SEEN AND NOT SEEN

David Byrne Reviews Fred Armisen’s Spot-On Impression of Him

On ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers,’ the musician revealed how he “found out by accident” that Armisen had a gift for impersonating him.

In news that will delight Documentary Now! fans, David Byrne has apparently seen Fred Armisen’s impersonation of him—and fortunately for Armisen, the former Talking Heads frontman is a fan!

When Late Night host and Documentary Now! co-creator Seth Meyers welcomed Byrne to his show to discuss the reboot of his Broadway musical Here Lies Love, he couldn’t help but bring up the time his satirical IFC series spoofed the Talking Heads doc Stop Making Sense. Apparently, however, it was not that episode that first introduced Byrne to Armisen’s impression.

In 2016, Documentary Now! debuted “Final Transmission”—a spoof of Jonathan Demme’s 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense and other concert films that starred co-creators Armisen and Bill Hader as the egotistical frontman “Lee” and the timid bassist Mark, who resents Lee for hogging the spotlight in the fictional band Test Pattern. Maya Rudolph plays Mark’s ex, now Lee’s wife, and Mountain Goats drummer and comedy writer Jon Wurster plays the band’s drummer. As Meyers noted Thursday night, the real Stop Making Sense returned to theaters with a re-release earlier this fall.

Nevertheless, when asked if he knew about Armisen’s impression, Byrne said, “I found out by accident. I went to a fairly small club downtown to see a musical act at one point, and Fred was the opening act. And I'm there in the club, and I’m watching him do me.”

Armisen didn’t know Byrne was in the crowd, but the bit was a hit. “I’m watching,” the musician recalled with a laugh. “I’m thinking, ‘He's doing me—and he's good at it.”

After the show, Armisen approached Byrne to apologize and say he hoped it hadn’t bothered him too much—which it hadn’t. Still, Meyers quipped, “You should have told him, ‘One of my friends called me and told me you were doing it, and I came down to confront you!’”

As Byrne acknowledged, “doing comedy before a music show is one of the hardest things in the world. The only person I've ever seen do it well is Fred. Fred can do it because he is a musician as well. And so Fred does exactly what a music crowd wants to see. If you went to a comedy club and did a David Byrne impression, it might be a crazy bad idea. But you do a David Byrne impression at a rock show, it might actually work.”

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Laura BradleySenior Entertainment Reporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.