Q: I have a book here that is your latest book. It's called "The New Sins". And in looking it over, my feeling was it was the kind of book you could just open to a certain page. It wasn't one that you had to read all the way through.

A: Yeah, there's no narrative and the arguments and rants don't -- you can pick them up anywhere. It was a project that was originally done for an arts fair in Spain, in a city in Spain. And they asked me to do something and I came up -- back with the idea of doing a book. And I said to them, okay, now, I want you to do a book and put it in the hotel drawers of the hotels of the people that are going to come visit your art fair. So they just discover it. And then if -- like the other book -- they can take it home if they want. And like the other book, it doesn't have my name on the cover. The author's name is not on the cover.

Q: The other book being "The Bible". And this book --

A: Yeah (laughs). I should call it the other book!

Q: And it's called "The New Sins", so hey, the new sins, I'll check this out. And you know, I open it up. I just opened it at random. And it says, "The New Sins. Charity. Charity is the voluntary giving of one's wealth or labor to another in need. One wonders how this institution came about." And then, you know, I could read from here forever. And you probably could, too. Do you do readings with this?

A: I did some -- I've been doing some readings. I did one at, it's called Book People. I do it as a -- because of the nature of the book, because it's kind of a presentation or a rant or whatever. I do it like a sales presentation. I use this software called PowerPoint, which I'm sure all of the marketing and sales people out there will be familiar with, which has little images and arrows and bullets and all the highlights. So I have that and then I read from various parts of it at the same time that the images are popping up. So I try and imitate kind of a sales presentation. I'm not sure how much it works.

Q: I found the book a lot of fun. I mean, it comes off as, ooh, this is a bible of some sort. And then it says on the cover, "Translated out of the original tongues with the former translations diligently compared and revised."

A: That's a paraphrase of what it says in the other book. I just thought, that is the weirdest language I've ever heard. And I've just got to have a little bit of it.

Q: Well, I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to folks. It's called "The New Sins". And I know you're doing something at the Sydney Festival in January. I tried to look up on the website. Is it connected with the book or is that something --

A: It is. I'm doing some concerts, which is really great. I haven't been to Australia for a while. But they're also doing -- they're putting -- they have like bus shelter-like boxes. Those kind of things which usually have ads in them. But they're doing a series of them with these Sins in them, with the picture and then my description of the different sins. And they're placing those around the harbor. That should be very, very nice.

Q: Well, it's a very, dare I say, human book. Of course, sinning is human. And the other book is a little bit -- this book is closer to me than the other book. And that's not to dis the other book, I just have trouble reading it and relating to it. Whereas this one is in my terms and language. The book is called "The New Sins". And as I said, a very human book. And the name of your new album is "Look Into the Eyeball". And the song that we focused on the most, Like Humans Do. Why "Look Into the Eyeball"?

A: Oh, it was a way of saying something romantic, like look into my eyes or whatever. But I thought, this is a way of saying it as a mathematician's proposal of love or something like that. And I thought, I like that it's saying something romantic but saying it in a kind of a twisted way.

Q: I was thinking perhaps that…people, you know, your on-stage presence and just "David Byrne", then maybe they thought you were an alien or something because you have such a unique perspective. And I found "Look Into the Eyeball" to be, "Hey, I'm like you. I'm human." This is me projecting. And then the song, Like Humans Do. Is there a connection?

A: You've set me up for an intro for this song, I see! O.K., here it is: Yeah, it's -- the song is basically, yeah, an appreciation, a love letter to human beings -- from another human being. Yeah.

("Like Humans Do" is played from the CD)

Q: Breathing in and breathing out with us this afternoon, David Byrne, 107.1 KGSR. The album "Look Into the Eyeball": Like Humans Do. And David is here with us. Ultimately human, he would have ridden his bike, but we live way too far north for that. Some people don't know that you're a big roots music fan. You've sung with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Lucinda. Heard you do a version of an Iris Dement song once with Natalie Merchant.

A: Oh, yeah, she came and saw us in Kansas City. It was really nice to meet her.

Q: So your musical tastes are, fair to say, all over the map?

A: Pretty -- yeah, pretty far.

Q: All over the map. Okay. So that brings me from map to a quote that I saw on your website that was taken out of the New York Times that said, "I hate world music" - David Byrne. And I'm going, well, where does this come from, the guy who's been running Luaka Bop label for ten years. What was that quote about?

A: It was really about, I have problems with the term "world music," because it implies that the rest of it isn't from this world. Some of it isn't, but we know that all of it is. So it was kind of a rant about that that I've written. And I wanted to have a nice provocative title for it, especially coming from me, where a lot of people associate me with music from different parts of the world. So I thought that would be a nice confusing title.

Q: Yeah, it got my attention. And Luaka Bop is your label. I think you recently celebrated your tenth anniversary?

A: Yeah.

Q: And the first releases on there were compilations of Brazilian musicand Cuban music. But these days, people who are not from this world, they're from America, Jim White and the man behind Geggy Tah are on your label. Is that hard for you? Do you find yourself put into the position of being a businessman and a marketing man as the overseer of Luaka Bop?

