Remain in Love

by Chris Frantz

  The set we played was the same as the one we’d played at Heatwave. The effect on the audience was just as dramatic. Again, we hit the stage just before sunset. The venue was completely packed with even more people outside on the hills looking over the walls. I always have at least a little bit of butterflies before a show, but I think we all had more confidence that night knowing what this band was capable of. We walked onstage to an increasingly loud roar of welcome. Here in New York we were a local band and this was one beautiful homecoming. From my position behind the drums I could see the entire band and their interactions. I could see David instantly sweating up his clothes. I could see Tina smiling, cool as she wanted to be. I could feel the powerful effect this super-funky new music was having on the crowd. They were not expecting the quantum leap our band was making right before their eyes. David said to the crowd, “We’re not the same as we used to be.”

  Some people have called that evening in Central Park our band’s most magical moment and maybe up until that point it was, but this band had a magical moment every time we played. With each city we visited, we never failed to bring the party and ultimately, the church.

  Tina in Kenzo.

  After the show, we all headed down to the Mudd Club to celebrate our wild show in Central Park. Drinks were on the house and the dance floor was packed all night long. The DJ played all of our hits. We danced to our own songs and that felt really natural and good. When Tina and I finally got home, took a shower, and got in bed together, we felt lucky to have each other, but something was missing. I got up to put on some music. I chose Al Green’s album I’m Still in Love with You, and by the time I got back in bed and took Tina in my arms, nothing was missing at all.

  45

  TOM TOM CLUB

  After our world tour with the big band and rocking the party in every city we visited, Gary told us that David wanted to make a solo album. I’m glad Gary told us because David gave us no warning that he wanted to do this. When we asked Gary how long this solo album would take he said, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  When Jerry heard of David’s solo project, his reaction was “Well then, I’m making a solo album, too.” Seymour Stein gave both David and Jerry deals to make their solo albums.

  Tina and I had no interest in making solo albums. We were very happy with our roles in Talking Heads. Our accountant, Bert Padell—whose clients included Alice Cooper, Blondie, Madonna, Robert De Niro, and Faye Dunaway—advised us, “You gotta do something. You only have two thousand dollars in the bank.” The big band, fabulous as it was, had cost a fortune to keep on the road.

  Tina and I decided to make a record as a collective with some other people, but first we would need a record company to back us. We felt by definition every band was a collective, including Talking Heads. When Gary went to Seymour about a deal for Tina and me, Seymour flat-out passed. He told Gary he couldn’t afford three solo albums from Talking Heads. Gary prodded him over a period of time and Seymour finally agreed to offer us a fraction of the amount he had offered David. It was not enough money to make a good single, never mind an entire album. It seemed to us that Seymour had not been paying attention to the real chemistry of Talking Heads. He, too, had come to believe David’s lies of omission, as if Tina and I had merely been riding David’s coattails.

  Singer-songwriter Garland Jeffreys, who had a hit with a song called “Wild in the Streets” and was a friend of Lou Reed’s, invited Tina and me to be his rhythm section on a new album he was making. We liked Garland and appreciated the offer but we didn’t really want to be someone’s sidemen. Bert Padell advised us against this idea, too.

  Still, we had to make a living. Fortunately for us, Gary knew better than Seymour Stein the extent of our value to Talking Heads. In a moment of great empathy and deal-making, he called his old friend Chris Blackwell of Island Records. Gary knew that Chris liked us and we liked him. Chris had passed on Talking Heads, something that he had come to regret. Also, Tina and I had encouraged Chris to sign the B-52s, which he had, producing their first two albums that went gold right out of the box. Chris told Gary, “I understand the value of a good rhythm section. Have them come down to Compass Point and record a single. If I like it, they can make a whole album.”

  Tina and I were listening to a lot of dance, early hip-hop, and reggae music. When we would go out at night in New York, this was the kind of music we were grooving to at the Mudd Club. We thought we should make a record that would delight the downtown New York community that we were a part of, something unpretentious and downright funky for our friends to shake their asses to.

