Born on 14 May: David Byrne, the inquisitive mind of the Talking Heads

David Byrne, the iconic singer of Talking Heads in the 80s, has never done things like everyone else. Although he was indeed born in 1952 in the small Scottish town of Dumbarton, his parents quickly moved to Ontario, Canada, and then to Arbutus, another small town, this time in Maryland, USA, a country of which he would later take nationality.

As a youth he was already a globetrotter. During his future career, after - obviously - studying art and design, he continued his travels to the borders of musical genres. When he founded the Talking Heads in 1974, with Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, two other students from the Rhode Island School of Design, he already stood out with his nasal voice and almost epileptic gestures. And let's not even talk about the subjects addressed in songs such as "Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", or the hypnotic "Take Me To The River".

But quickly, Byrne was no longer happy with life within a band (of which he was, however, the undisputed leader). He wanted to fly on his own and, above all, to constantly experiment. First with Brian Eno, a long-time producer of the Talking Heads, in 1981 he released the strange "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts", often abrupt collages of African rhythms and mixed sounds. He also embarked on a collaboration with choreographer Twyla Tharp ("The Catherine Wheel") or with Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci for the epic "The Last Emperor".

Then, like Peter Gabriel with Real World, he founded his own world music label (Luaka Bop) on which he recorded other artists (like the Belgians Zap Mama or Cornershop) as well as his works steeped in merengue, mambo, Cuban rhythms and many other references to world music. A jack-of-all-trades sometimes brushing with genius, David Byrne imperturbably continues to clear the path he has mapped out, and it's far from being straight. From theatre to television, from dance to cinema, he's interested in all forms of artistic expression.

A lifelong cyclist, he passionately promotes cycling through various associations. He has also written a book about the bicycle entitled "Bicycle Diaries" (2009) and has also designed bike shelters suited to the locations where they're installed. On Wall Street, the chosen shape was... the dollar, of course!

Fun fact (if you can call it that), is his song "Radio Head", written with Jerry Harrison, from the album "True Stories" (1986) that inspired Thom Yorke to name his band...

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: David Byrne at the Pinkpop Festival (Netherlands) on 8 June 1992