David Byrne just announced his first solo album in seven years, with the Talking Heads frontman set to release Who is the Sky? through Matador Records on Sept. 5.
Produced by Kid Harpoon, who produced Harry Styles’s “As It Was” and Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” the album will feature guest appearances from St. Vincent, Paramore’s Hayley Williams and The Smile drummer Tom Skinner. The album was also arranged by New York’s Ghost Train Orchestra.
Byrne shared the album’s lead single “Everybody Laughs,” along with an accompanying music video, on Tuesday.
“Someone I know said, ‘David, you use the word ‘everybody’ a lot.’ I suppose I do that to give an anthropological view of life in New York as we know it,” Byrne said in a statement of the new song. “Everybody lives, dies, laughs, cries, sleeps and stares at the ceiling. Everybody’s wearing everybody else’s shoes, which not everybody does, but I have done. I tried to sing about these things that could be seen as negative in a way balanced by an uplifting feeling from the groove and the melody, especially at the end, when St. Vincent and I are doing a lot of hollering and singing together. Music can do that – hold opposites simultaneously. I realized that when singing with Robyn earlier this year. Her songs are often sad, but the music is joyous.”
Byrne announced the album fresh off the heels of joining Olivia Rodrigo at Governors Ball over the weekend for a surprise performance of Talking Heads classic “Burning Down the House.”
It took me a second to realize, ‘Oh yeah, these songs are personal,’ but with David’s unique perspective on life in general,” Kid Harpoon said in a statement. “Walking around New York listening to the demo of ‘Everybody Laughs’ was so joyous, because it made me feel like we’re all the same — we all laugh, cry and sing. The thing about David that resonates with a lot of people is that he’s in on the joke. He gets the absurdity of it all, and all of these personal observations are his perspective on it.”
With Who is the Sky? announced, Byrne also confirmed Tuesday that he’ll be hitting the road for the new record with an extensive tour of North America, Australia and New Zealand, and Europe and the U.K. He’ll tour the U.S. from September through early December of this year, starting in Providence, Rhode Island and finishing in Miami. He’ll hit Australia, New Zealand and Europe in 2026. Tickets go to general on-sale on Friday, with an artist presale starting at 10 a.m. ET today and ending on Thursday at 10 a.m. local time. Links to purchase tickets are available on Byrne’s website.
“At my age, at least for me, there’s a ‘don’t give a shit about what people think’ attitude that kicks in,” Byrne said. “I can step outside my comfort zone with the knowledge that I kind of know who I am by now and sort of know what I’m doing. That said, every new set of songs, every song even, is a new adventure. There’s always a bit of, ‘how do I work this?’ I’ve found that not every collaboration works, but often when they do, it’s because I’m able to clearly impart what it is I’m trying to do. They hopefully get that, and as a result, we’re now joined together heading to the same unknown place.”
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