Tina Weymouth biography

Tom Tom Club and Talking Heads Breakup

In 1981, with Talking Heads on hiatus, Weymouth and Frantz formed an offshoot band named Tom Tom Club, releasing an eponymous album that same year. Somewhat shockingly, the album achieved considerably better sales than any previous Talking Heads effort thanks primarily to the popularity of the single "Genius of Love." Reuniting in 1983, Talking Heads scored one of their most successful albums with Speaking in Tongues,

featuring the hit songs "Burning Down the House" and "This Must Be the Place." They followed that with 1985's Little Creatures, a critical darling that also achieved widespread popularity with the singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere." Their next album, True Stories (1986), was highlighted by the single "Wild Wild Life," the music video for which landed in frequent rotation on MTV. Then in 1988, Talking Heads released what turned out to be their final album, Naked. The album's biggest hit, "(Nothing But) Flowers," featured the prophetic lyrics "And as things fell apart/ Nobody paid much attention." The band dissolved shortly afterwards as Byrne turned his focus to his solo career, although no official announcement about the Talking Heads' dissolution was made until 1993.

The Heads

Calling themselves simply The Heads, Weymouth, Frantz and Harrison reunited without Byrne in 1996 to record one more album, No Talking, Just Head, featuring the singles "Damage I've Done" and "Don't Take My Kindness for Weakness." Weymouth and Frantz, who remain married and have two children, Egan and Robin, have also released sporadic albums as the Tom Tom Club including The Good, The Bad, and the Funky (2000) and Genius of Live (2010).

As the bassist of Talking Heads, Weymouth will go down in rock lore as a member of one of the most influential and popular new wave rock bands in history, a band whose music has already begun to assume its rightful place in the canon of great rock 'n' roll. And although Weymouth has recorded music only sporadically since Talking Heads broke up in 1991, she hopes to reassemble the Byrne-less offshoot band The Heads to recreate the sense of fearless experimentation that made Talking Heads such a powerful force when they burst onto the rock scene in the 1970s. "We are the little band that boldly goes forth where no other band dares to go," she proclaimed. "And we hope to pioneer something for other musicians who are in bands, too."

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