Houses in Motion: Jerry Harrison on ‘Stop Making Sense,’ Remain In Light and His Production Life
“To totally experience the film, you should see it in the highest definition way available to you and then see it in the most party atmosphere as well,” Jerry Harrison says of the Talking Heads concert movie Stop Making Sense, which is newly restored in 4K and has been rereleased by A24 in conjunction with its 40th anniversary. Harrison, who originally sat in the editing room with bandmate David Byrne offering notes to director Jonathan Demme, has mixed new audio for Dolby Atmos and IMAX along with original engineer Eric “E.T.” Thorngren.
“When you see it in IMAX, it’s so steep that you might feel like you could fall,” Harrison offers. “But with that added clarity you might notice a little communication between Bernie [Worrell] and Alex [Weir] for the first time, or between Bernie and me, or Lynn [Mabry] and me, or with David. There are also screenings I’ve attended, like the one at the Milwaukee Film Festival, where people were doing a conga line.”
Harrison has been immersed in the Talking Heads realm as of late, collaborating with Adrian Belew and Cool Cool Cool on the Remain In Light Tour, which has just resumed and will continue into 2024. Harrison explains, “I had always thought that there was something very special about the tour that we did for Remain In Light, which was the first big band. With all of the attention that Stop Making Sense gets, it was a very different experience when we had Adrian in the band. There’s a YouTube video from Rome 1980 that I watched a number of years ago, which I thought captured that tour really well. Every time I’d see Adrian, we’d talk about how to recreate something like that or use it as a blueprint, and then we finally figured it out.”
When Spike Lee interviewed David, Tina, Chris and yourself after the premiere screening at the Toronto Film Festival, he called Stop Making Sense the greatest concert film ever, although none of you would take the bait. Do you have a favorite concert film?
I can’t say that I’ve watched too many pure concert films. I do enjoy 20 Feet from Stardom and Muscle Shoals. I was involved with a film called Take Me to the River about Memphis music that I think is really great. In those other films that I really like, the interviews are important, although I do think that one of the most important things about Stop Making Sense is that we didn’t do interviews.
What Jonathan did, which in a way was already implicit in the building of the band and building of the stage, is that he introduced each musician as a character as if it’s an ensemble film. So you sort of meet the character and then you see the characters playing music, but also having fun together and communicating with each other. I think it takes a storytelling approach, but also a filmic approach to a musical performance that’s very different than most documentary films or concert films.
While you were filming Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme was in the middle of reshoots for Swing Shift requested by Goldie Hawn reportedly to his dismay. Did he ever share any of this with you?
We were certainly aware that he was distracted because there were points where we would go see the rushes during the day and Jonathan wasn’t there. It was a cause for worry and that was probably true for Goldie as well because he wanted to be making his new project.
What I had heard is that Goldie Hawn wanted it to be almost painfully honest in the way it was filmed and the portrayal maybe went too far in that direction or it just didn’t work for her. It was not something that we got into with Jonathan and it also really wasn’t our business.
I do know that there was a time when someone was sick on set, and it allowed Jonathan to come back to getting the work done on Stop Making Sense.
Jonathan gave an interview a couple years before he way passed away in which he stated that unbeknownst to him, Ed Harris had feigned illness. Then when Jonathan went out to his car, Ed was sitting in the passenger seat and declared “Let’s Rock!”
I just heard this from Paul Thomas Anderson when we were having one of the premieres. I didn’t know whether it was a secret or not. [Laughs.]
As I think back, I can recall this great sense of excitement about what we were doing. I remember the first night—this may have been the practice night—all the cameras started at the same moment, which meant that they all ran out of film at the same moment. So there was a hole in the filming. [Laughs.] It was like, “Oh yeah, we’ve got to make sure that these are staggered.”
I’ve read that Jonathan used an editing system created by Hal Ashby. Since you were on hand during the editing, did you have any interactions with Ashby?
No, I didn’t. David and I did stay in LA for the editing process after filming at the Pantages. That was around Christmas and then we did some festivals down in Australia and New Zealand with the Stop Making Sense band.
After we came back, we went to Los Angeles and there had been sort of an assembly process going on. We would go out to Malibu where Lisa Day and Jonathan were working. That’s where Hal Ashby had set up a system with a bunch of Betamaxes that he had found a way to sync together.
The big thing was that you were able to see all of the cameras simultaneously. There were six cameras a night, and we shot over three nights—we were there four nights, but my recollection is that we shot three with six cameras.
This allowed Jonathan and Lisa, but also David and myself, to look at all that. When we’d come in, we would say to them, “Oh, something really great goes on between Alex and Steve right here. Let’s see if there’s a good shot of that.” Then it was easier to find. So we were able to work with them and make suggestions, but also say, “I’m not sure this is working. I remember there’s something that might be more interesting on stage at that moment.”
In rewatching Stop Making Sense I was struck by Alex Weir’s energy and flair on guitar.
What an extraordinary talent. I brought him in on a couple of other records, like General Public [1995’s Rub It Better] to do some parts.
He had played with the Brothers Johnson before he worked with us. He’s one of the finest rhythm guitar players of all time. When I think of other people who do that fast funk strumming style, he might be my favorite. He had the lightest touch. He had these special picks that came from Norway that were very thin. He was delicate and very precise. It was amazing.
Prior to the recent Remain In Light shows, you hadn’t toured in many years. What prompted you to give it a go again?
