David Byrne on How Culture Changed After the Internet

So, what's your take? I'm a bike rider. I get around New York on a bike. Everybody should follow the arrows and go in the direction that they're supposed to go in.

100% agree. No matter who you are.

I agree. I mean, it is insane. It—it is like going through a war zone if you're riding a bike in New York City. Especially if I'm not—there's a moment I'm not paying attention to next minute, I know there's somebody about to crash into my face. Could be a delivery truck. Could be a cop car. Could be a—

Someone with a stroller. I'm like, "Get your baby out of the bike lane."

Do not use your baby as a battering ramp. I don't know how to enforce it. I mean, I wouldn't know how to enforce it, but there are other countries where people stay going in the direction of the traffic. They stop at the lights. They do all that kind of stuff.

Those countries have polite societies. They do have—it's a different society, too. Yes. [Music]

You know what we don't have here? Shaming people. Oh, that happened to me.

Where? Uh, Copenhagen or Amsterdam or some place where they ride a bike a lot. I was riding in and I was a foreigner. I had to stop to look for directions on my phone. "Go, where do I turn? Where do I go?" What? And all of a sudden, I'm hearing this: "Get out of the bike. Get out of the way, you idiot."

You committed a faux pas. Yes. Boy, did I ever. I—I fel—I was shamed.

So they yell at you. Yes.

And then you were like, "I'm never stopping the bike lane again." Yes. That was so embarrassing.

It's up to the cyclist to shame the other cyclist for doing the wrong thing. Cuz normally when I see someone coming at me, I go, "What an asshole," under my breath. But I don't go, "You're going the wrong way, you [--] asshole." But maybe I should do that. I think the same thing. And I wonder now if I go wrong way, [--]—am I—is this guy going to like put on the brakes and go, "Okay, we're—yes, we're going to settle this right now."

All of a sudden, he's Irish. Yes.

One of the big issues that I've heard from families, literally from my wife, is that the delivery guys, they're zooming, man. They're going so fast. And often times they're going the wrong way. Yes. Often times they are going the wrong way. Not always, but a lot of times they—they—they just take it as a two-way path. And in a sense, I don't blame them. I'm pretty sure they get paid by the piece, by the delivery.

Right? And so, their incentive is to make as many deliveries in their day as they possibly can, as fast as they can.

The corporation is responsible. Yeah. The structure of how they get paid makes them behave that way, right? And I'm thinking about all the times, you know, I'm on my phone. "Where the hell am I delivering? Oh, why is my delivery taking so long? Ah, where—where's my delivery?" Calling the restaurant. "Hey, I ordered this pizza an hour ago. It's still not here. The guy's on his way." You know what the guy's doing? He's cutting corners because he's so damn stressed out cuz he needs to make my pizza delivery.

That's right. Which so it's my fault, too.

He does not want you to yell at him when you— I would never—I don't yell. I'm not a yeller.

Okay. I'm not a yelling guy.

Whoa. Do you do anything? Do you say no? Uh, sorry. I can't give you a tip because— No, no, I tip. I always tip. I tip 20% even if it's bad service because society has ruined life for everyone. [Music]

Tell me about this orange. I got a new record coming out soon. I'm going to do a concert tour and I'm thinking colors.

Oh— So I'm kind of experimenting with colors. Color.

Let's try this. This is new.

Yeah, all new. And how'd you land on orange?

Let's do it for some time. How'd you land on—that's a very—I mean, orange is the—likely one of the bright—like you could have gone with navy blue.

I got a blue thing going. It's kind of this blue right here. It's that line. I think that's a royal blue.

Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, I asked the lighting guy. I said, "What's—what's going to work? What's going to still have the impact no matter what kind of lighting you do?" Like, if you change the lighting from one color to another, and he said the orange will kind of hold up. You'll—it'll still read as kind of an orange, right? So I said, "Okay, that one's in."

We tried green.

You tested it—green like that, like your shoes. Yeah.

And I said, "No, no, no, no. If you put a like a warm light orange or yellow or something on the green, it all turns kind of muddy color." And so you were thinking about the live performance.

I'm thinking about the live performance because I—I know about you, like, I mean, you know, the legendary suit story is it was kind of like, "How do I pop on stage?" Yes. Yeah.

How do I look larger than life? Well, now I'm just going to get—

Well, you're still popping. Yeah. I'm going to be popping by being brighter color than anything else on stage.

Are the other people on stage—stage? The whole band, dancers, everybody the same color. Yeah. Cuz then if we clump together, it looks like this thing—

Orb. Yeah, this orb with a lot of arms and legs sticking out, or whatever we do like that.

Are you—are you kind of a phases kind of person? Like this is a—you know, you had a suit phase, you had a white phase. Yes.

So you—now we're in the color phase. What does that help? Does that impact the music at all, or—or like, how does it play into the process? I guess—

I think it does reflect the music. I think that—not that I set out to do it that way, but the reaction I've gotten to the music is that this music is kind of uplifting, joyful, playful, all that. And I thought, "Wow, now we got colors to match." The colors express that. I'll tell you what, it looks—I mean, it looks good.

You kind of look like—well, you look like you're in the NBA. You look like you—you—you shot some hoops and now you're really tired and you're kind of—you're kind of you're on your rest day. I'm just taking the train home, you know.

No, you look like you're a professional athlete. I—I mean, I like it. It's inspiring me. I don't want to be a biter. That's what they call a copycat these days.

Yeah, bro. I can get you one of these. You can?

Yes. Literally? Of course. Of course.

I don't think—I might have all these guys wearing them. Yes. So, the new music, how is it different from the old music?

The new music—

All right, I'm not getting off here. One more stop. How would I describe it? There's songs that tell stories, that—um—there's one called "I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party." So that's like the beginning of a story and you go, "Okay, that's the premise. What happens next?" And then what happens, and what did he say, and what did you say back? That's narrative.

It's a narrative.

Wow. And then there's a little kind of parable thing at the end.

Okay. I like that. On that particular one. Then there's some love songs. I'm going to get married in a few months. So—

Congratulations. So, yeah. Thank you.

So— That's exciting.

They're not typical love songs, but they are for me. They're love nonetheless.

Yes.

Uh, speaking of the Buddha, have you—have you ever met uh or seen someone called the Rizzler? I don't think so. The Rizzler is this—uh—he's a very viral entity on the internet. He's a young man about eight years old and he's famous for doing this, the Rizzler face. And Rizzler is short for charisma.

Uh-huh. So the Rizzler face is—eagle.

He's eight years old. Yeah. And—and here's what I'll say. I met him. To me, he is the Buddha.

I—I want to show you—I want to show you a video of the Rizzler. Make sure your aura is protected because the Rizzler is literally one of the most famous people in the world right now. That's the Rizzler. [Laughter]

That's the Rizzler face. So the Rizzler, he—p