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David Byrne by Shervin Lainez; Hayley Williams by Zachary Gray
David Byrne‘s new album, Who is the Sky?, is out in a month and it features a collaboration with Paramore‘s Hayley Williams. That is not their only upcoming collab, though. They’ve recorded a song for Netflix’s upcoming movie The Twits, which is based on Roald Dahl’s 1980 children’s book of the same name. That song, “Open the Door,” is one of four Byrne has recorded for The Twits, which was directed by Phil Johnston and will hit the streamer on October 17. The other song titles are “We’re Not Like Ev’ryone Else,” “Lullaby,” and “The Problem Is You.”
“Phil was wonderfully clear what each song needed to express and what the character was feeling at that moment,” Byrne says. “I reached out to Hayley Williams to collaborate on the end credits song and we both agreed that it should serve to remind us that there is heart and connection in the story after all the unpleasantness depicted by Mr. and Mrs. Twit. Hayley was inspired by Beesha’s story and came up with some lyric ideas, and I set them to tune and boom.”
Hayley adds, “Being a part of this movie is like one pinch-me moment after another. My favorite Roald Dahl book growing up was The Twits. I’m drawn to learning about twisted characters like Mr. and Mrs. Twit and The Wormwoods from Matilda. The way Phil and Daisy adapted the original story was really exciting to me, as was the animation style. It feels like a cautionary tale — and also a really lovely depiction of chosen family and community, which is one of my favorite topics. I owe David Byrne for pulling me into the music for this. It was so fun and so surreal starting a song from scratch with him.”
The Twits features an impressive voice cast, including Emilia Clarke, Natalie Portman, Johnny Vegas, Margo Martindale, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Ryan Lopez, Timo Simons, Nicole Byer, Jason Mantzoukas, Alan Tudyk, Mark Proksch, and Rebecca Wisocky. Here’s the synopsis: “The Twits tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Twit, the meanest, smelliest, nastiest people in the world who also happen to own and operate the most disgusting, most dangerous, most idiotic amusement park in the world, Twitlandia.”
Meanwhile, Hayley Williams just dropped 17 new songs — not technically an album — on Friday, and today she’s released a video for one of them, “Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party.” It was directed by Zachary Gray and shot in Williams’ hometown of Nashville at various points along the city’s bustling Broadway row (home to many, many bachelorette parties). Watch that below.
David Byrne has been very active in the lead-up to his new album, and over the weekend, he showed up at Bushwick club C’mon Everybody to perform Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place” with all-female NYC brass band, Brass Queens. It’s not as random as it first seems: Brass Queens played Byrne’s Amazing Humans Doing Amazing Things variety show at Town Hall last year. It’s a cool version of the song and you can watch video of that below.
Byrne also showed up in an Instagram video about his Matador labelmates Water From Your Eyes’ new song, “Playing Classics,” which features the band’s Rachel Brown asking people on the street “What’s This Song?” (Rachel is also doing a lot of reportage for Stereogum these days, including interviewing Hayley about “Ego Death at a Bachelor Party.”). You can watch that below.
Last but not least, David Byrne just shared an unboxing video for Who Is the Sky? — specifically the lenticular vinyl edition, which is pretty trippy. Watch that below, too.
Who Is the Sky? is out September 5 via Matador and you can preorder it in three different vinyl variants from the BV shop.
David Byrne’s fall tour includes four nights at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall: September 30, October 1, October 10, and October 11.
For completists: David Byrne also made a surprise appearance during Olivia Rodrigo’s Governors Ball set; and Hayley Williams came out during Turnstile’s show Under the K Bridge.
English (US) · 