David Byrne on Talking Heads, the Big Suit, and Vampire Movies | Fashion Neurosis

About this video

David Byrne is a musician and visual artist. He was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, moving to Canada aged 2, and later Maryland, where he was raised in Baltimore. Byrne studied photography, performance, and video at RISD and the Maryland Institute College of Art, before moving to New York in the early 1970s. In 1975, Byrne co-founded the group Talking Heads, who released eight studio albums before splitting up in the early 1990s. The band made the concert film Stop Making Sense in 1984, directed by Jonathan Demme, which in 2024 was remastered and re-released by A24. Byrne established the record labels Luaka Bop and Todo Mundo, which have released music by artists including William Onyeabor, Cornershop, and Floating Points. As a solo musician, David Byrne has released over 10 solo albums, the most recent Who Is The Sky? released in 2025, and collaborated with artists including Brian Eno, St Vincent, and Olivia Rodrigo. He has written soundtracks for films including Bernando Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, for which Byrne won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. Byrne has written several books including Bicycle Diaries and How Music Works, and in 1986 wrote, directed, and starred in True Stories, a musical collage of discordant Americana released in 1986. His theatrical work includes his 2019 American Utopia tour which was transferred to Broadway and a film version directed by Spike Lee, and his immersive theater production Theater of the Mind from 2022, which will be shown in Chicago in March 2026. In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and David Byrne discuss the Big Suit, the joy of Vampire movies, and being useless at dinner party conversations. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Chapters: 00:00:00 Advertisement for Claude 00:00:42 Intro 00:01:16 What are you wearing today? 00:03:20 Psycho Killer and Talking Heads 00:04:15 Childhood obsessions 00:05:40 Introversion/extroversion 00:07:52 Dancing 00:11:30 David’s laugh 00:13:00 Known/unknown 00:15:40 Body 00:18:50 Dressing to hide/reveal 00:20:28 Advertisement for Claude 00:21:50 Talking Heads outfits 00:25:45 Talking Heads split 00:27:30 Love 00:33:32 If you fancy someone… 00:36:33 Advertisement for Claude 00:37:58 How Music Works 00:44:12 Autism 00:47:40 Costumes for performing 00:49:00 Tiny Desk Concert 00:50:37 Paul Thomas Anderson and Stop Making Sense 00:51:34 Outro 00:52:07 Advertisement for Claude