television, has been adamant about the band staying broken up. In 2017 he commented on the idea of a reunion saying, “It would also probably be quite a number of steps backwards as far as being perceived as someone who does a lot of different things.”

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