{"id":1995298,"date":"2025-09-03T19:46:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T19:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1995298"},"modified":"2025-09-03T19:46:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T19:46:27","slug":"david-byrne-on-new-lp-who-is-the-sky-and-love-for-olivia-rodrigo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/david-byrne-on-new-lp-who-is-the-sky-and-love-for-olivia-rodrigo\/","title":{"rendered":"David Byrne On New LP ‘Who Is the Sky?’ and Love for Olivia Rodrigo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tYesterday, David Byrne<\/a> revealed on Instagram Stories<\/a> that he will marry his fiancee Mala Gaonkor in a matter of days. (In true eccentric Byrne style, the announcement appeared beneath a photo of lettuce.) The nuptials arrive on the same week that he drops his new album, Who Is the Sky?<\/em>. With its kaleidoscopic cover and irresistible tunes, the latest release from the king of avant-garde pop keeps the party going. Fans will be able to feel the buzz in person when Byrne\u2019s highly anticipated new tour<\/a> kicks off at the Dolby Theatre in November.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Byrne, an apostle of euphoria, all this giddiness seems fitting. Back in his Talking Head-fronting days, the euphoria was the jittery kind. In 2018\u2019s American Utopia<\/em> tour, which later found lasting success on Broadway, it grew warmer and more communal. It\u2019s not blind bliss that he\u2019s selling, but, as he explains to The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, a celebration of the oddness of life. Says Byrne of the new record, \u201cI think of it as a love song to humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHi, David. I may have seen you riding by on a bicycle in Manhattan once or twice, which you\u2019re known to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was on my bike yesterday, and I\u2019ll be on one later today. It\u2019s kind of how I get around. And yesterday was the Gay Pride parade. If I didn\u2019t have a bike, I would have been really stuck.<\/p>\n

\n\tCongratulations on an incredible run for you over the last five or so years. It was a delight to see you light up Broadway with American Utopia<\/em>. And now you have this new album and a supporting tour. Can you tell me a bit about the inspiration for this new work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was doing American Utopia<\/em> on Broadway, which was interrupted by COVID. I didn\u2019t write anything during COVID. I did a lot of drawings, but I didn\u2019t write anything. As we started coming out of that I started writing stuff, a lot of songs. It was mainly the words, though, and a lot of them came out as little stories. I\u2019d start with a title or the first couple of lines. My fianc\u00e9e often reminds me to moisturize, and one evening I started to imagine: \u201cWhat if it really, really works? What if I woke up looking a lot younger? What would that be like?\u201d So I invented a whole scenario and that became the song \u201cMoisturizer Thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI did that with a few different songs where I\u2019d start with a premise and just see where it went. Often it turned into a little parable, where there was actually something serious to say at the end. But you might have to get through some pretty silly or fantastic stuff to get there. <\/p>\n

\n\tYou had some new collaborators on this album. Who are they?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAs these songs were coming into being, I would just do really simple demos for myself. I heard a record by this group called The Ghost Train Orchestra. It\u2019s a small orchestra, like 15 people, based here in New York. And I liked the sound of it. It was a mixture of a guitar, bass, drums, that kind of stuff and basic orchestral instruments, some winds, brass and string players. And I thought, \u201cThat\u2019s a nice sound. That\u2019s a nice combination. What if these songs that I\u2019m doing kind of sounded like that?\u201d So I surreptitiously managed to meet them by offering to sing the Rufus Wainwright parts at a concert they were doing in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was still thinking about how the record might sound, and I had some records, vinyl and streaming that had been produced by a guy named Kid Harpoon.\u00a0I was introduced to him at a birthday party in Santa Monica. He seemed very nice. So I sent him all my demos and said, \u201cThese are the kind of songs I write. They are what they are. I would love to work with you.\u201d That\u2019s how the elements came together.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow exciting for Ghost Train to get a call from David Byrne. I\u2019m reminded of David Bowie finding a jazz quartet for Blackstar<\/em> at a little New York City jazz club. It has to be such an amazing moment for them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, we\u2019ll see. Yes, I hope they get some recognition and their attention. They\u2019re really inventive with their arrangements as players, so I hope that happens.<\/p>\n