A: It's -- it's hard in that I tend to deal with the artists from their own point of view, from the point of view of another artist. And yet, I kind of have to sometimes tell them: "listen, if you want -- here's the nuts and bolts. If you want to survive, here's some little things I've learned. And you can be idealistic, and that's great, but you also have to take care of your business stuff." And that part is -- well, I feel like a school teacher when I'm doing that. But the rest of it is great. It's sitting around listening to music with friends. And you couldn't ask for anything better.

Q: You've exposed me to songs that I would never have heard. Umbabaraumba. That song is on one of your first collections. I don't even remember -- is that --

A: Jorge Ben. Great song. I think that the New York group, Cibo Matto, they sampled that song at one point.

Q: They did?

A: Yeah. They may have had to remove the sample, but they --

Q: And then there was an album within the last year by Susana Baca was just one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard.

A: Oh, great.

Q: Just stunning. So this is another avenue of expression for you. And there's so many that we talked about during our conversation: books, photography, you have art shows, and of course, making music. How do you find the time to do all of this stuff?

A: Well, I figure what I do for work is what other people do in their time off. People listen to music and whatever, take photos -- after work. Well, I do it the whole day. And if I'm lucky, I get a little bit of money to allow me to keep doing it.

Q: So you almost -- you're not -- I couldn't call you a workaholic. You're a lifeaholic.

A: Yeah. I don't -- I don't think -- most of the time I don't think of it as work.

Q: Well, the best artists and even friends of mine who are not quote-unquote "artists" are the people who live life as art. I mean, that aesthetic is beautiful. And so there's no division between now I'm painting, I'm painting again or just making --

A: I do have to tell the IRS that it really is work, though.

Q: That is a little bit of the difference. How about having a family? How has that affected your artistic life?

A: Scared me, actually, because I thought, "oh, I don't want to write songs about how wonderful it is to have a family and just write happy songs." One or two happy songs are all right, but a whole record of happy songs, it's like Barney the Dinosaur or something.

Q: Well, but family has its own tensions and dissentions anyway...

A: It certainly does. That's another kind of record, I guess (laughter)...

Q: We've been talking with David Byrne. He's playing at La Zona Rosa tonight. His fourth concert appearance here in Austin this year, and we feel very blessed. You make your home in New York City. Were you there on September 11th?

A: Yeah. One of the guys in the office came in the door in the morning and said, "Plane just hit the Trade Center." So we walk out on the street to the corner. Yeah. Everybody was out on the street. And then we were just kind of shell-shocked for quite a while after that.

Q: So your offices are in -- on the lower end of Manhattan?

A: Yeah.

Q: Do you live on the lower end or do you live uptown a little bit?

A: I live downtown as well. We were lucky in that -- well, no one real close to us was in the Trade Centers. And we were also lucky that our -- where we work, it was far enough away that we could continue doing what we do. Whereas, a family that's friends of mine live real close. Well, they still do. They moved back in. But for like a month, they had to leave their home. There was dust and debris all over the place so they had -- they moved in with us with their kids and their cats and all that stuff.

Q: It seems to me that it's almost inevitable that the events of 9/11 -- and I don't think it's a mistake that that happened on 9/11. But that it would seep into the art of artists. Do you find that at all or have you been -- well, you're always creating. So have you found it seeping in?

A: Not yet. I'm not -- I'm sure it will. I have to realize -- or been realizing that in other wars, throughout, you know, recent ones, art took, changed dramatically during those periods. People who maybe grew up making art or thinking they were going to be creative in one kind of way, when they looked at the kind of events that were happening around the world, they realized that they couldn't operate under those suppositions and they had to completely re-orient themselves and make a different kind of work.

Q: For some folks, it has been a reminder of mortality and a bit of an awakening. And for other people who have had their eyes wide open, we'll see how it affects their art and their lives. David Byrne has been our guest this afternoon. Again, thanks. Nice to meet you.

A: Thank you. You, too.

Q: And a fine record, "Look Into the Eyeball". And then, is this the end of the tour or do you get to go home?

A: Yeah, we all have a little time off. And then we're off to Australia and Japan.

Q: Well, have safe travels and have fun. And I think this might fall under the banner of one of the happy songs. But maybe the title's misleading. Everyone's in Love With You?

A: Yeah, it's kind of happy, although it's complaining about (laughs) being ignored! If I have a second. This song -- I wrote another version of this song. Same song. Exact same music, but completely different words called Everybody Thinks I'm You, which was about mistaken identity. About an ordinary person always being mistaken for a celebrity. And eventually, that person just taking the place of the celebrity, being able to kind of walk down the red carpet or whatever, and just realizing that they're a total fake, but everybody believes it.

Q And then it morphed into Everyone's in Love With You.

A: Uh-huh.

Q: David Byrne. See you soon.

("Everyone's In Love With You" is played from the CD)

(End of interview.)