This Must Be the Band's Charlie Otto on becoming David Byrne
Categories: Interview
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The Chicago-based cover band is convincing, like, really convincing. Gaining huge momentum from their hyper-detailed recreation of the famed Stop Making Sense live taping, the band has tapped into our nostalgia in the best possible way. Ahead of their performance at the Entry tonight, Gimme Noise chatted with frontman Charlie Otto. And no: he didn't ask to interview himself.
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Gimme Noise: What was the first interaction that you had with the Talking Heads?
Charlie Otto: (pause) I have to start this out by asking if you remember Limewire...
GN: [laughs] Yes.
CO: Well
I was in high school and I was definitely into pirating
all sorts of things. So somebody
was like "You need to check out Widespread Panic!" And then I was like
"OK." So
I got a bunch of Widespread Panic on Limewire, and to be honest I wasn't
really digging it. But there was this one song that I really, really
liked. I even told my dad
to check it out because it was really cool. I played the music and my he
was
like "that's the Talking Heads, man." You know how shitty Limewire was
with
mislabeling things? I mean, the song was "Burning Down the House." That
was my first interaction and then I checked them out further after that.
GN: That's hilarious. Did that propel you into the discography?
CO: The first thing I got into was The Name of This Band is
the Talking Heads, the two disc live album. That's still probably one of my
favorite things. I listened to that a lot and then started getting other
stuff randomly but it wasn't really until I started to form a band that I had
to search and really delve in.
GN: So, were you setting out to form a cover band?
CO: Not
really. It was originally more like, "this will be a cool show." For a
long time I looked for a singer who could sound like David Byrne
thinking that I would just play guitar. I just wanted to be the Adrian
Belew guy. I just wanted to play his parts. But i couldn't find a singer
so I had to start working on the vocals myself. I didn't have any idea
that I'd always be playing in a cover band. It was supposed to be a
couple of shows.
GN: At what point did you decide to ambitiously recreate Stop Making Sense?
CO: 2008
was the first time that we did it. I had no idea what i was getting
into. I booked that first show and then the next three months all I did
was eat, sleep sometimes and work on that performance. Luckily now its
more automated. There's just so much to it.
GN: What's your favorite song to play live?
CO: Requests are my favorite thing to play. If somebody requests something at a certain moment and it seems like
the right thing to do, that's definitely my favorite. Im sure it has to be that
wasy because if you play this many shows of what, from the outside, could look
like the same songs every night, its important to feel the differences of how a
song is performed based on the crowd.
GN: What's your relationship to the music at this point?
CO: I
mean if i can be honest i wouldn't play just any song 200 times a year.
There's something truly special about this music: it makes people
really happy. I don't know why but it does. That's what this is about.
GN: Have you ever met any members of the Talking Heads?
CO: No.
But once we played a wedding in DC and somebody from the
wedding party knew Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth and they went out to
their
house in Connecticut or something and filmed them introducing us.
That's as close as we've ever gotten to meeting them. I'm kind
of trying to stay under-the-radar with David Byrne. I don't want him to
tell us
we can't do it anymore.
GN: How long do you think you'll continue to do this?
CO: I don't know, I never really think about it. I'll know when it's done. I have plenty of other original music projects
GN: If you could spend a day with David Byrne ...
CO: Am I showing him around Chicago?
GN: No you can be anywhere.
CO: I'm gonna say we're in Africa, just because I've never been
there. I'd probably just ask him to go see some music. I'd thank him for
letting us play his music and for writing it because it's been such a great gift
for so many people in my life. I don't know he thinks its blind luck that his
music was selected to last this long, to make such an impression on people. But I would tell him all that, and then I'd shut up.
GN: What's the most rewarding thing you've learned from playing Talking Heads music?
CO: I've found my own voice. I wasn't really a singer before
this and then I had to start taking lessons to do it. Playing so many shows and
singing for 3 hours a night its like, the only way I've ever found to practice
something in a lasting way. My voice has gotten so much better. And besides
being better, I've found my voice as a musician. It's a weird concept
because it comes from pretending to be somebody else but that's definitely the
most important thing that's come out of this.
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