Talking Heads, discovered a demo of “Psycho Killer”

After the Talking Heads song had its first video in its history, and David Byrne sang it again live for the first time in 19 years on October 22nd in Toronto, “Psycho Killer” is back in the news: a demo of the song that is believed to be the first recording of the song has resurfaced, found at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, where David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth studied.

The tape reel was found in a collection of materials purchased in 2005 from a New York shop: it was in an envelope with the name “The Artistics”, the name of Byrne and Frantz’s first band (with them were David Anderson and Hank Staylor).

Chris Frantz:

“David (Byrne) knocked on the door of the bedsit where I was living with Tina and said, ‘I’ve got this song and I want you to help me.’ The song was ‘Psycho Killer,’ and David was looking for a middle eight sung in French – Tina wrote the words. We recorded in my apartment, upstairs from what was called Joe’s Sandwich. We cut three songs, ‘Psycho Killer’, ‘Warning Sign’ and ‘Spin Spin’, onto tape and sent it to a DJ at WBAI in New York, hoping he would pass it on – but he didn’t.”

But that tape eventually ended up in the drawer of a desk that was sold to the RISD museum in 2005. RISD contacted Frantz when the tape resurfaced and returned it to him. Frantz had it digitized and returned it to the RISD archives. “It will be here forever and will be a sort of wonderful eyewitness account of this history,” McIlwain Nishimura said.

On November 28th, on the occasion of Black Friday, which is also Record Store Day, the recording will be released in a limited edition vinyl edition.