  Who should we ask to produce this record? We felt there was only one man for the job and he was Lee “Scratch” Perry, the Upsetter, the Jamaican genius producer of the Wailers, Max Romeo, George Faith, and many others. Blackwell set up a meeting with “Scratch,” who by good fortune was in New York City staying at the Howard Johnson’s on Eighth Avenue where all the Jamaican bands liked to stay. When we arrived at the hotel at the appointed nighttime hour of 11:00 P.M., we phoned upstairs to Scratch’s room and a woman’s voice said, “Give us ten minutes and then come on up.” We waited in the coffee shop, where I saw Gene Simmons from Kiss, sans makeup, eating a late-night breakfast. It was not a pretty sight.

  We knocked on Scratch’s hotel door and it was opened by a young, petite, foxy-looking Chinese-Jamaican woman named Valerie, who worked for Island Records in Jamaica. She was assisting Scratch with his business in New York. Scratch had heard about Talking Heads and he was agreeable to meet with Tina and me. We told him what we had in mind to do and he said, “Yeah, man, me can do it. Will be great!” Then the phone rang. Scratch answered it, said a few words, and then passed the phone to me, saying, “You talk to him.” Playing along, I took the phone and said, “Hello?” The voice on the other end said, “Hi, this is Steve Winwood.” I was an enormous fan of Steve Winwood and had bought all the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith records. He said he was calling from England and I told him who I was, that Tina and I were meeting with Scratch about a project and—could he possibly call back later? Steve was completely cool and said, “No problem.”

  Before we left, we set the date with Scratch to meet at Compass Point. Valerie wrote our contacts down in her book and after smoking some good herb to seal the deal, feeling very excited, we said, “Good night. See you in the Bahamas.” Scratch said, “Yes, man. Irie. I will be dere.”

  In March of 1981, we packed up our gear and flew down to Nassau. We would be moving into a new apartment building behind the studio on a hill overlooking the sea. In the Bahamas, rather than a street number, each building has a name. At Chris Blackwell’s request, Tina came up with the name Tip Top and I named our little apartment Tom Tom Club. Tina’s brother, Yann, and his partners, our friends from RISD, Peter Coan and Franklin Salasky, designed the interior for us. When it was finished, Chris Blackwell told us it was the most beautiful apartment he had ever seen. It was a large open space, similar to a loft, with gorgeous tile work, cathedral ceilings, and a terrace facing west with an ocean view. We paid for it in exchange for our first Tom Tom Club record. We thought we would be spending a lot of time there and we did. We were the first to move into the building while most of the other apartments were still being finished, and we were very happy to be there. It was a welcome change from living in Long Island City.

  On the day we were scheduled to begin recording, Scratch was a no-show. This was not a huge concern, because the Jamaican producer had been known to run late for his appointments. Still, after waiting for two weeks, Gary finally reached Scratch on the telephone. He told him, “Chris and Tina have been waiting for two weeks. Are you coming or not?” Scratch said, “Yeah man, I’m coming, but I need to be paid a thousand dollars an hour.” Gary said, “It sounds like you’re trying to price yourself out of this gig, that’s way too much money.” Scratch replied, “No problem, man. We make the album in eight hours.” This was clearly nuts and Gary told him so.
/>
  Tina gave me this bike for my thirtieth birthday.

  Tina and I decided to ask Chris Blackwell if we could produce the record ourselves with the young Jamaican engineer Steven Stanley, who had worked on Remain in Light and was waiting in the wings. Chris said, “Great idea. Go for it.”

  So Tina and I went into Studio B to cut a single. Grace Jones was in Studio A with Sly and Robbie, Wally Badarou, Barry Reynolds, Mikey Chung, and Sticky Thompson, with Alex Sadkin engineering. They were just beginning the great Nightclubbing album. Chris was requesting ideas for songs that Grace could cover and Tina and I suggested “Warm Leatherette” and “Walking in the Rain.” Both of these songs were fantastic.

