Talking Heads were wary of ‘Stop Making Sense’ film being “too Spinal Tap”

nme.com:

Talking Heads have spoken about the making of their iconic concert film Stop Making Sense, saying that they didn’t want it to be “too Spinal Tap“.All four members of the New York band – David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison – appeared on yesterday’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (June 13).They talked to host Fallon about the upcoming 40th anniversary reissue of their 1984 album ‘Stop Making Sense’, the recent star-studded tribute compilation celebrating that record, and the A24 remastered Stop Making Sense film.At one point in the interview, Talking Heads were asked whether they had approached director Jonathan Demme with any “notes” on how he should capture their performance onscreen.“Do you all go like, ‘Hey, here’s what we definitely don’t want to do’?” Fallon said.

Weymouth responded: “Yeah. We did that.”The bassist continued: “We said, ‘We don’t want all the gimmicks’. We wanted the cameras to be like a sensitive eye; the way an audience member would be seeing it, without the camera getting in the way and playing around.”She went on to say that the group wanted “no split screen” and “no interviews” to be featured. “That would be too Spinal Tap,” Weymouth added, referring to the classic comedy rock mockumentary – which was released the same year as Stop Making Sense.The musician said the concert film could have “absolutely” gone in that direction without the band having their say. “I would be like the lukewarm water, and [Bryne, Frantz and Harrison] would be the fire and ice,” she joked.Weymouth was referencing the This Is Spinal Tap scene in which bassist Derek Smalls (played by Harry Shearer) says: “We’re very lucky in the sense that we’ve got two visionaries in the.