David Byrne has spoken about the possibility of him being on the spectrum, and how music has helped him with social skills.
The soloist and Talking Heads icon opened up about the topic during a new interview with Louis Theroux as part of the latter’s podcast. In the discussion, Byrne explained that he first considered that he could be on the spectrum in the ‘90s, and started to notice how he would sometimes not notice social cues in the way people would expect.
“I didn’t know about it [before]. That might have been in the ‘90s or something, there were articles in magazines and things like that about this idea of spectrum,” he began.
“There’s fairly severe autism where people don’t talk at all and it’s very, very difficult for them to communicate. And then there’s milder and milder, and until it’s on the very mild side. It tends to be people who can be very focused on an idea, maybe have difficulty in social situations and things like that,” he added.
“I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve recognised that’. I’ve never thought of it as a disability, but I can see that there’s a part of me that is like that.
When asked about if there are some struggles that come with feeling like you are neurodivergent, as well as a fresh perspective and insight, Byrne shared how he used to struggle more with social cues, but found it easier over time by being in the music industry.
“I’ve had the experience where someone will say no, and then I’ll replay the conversation and the word ‘no’ was not there. They expected their facial expression or the nuances of what they were saying to be read and clearly interpreted as a no… I wasn’t able to read that,” he shared.
“That said, I’m a lot better at that now than I was in the past. I’m a lot more comfortable with people now than I was in the past. So it changes. I’ll give music credit for that too,” Byrne continued. “Making music, working with other people on music, playing together with musicians on stage, it becomes this very ecstatic, transcendent kind of social thing and I thought, okay, over the years, time passes and you kind of change after a bit.”
Also in the interview, the musician opened up about his outlook on ‘cancel culture’ – explaining that he “self-cancelled” and had a conversation with Spike Lee after realising that he wore Blackface in a video in the ‘80s. Watch the full interview in the video above.
The singer has recently kickstarted his solo tour dates for 2025, and performed Talking Heads‘ ‘Psycho Killer’ for the first time in 19 years. He has announced a run of festival appearances for the summer of 2026 too, including stops at Coachella, Open’er Festival, and Latitude. The shows come in support of him sharing his new album ‘Who Is The Sky?’, which features Hayley Williams, St. Vincent, and more.
As for a Talking Heads reunion, Byrne has dismissed the idea of getting the band back together multiple times, calling it “a fool’s errand”.
The group have not performed together since 1984, and while they had a brief reunion in 2023, they have consistently denied rumours of a full-blown comeback for years now.