  After two weeks of waiting around, I was more than ready to begin, but I was a nervous wreck inside. We didn’t have any songs written. We began by using the same process we had used on Remain in Light. I would lay down a foundation of drums first. I programmed a percussion track on a drum machine to play along with so that the tempo would remain consistent for any future editing. After getting a seriously great drum sound on my kit, Stevie said we were ready to roll tape. I had a strong groove in mind to play, but much to my chagrin I soon realized that the Myer’s Rum I had been drinking all day to calm my nerves had taken its toll. I had always been a guy who could hold his liquor, but listening to the playback I realized that I was drunk—in fact, too drunk to play. Tina and Stevie and assistant Benji Armbrister told me to go home and go to bed.

  Tom Tom Club in Studio B at Compass Point.

  Despite my blowout the first day, we quickly made up for lost time to create the basic tracks for three songs over the next couple of days: “Wordy Rappinghood,” “Genius of Love,” and “Lorelei.” For the beats I had in mind, I wanted something very club-wise and easy to dance to. I would lay down drums, Tina would add a bass line, then we’d take turns adding a simple keyboard part. For instance, for “Genius of Love,” Tina played the Prophet-5 part, the dee-deet of bar one, then the dee-deet of bar two, and repeated that two-bar pattern for the whole song. I then added the corresponding syncopated deet-deet that lead back to the downbeat of Tina’s dee-deets of bar two. Simple, but powerful. We made a pretty good team.

  These were the days before sampling and sequencing, so if you had a particular sound in mind, you might have to create it yourself. For what would become “Wordy Rappinghood,” I had the idea to put the sound of Jah knocking on the one at the top of every measure. None of the drums we had available made that God-like BOOM, so I drove downtown to Nassau’s only music store. In the window sat a big fat tympani. I asked the clerk if I could try it out, and with one hit of the mallet, I realized this was the sound I had been hearing in my head. Usually tympani come in pairs, so I bargained the price down and said I would buy it if the man could deliver it to the studio right away. He did, and I overdubbed the huge booming sound at the top of every bar. Tina then added a low chunky part on the Prophet-5 synthesizer. Then I added a different sound. We can’t even remember which one of us added the little galloping part.

  At the end of three days, Chris Blackwell came to listen. He said, “Make an album. But first, make a single.”

  We agreed that Tina’s sisters, Laura and Lani, would be ideal for creating a beautiful vocal blend with Tina the way they had on the Talking Heads song “Air.” We flew them down to Nassau to become a part of our collective. Having Laura and Lani singing with her as they had done since they were kids gave Tina the confidence she needed. No lyrics had been written yet and Tina was torn over what direction to take. Then it came to her. She needed words, therefore the song should be about words! Assuming an eight-bar verse-and-chorus cycle of the rhythm bed the two of us had laid down, Lani, Tina, and Laura stood together in front of a single mic and sang in unison, What are words worth? What are words worth? Words! every eight bars. Then Stevie added two more mics and the ladies stood facing each other in a semi-circle so their voices would bleed into each other’s mics as they double- and triple-tracked the same lines for a group effect.

  This was a start, but we still needed a verse and a chorus. Stumped, the three went for a walk on the beach to clear their heads. Lani spontaneously began to skip and sing an old schoolyard chant remembered from their childhood. That gave Tina an exciting idea. When they arrived in the control room, she said, “You may laugh, but we would like to try something.” They went to their mics in the studio, Stevie rolled the tape, Tina gave the count-in, and this is what they sang: A ram sam sam! A ram sam sam! Kuni kuni kuni kuni ram sam sam! A ka yéh yoopi a ka yéh! A roo a roo a ni ki chi!

  Laura, Tina, and Lani sing “Genius of Love.”

  When I heard this completely surprising vocal part, I thought, Hallelujah! Stevie and Benji were now dancing around the control room with pure joy. They couldn’t believe how much fun it was, a totally unexpected surprise.

