Jerry Harrison, guitarist, keyboard player and producer with Talking Heads is on the road with guitarist Adrian Belew for the “Remain In Light” Summer tour. We recently caught up with Jerry via Zoom to discuss the tour. Jerry shared that he and Adrian had remained friends after Adrian had played with Talking Heads. He also played on all of Jerry’s solo albums and albums that Jerry produced. Over the years of friendship, they often spoke about a show Talking Heads did in 1980 in Rome that can be found on YouTube. The show was from the “Remain In Light” tour. They’d talk about how fun it was and, could they do it again, use it as a blueprint.
Jerry then spoke about producing the band Turkuaz. The band came together after seeing Talking Heads film “Stop Making Sense.” Jerry mentioned after producing them that he’d sit in with them at live shows and always do a Talking Heads song. Jerry and Adrian went to Nashville and did a rehearsal with Turkuaz. Jerry said everything sounded great. The studio they were rehearsing in was also holding an Ace Frehley record release party. Jerry shared about a lot of people were curious what was going on in their studio. He said it made them feel like they might be on to something.
The tour did get delayed by the pandemic though. It was especially important to Jerry that if he wasn’t doing shows playing Talking Heads music with Chris, Tina, or David from the band, that he had to do it with somebody who had been there. Jerry even spoke about many fans thanking him for doing these shows because they never thought they’d get to see this music played live. That led to me asking what the age range at the shows is like. “I would say it’s teenagers to 60-year-olds” was how he responded to that question.
I was curious how locked in is the set list and arrangements. Jerry responded that things are “Pretty set.” He did mention that they played around a little with the order of the songs before landing on how they want the show to be. Though Jerry did say that every band member gets their moment in the spotlight. When questioned about the possibility of writing for this band Jerry did explain “I’ve certainly thought about that” and “I think that would be really fun to do.” Plus, there has also been thoughts of what they would do next if they continued. See all the tour dates here.
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