"Stop thinking making sense makes sense," David Byrne used to sing back in 1984, when he embodied, as a member of the Talking Heads, a tense psycho-killer dancing in a suit five sizes too big. Seventeen years later, at 48, and about to release, in early May, his 13th solo album - Look into the Eyeball - David Byrne remains the same restless being. Musician, producer, script-writer, photographer, movie-maker, designer and visual artist, this Scotsman who's been married with stylist Adelle Lutz for 14 years, is the father of a teenage girl and a fan of Mutantes, Tom Zé and the Simpsons, is a symbol of a time when artists increasingly blur the boundaries of their creativity across several means of expression.
This is why, instead of a journalist, we invited another creator to interview him: São Paulo-born Vik Muniz, a New York-based photographer and artist who was featured in this very same Black Pages section in our February issue [TRIP #86]. Vik and Byrne talked with authority about rock'n'roll, Candomble, fame, anonymity, biases, manias, Brazilian music, the Internet, sex, life after death, drugs, and projects for the future. The outcome is a conversation in which each question leads not necessarily to an answer, but rather to another question, another creative possibility, another inquiry. The composite Vik drew reveals an artist at the apex of his ability to create, who never accepted labels - someone who refuses to limit his view of art to a single dimension. What else might one expect from David Byrne, a man who states that if he could change anything in his body would make his face a little more cartoon-like?

VIK ARE ROCK STARS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES?
BYRNE Yes, rockers are certainly on the verge of extinction. They've been replaced with something else. They are a little too grown up, now. Where I rehearse there's sometimes a hip-hop group in one room and a rock'n'roll band in another. And you say "all these are rock bands." But they laugh, as if this was a thing of the past.
VIK HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF THE SAME HAPPENED TO MUSIC AS DID TO FASHION, AND PEOPLE STARTED TO LISTEN TO SONGS FROM THE 80'S, FOR EXAMPLE, INCLUDING YOURS?
BYRNE They're already doing this, I see. There are some remixes of Once in a Lifetime, in England, that have become hits and are played at clubs.
VIK AND WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO LISTEN TO THE OLD DAVID BYRNE RECONFIGURED INTO A NEW BEAT?
BYRNE I like being reconfigured. I also like it when people listen to a story and rewrite it, when they return to something old and feel something new.
VIK I'VE HEARD THAT THE LAUGHS IN SITCOMS WERE RECORDED IN THE 1930'S AND NEVER REPLACED. SO THEY'RE IN FACT BY DEAD PEOPLE [LAUGHING]. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT POSTERITY? WILL PEOPLE HEAR YOUR VOICE AFTER YOU'RE DEAD?
BYRNE It's not like writing a book, shooting a photograph, or making and art-piece. When you sing in a video or an album, the product is better linked to you as an individual, as a body. But, for me, this is an illusion. I don't think that, physically speaking, I have much to do with my music.
VIK WHAT DOES SUCCESS MEAN TO YOU?
BYRNE Well... some people might say that success is happiness, but I disagree. One has nothing to do with the other. I could make a huge list of ways to define success. For me, it's not about money. But one needs a certain amount of it to do as one pleases, to be free to work on what one wants. Some might say that success is not to care what other people think. But neither is this true. What others think does matter. Not that I'd change because of that But I'm trying to communicate something that I don't always know what it is. I'm trying to send out a message. If communication fails, there must be something wrong. The issue is reaching an audience. But how many people? Are one's friends enough?
VIK DID SUCCESS HAVE A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON YOUR LIFE?
BYRNE The only thing that comes to mind is that I no longer have as many opportunities to fail. People are paying more attention to what I do. Aside from that, there's nothing bad about it.

VIK IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND BECOME AN ASTRONAUT OR A SECRET AGENT, WOULD YOU?
BYRNE Why not both at once? A secret agent in space... But I wouldn't like that. Being an astronaut seems to be boring. And being a secret agent would feel sort of wrong, now.
VIK WHAT KIND OF CHILD WERE YOU?
BYRNE Very good, most of the time.
VIK THE STEREOTYPE OF ONE WHO'LL GROW UP TO BE A ROCK'N'ROLL STAR IS THAT OF A REBEL...
BYRNE But not me. My family was very supportive. I didn't have the same problems as my friends. Their families hated them. Just the other day I was talking to one of them about it... Back then, there was such a huge chasm between generations, between parents and children, that it was normal for children to run away from home. Not because of money or anything of the sort, but because they wanted to wear their hair long, for example. Few would do it today.
VIK WHAT'S YOUR EARLIEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY?
BYRNE I remember once, at age 4, taking all of my clothes off and running outside of the house. When the door closed behind me, I realized that I was bare naked out on the street. I was very embarrassed.
VIK EVERYONE EXPECTS YOU TO LEAD A WILD LIFE. BUT YOU'VE BEEN MARRIED FOR 14 YEARS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS INSTITUTION?
BYRNE I'm very satisfied with marriage. We have fun. I know that doesn't match the image of a wild rocker. For may people I have this wild musician image. It's even a problem, because I sometimes think that's how it's supposed to be, like in the biography people read in magazines.
VIK DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIST KISS?
BYRNE Yes. It was awful [laughing]. I remember I was dancing at a party with a girl. I watched what my friends we doing and followed suit.
VIK HOW DID YOU LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY?
BYRNE It was confusing and not very sophisticated. One of the first times I was naked with a woman, when I was young, we had nowhere to go. So we went to her basement and lay down on top of a pile of trash.
VIK SEX ON TRASH? WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THIS EXPERIENCE?
BYRNE Nothing good! [Laughing] We put a blanket or sleeping bag on top of the trash and got down to it.