\n\tLet\u2019s talk about the catchy first single \u201cEverybody Laughs\u201d and its ingenious music<\/a> <\/a>video<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGabriel Barcia-Colombo did the video. I\u2019d seen kind of an art piece that he\u2019d done in Times Square. He did this wonderful video installation piece that featured people \u201clooking\u201d out at the pedestrians in Times Square. And I loved that idea. We couldn\u2019t do it in Times Square. That is some expensive real estate there.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou were talking about writing little allegories. It\u2019s a light song, but with some heavy implications.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the way a lot of the songs are. They can be amusing, but then there\u2019s an undercurrent. They have something else to say besides just being humorous.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd where is your head at lately? We have wars; we have a divided nation. There\u2019s some serious stuff going on in the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThere are days or hours when I\u2019m filled with anxiety and worry for the nation and worry for what\u2019s going on in the world. And then there\u2019s times when I realize wringing my hands about all that is not going to make it better. I have to put out kind of a counterforce to that or an antidote. I have to push back on all the fear and anger and everything that\u2019s suspicion and hatred. We\u2019re not just mean-spirited people who hate one another. I try to appeal to that side of ourselves and that side to my own self as well. It\u2019s a kind of therapeutic healing thing, I guess, writing these songs and singing them.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo me, that\u2019s what \u201cEverybody Laughs\u201d is about. You\u2019re trying to show us our common humanity. And it\u2019s very moving in that sense to me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI think of it as a kind of love song to humanity, not to a person.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tDavid Byrne\u2019s new album Who Is The Sky?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Matador<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re as much a visual artist as you are a musical artist, and I love this image you\u2019ve come up with for the album cover. You look like a giant Koosh ball.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s a Koosh ball?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s like a rubber toy. Rosie O\u2019Donnell used to slingshot them on her talk show, but they\u2019re basically like these rubber toys with little rubber hair.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThere are spikes and things sticking out?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. They\u2019re very colorful. But you\u2019ve created an entire outfit and look like a human Koosh ball on the album cover. I love it. How did you come up with that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI reached out to a graphic designer that I\u2019d worked with before, a woman named Shira Inbar<\/a>. I liked her work and said, \u201cDo you want to work with me on this record cover?\u201d I had a book of Mexican masks. These are not elaborate, artisanal, folkloric masks. These are masks made by ordinary people that a friend of mine photographs and they would just take household items and assemble it. They look kind of fantastic. And I said, \u201cI\u2019d like the feeling that [my costume] was just invented by grabbing whatever was around, kind of household bits and pieces and rummaging through drawers and making something up on the spot.\u201d She had seen this artist Tom Van Der Borght. He\u2019s a Belgian. He calls himself a fashion designer and she saw his fashion show at Berlin Fashion Week.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo we reached out to him and said, \u201cCould you adapt one of these things you\u2019ve made? And I\u2019ll wear it, but we want to see a little bit of my face so that people know it\u2019s me in there.\u201d Yeah. So he shipped a couple of these outfits over and I spent an afternoon putting them on and dancing in them.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo they vibrate or shake?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. The spiky parts are made of zip ties, and then there\u2019s like bungee cords in there, and there\u2019s plastic tubes that you might get on Canal Street and all this kind of stuff, all kind of fastened together like a net or something with the zip ties sticking out. It\u2019s pretty heavy. It weighs between 40 and 50 pounds. <\/p>\n

\n\tYou showed up onstage with Olivia Rodrigo not too long ago. I love that she appreciates great indie rock and that you\u2019re open to performing with a newer talent like that. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI knew some of her songs. I went to see her show when she was at Madison Square Garden in 2024. I thought it was really good. Her songs are funny, but kind of moving at the same time. She was obviously having a great time. And so when she and her folks reached out to me and said, \u201cDo you want to do a song together?,\u201d I immediately said yes. I thought \u201cthis will be great.\u201d I like her sensibility, her songs. I said \u201ccan we do some choreography? Can we do some movement? Do we have time to work something out.\u201d And we did.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe internet certainly ate it up.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it sure did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hollywoodreporter.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, David Byrne revealed on Instagram Stories that he will marry his fiancee Mala Gaonkor in a matter of days. (In true eccentric Byrne style, the announcement appeared beneath a photo of lettuce.) The nuptials arrive on the same week that he drops his new album, Who Is the Sky?. With its kaleidoscopic cover and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1995299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[312965,21800],"class_list":["post-1995298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-david-byrne","tag-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/David-Byrne-On-New-LP-Who-Is-the-Sky-and.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1995298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1995299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1995298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1995298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1995298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}