  Now that we had a chorus, Tina set to work on verses of rhyming couplets all about words. I suggested that she simply rap the words which, without any practice, was actually harder than we thought. Stevie recorded her one line at a time so that she could give each line its own character and sound. To put the icing on the cake, she wrote some couplets in French. This song was destined to be truly international.

  Now we needed some funky rhythm guitar and Stevie knew just the guy, a Bahamian cat named Monte Brown from the funk outfit T-Connection. Monte created a fast-driving syncopated rhythm part that inspired the girls to add another singing part at the end of the song: You don’t stop, you don’t stop, you don’t stop, and you don’t stop!

  During the mixing of “Wordy Rappinghood,” Stevie added a few effects, including a typewriter sound from a vintage sound effects record. He took his time mixing and, when he was finished, we called Chris Blackwell in to have a listen. I wish you could have seen the look on his face. After listening one time, he asked to hear the song again, beaming with pleasure. I asked him what he thought, and he replied, “I think you should make a whole album. Meanwhile, we will release this song as a single. What do you call it?” “‘Wordy Rappinghood,’” said Tina. Then he asked, “What are you going to call the band?” We already knew. In unison we replied, “Tom Tom Club.” We never considered any other name.

  46

  GENIUS OF LOVE

  We still had no record deal for Tom Tom Club in the USA, but Island quickly released the single “Wordy Rappinghood” in Europe and there was nothing but good news. In Belgium the record went to number one in the pop charts. In the Netherlands it went to number two. In Spain it landed at number three. In the UK it charted at number seven, France at number nine, and Ireland at number ten. These chart positions were higher than any of our Talking Heads records had reached, and on import in the USA, “Wordy Rappinghood” hit number one on the Billboard Disco chart.

  This felt very good to Tina and me, but now we needed a follow-up single and album. We returned to Studio B at Compass Point.

  We were determined to make music that sounded nothing even remotely like Talking Heads. We didn’t need to compete with our own band. We were going to do our own thang.

  Tina and I had started recording tracks with drums, bass, and keyboards. Back at the apartment, Tina, with Laura, made vocal demos over those recordings on Tina’s TASCAM Portastudio. One of these was a super-funky little number that stood out from the rest. The source of inspiration for the groove was a new song by Zapp called “More Bounce to the Ounce.” We loved this song in part because it was played at a slower, funkier tempo by far than so many other dance tracks of that period. It was very relaxed and sexy while still maintaining a raw, hard edge. Produced by none other than Bootsy Collins of P-Funk and James Brown, and Roger Troutman, this song really turned us on. It was our departure point. Tina wrote some amazing words in tribute to our favorite soul, funk, and reggae artists, but wanted a third verse. I gave her these closing lines: “He’s the genius of love. He’s got a greater depth of feeling. Well, he’s the genius of love. He’s so deep!” She loved it and
declared me a genius! So “Genius of Love” became the title. It wasn’t until we were back in Studio B that she grabbed our attention with a throw away opening line, Whatcha gonna do when you get outta jail? I’m gonna have some fun!

  Ready to lay it down.

  After building a number of basic tracks, we invited Adrian Belew down to Compass Point to play some guitar. By this time, he had already performed on David’s and Jerry’s solo albums. We liked Adrian very much, so we also invited his wife and two young children to join us for two weeks. We paid for their airfare and expenses. They stayed with us in our apartment. His kids were very cute and sweet and we all had a wonderful time together. Adrian overdubbed guitar on six songs and on the seventh, an instrumental called “Tom Tom Theme,” he masterfully played the strings of a grand piano with drumsticks. I dug that. With promises to return, Adrian left us in Nassau at the end of April to join and record with King Crimson in London. We learned in June he used the guitar effect he’d come up with for a song we’d written called “L’Elephant” on a song King Crimson would call “Elephant Talk.” Cool.