In a reader Q&A interview with the Guardian, David Byrne answers fan-submitted questions to coincide with the cinema release of the tour film for his stage show American Utopia. The former Talking Heads frontman reflects on the band's early days, his evolving approach to live performance and his ambition to direct another feature film, offering a wide-ranging look back at a career that has consistently pushed against the conventions of the standard rock concert.

Byrne recalls Talking Heads' 1977 UK tour alongside the Ramones amid the explosion of punk, including being "gobbed on" at London's Roundhouse — noting the Ramones at least had leather jackets for protection. He explains how successive tours, including a collaboration with St Vincent, led him to free his musicians from wires: he broke a drum kit into six mobile players and used a Hungarian-made self-powered Midi keyboard rack, while his current tour features four drummers, dancers who play instruments such as clarinets, and a curved video screen. He also discusses why he has not directed a feature since 1986's True Stories — largely creative-control frustrations with outside financing — his hope to make another film using digital cameras, and how his Scottish birth and dark Scottish humour gave him an outsider's perspective on American culture.