Adrian and I had been discussing it for a while, thinking of the best approach. Then when I produced Turkuaz, I thought it was really either them or The String Cheese Incident who would be a perfect addition. I thought a band that had been used to playing together was the way to go. Studio musicians could play the parts, but they wouldn’t have exactly the same sensibilities.
As you know, Turkuaz is no more. Dave [Brandwein], who had been the lead singer of Turkuaz is off on his own, and the rest of the band does their own projects, but they tour as Cool Cool Cool. They were very familiar with Talking Heads because Talking Heads was an inspiration to the formation of the band. I would sit in with them every once in a while and we would always do a Talking Heads song. So I understood that they really got it—the learning curve was very quick, as it was almost built into their sensibilities.
My only wish would’ve been that we could have done this early enough so that Bernie [Worrell] could have been involved and also maybe some of the others who were filmed. Steve Scales did come out and play with us in Asheville, North Carolina, which was really fun, and he still has a very big personality on stage.
Have you heard Phish’s version of Remain In Light from Halloween ‘96?
I thought they did a great job. Then, of course, there’s Angélique Kidjo’s version. I’ve sat in with her a few times, which has been really fun. I would say Phish’s version is trying to play it the way we did it, while she’s using it as an inspiration for all sorts of changes. They’re both wonderful.
Is there a particular Talking Heads song you perform on the tour that was prompted by Turkuaz’s participation?
“Slippery People” because they had that in their set. I also had performed “Slippery People” with Mavis Staples and I thought it was an opportunity. Dave [Brandwein] sang it when we first were out. Then when Dave stopped being part of the touring party, I thought it was a perfect time to have the women in the band sing it—Shira [Elias] and Sammi [Garett].
One of the fun things about doing this is having multiple people sing the songs. It’s very obvious to us that no one’s going to be David Byrne and I didn’t want someone to be a parody of David Byrne. But Adrian is a very accomplished singer—he was the lead singer not only of King Crimson but also The Bears and on all of his solo records. Obviously I sing and I’ve done solo records. Josh [Schwartz] the sax player has also been doing some of the songs. So it’s a great complement of different voices.
In addition to songs from Remain In Light, the set includes other material, including your own “Rev It Up.” What prompted that addition?
Adrian did not want to play any Talking Heads songs beyond what we had referenced when we were on that tour. So we do “Drugs,” “Cities” and “Psycho Killer,” but he didn’t want to play songs from Speaking in Tongues, let alone try to explore things like Little Creatures, True Stories or Naked.
We knew we were going to be playing festivals and we wanted to keep people up and dancing. So we haven’t done all the slower songs like “The Overload.” There have been some really interesting covers of “Listening Wind” by both Peter Gabriel and The Specials. With “Rev It Up,” I felt that it’s an energetic song and it fits right in.
Following Walk on Water in 1990, you stepped away from your solo career to focus on production. Were you ever tempted to release another record?
What happened is I began to have some success as a producer when I got married and started having children. So production was a way I could be at home, and then I got successful at it. The best year of my production life was when I did both Crash Test Dummies’ God Shuffled His Feet and Live’s Throwing Copper [both recorded in 1993]. I had more work than I could possibly do and I kept doing it. Some songwriters are able to do it in the midst of other projects whenever they have a spare moment, but I never developed that ability.
If someone is interested in exploring my solo career, they should check out the vinyl re-release of The Red and the Black. Eric Thorngren and I did a second LP that is instrumental mixes of a number of the songs—a little bit like dance mixes used to be in the 80s—and it’s really fun to listen to. [Note: Harrison’s 1981 debut was reissued on Record Store Day 2023.]
In terms of your production career, is there a record that comes to mind which you feel didn’t quite get the love it deserved?
As far as albums that I thought were great, the Big Head Todd record I made with “Resignation Superman” [1997’s Beautiful World] was quite a success but I still think it could have been a bigger album than it was. I recently listened to it, and it is a wonderful record. It has a version of “Boom, Boom” where John Lee Hooker does the introduction. There are moments where the drums sound like Led Zeppelin and it’s just terrific. They’re such good players in a really good band. Bernie also played on that record and did a great job.
I think that the record I did with Rusted Root [1996’s Remember] didn’t get proper recognition. We were in a huge rush making the record—at one point I had five recording studios going at once because they had to leave for the H.O.R.D.E. tour. That was a high pressure album but I think it came out great.
I did a record with a band called Mrnorth [2004’s Lifesize]. That was right when Clive Davis was taking over BMG Records, so it wasn’t one of his signings and it really got no attention. The band eventually remixed certain parts that went back to their older arrangements, which I think was a mistake—I think they had been improved.
Sometimes changes in the music business can profoundly affect what happens—where you really have it in the palm of your hand but then some decisions have unintended consequences. I did an album with Bamboo Shoots where it felt like that happened to them.
There also are times—often with a band’s first record—where they can become obsessed with wanting it to be as perfect as they can. Sometimes they almost destroy a record because they’re so caught up with not wanting to be embarrassed if it’s not perfect. People get what I call completion anxiety—so that if someone says, “I don’t like this so much,” they can go, “Well, it’s not quite finished.”
Jumping back to Remain in Light do you have additional plans for Adrian, Cool Cool Cool and yourself beyond the next announced tour?
Everyone loves playing together, so I think they’d love to do something, but the question becomes: How do we expand it? Do we do other Talking Heads stuff? Do we do more King Crimson? Do we start making original music? I think we’re getting to the point where we need to have that discussion.
