"You're never going to make it in this business," David Johansen of the New York Dolls told Chris Frantz one night at CBGB. "You're too nice!"

Johansen was right about the latter, not so much about the former. Frantz is one of the poster-boy nice guys of the post-punk era, the joyfully sweaty drummer working triumphantly at his kit in the iconic concert film Stop Making Sense. As he repeatedly acknowledges in his new memoir Remain In Love (buy now), Frantz had every reason to be. He was in one of the world's most exciting bands, he was married to the group's talented and sexy bassist, and — when filming the last of three nights that became Stop Making Sense — Frantz had just made his Soul Train debut with his hitmaking side project Tom Tom Club.

Yep, Chris Frantz has had a good life. This despite longstanding frustration with his band's anti-charismatic frontman. "You could say that Tina and I were the team who made David Byrne famous," Frantz writes in the book's preface. Well, then! Tell us what you really think.

Frantz does, and he doesn't pull any punches, but he also makes clear that there aren't really any bridges left to Byrne. Aside from a successful and not unduly fraught reunion set for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2002, Talking Heads haven't performed live together for over 35 years, and haven't released new music for over 30. They're done. Peter Gabriel will rejoin Genesis before David Byrne reunites Talking Heads.

The setup might lead you to expect a real dishy read, but the reality is that Talking Heads were never Mötley Cruë. Jerry Harrison was showing up too drunk to the Speaking In Tongues sessions, so Frantz told him to clean up his act...and he did. Frantz himself drank too much rum at the studio for Tom Tom Club's first single...so they just recorded the song the following day. The absolute worst rock-star behavior Frantz recounts on Byrne's part is...well, let's just say it's a little too gross to get into, but it's the kind of thing that would be mere table ante for half of your favorite bands.

The truly hurtful thing Byrne did, in Frantz's account, was to unduly claim credit for the band's songwriting in ways that had both reputational and financial implications. In the annals of rock history, Remain In Love should help buttress the conviction that Talking Heads were a truly collaborative unit. It's also a reminder that Frantz and Weymouth demonstrated their chops with the success of a related musical collective that they led to chart success including one of the era's defining singles.

Tom Tom Club are now remembered as one-hit wonders — which is a little unfair given their touring success and the fact that their debut single "Wordy Rappinghood" topped the dance chart — but it's certainly the case that their signal pop-culture contribution was "Genius of Love" (1981), a Top 40 hit that went on to be one of the most-sampled tracks of all time. While the lyrical shout-outs to Black artists may sound awkward today, the song's success felt like validation for artists including Kurtis Blow, pioneer of the still-nascent genre of hip-hop. Sly and Robbie, who added handclips to the track, loved their mention.

In fact — Frantz would like to remind you — Tom Tom Club had a gold album before Talking Heads ever did. If the band's cameo in Stop Making Sense (as Byrne goes offstage for a costume change) feels like a sop, it wasn't: even for Talking Heads fans, "Genius of Love" was one of band's biggest hits.

Franz and Weymouth, though, always considered Talking Heads their flagship band and first love. Well, almost. Throughout the book, Frantz is absolutely reverential towards Weymouth, his wife of 43 years and partner since before Talking Heads even formed. Despite the title, though, he doesn't really write much about their relationship as such; the reader is generally given to understand that the two have always been on the same page about everything.

Other band biographers have suggested a more pitched conflict between Weymouth and Byrne, with overtones of sexual jealousy, but there's none of that here, nor would you expect there to be. It's certainly clear enough that both Frantz and Weymouth adored the band's musical alchemy while resenting Byrne's increasingly independent attitude. Frantz's constant refrain is that Byrne is a poor communicator.

Alongside the author's frustration over that, the book also contains ample endearment and admiration for Byrne's ability to turn his distinctive personality (he's said he believes he has borderline Asperger's syndrome) into artistic gold. "He got into music to get out of himself," Frantz writes. "When you played music with David you came to realize his eccentricities were not an act."

But back to Chris Frantz. Born in Kentucky, where he continues to keep tight family connections, he grew up in Pittsburgh and found his way to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), which his high school art teacher described to Frantz's skeptical parents as "the Harvard of art schools." That wasn't good enough for Byrne, who dropped out, but it got him to RISD along with Frantz and Weymouth. Frantz invited Byrne to join a band called the Artistics; after graduation the two migrated to New York along with Weymouth, who finally succumbed to her boyfriend's pleas that she pick up a bass.

Thus were born Talking Heads, later supplemented with Jerry Harrison — who appears here as a doomy character, bitter over the breakup of his former band the Modern Lovers and convinced Talking Heads will meet the same fate. The bulk of Remain in Love is a surprisingly detailed account of Talking Heads' recording and touring career, including travelogues of Europe and the U.S.

Let's just get the local angle out of the way: here's what Frantz remembers about the band's visit to Minneapolis.

When we rolled into Minneapolis we visited the legendary Oar Folkjokopus record shop. Even though the clerks could be condescending, it was the hippest record store for miles around and the only shop carrying Punk and New Wave in Minneapolis. Let's just say the clerks did not condescend to us. We met Andy Schwartz, who would soon be running New York Rocker magazine. We performed at Jay's Longhorn, another steakhouse that pushed back the tables after dinner for the bands to play. They had a scene germinating with bands like Suicide Commandos, the Replacements, and the Suburbs. The Longhorn was the CBGB of Minneapolis, and every show we played there was packed.

Of course, Talking Heads also played the CBGB of New York. It's where they played their first show, a home away from home for artists including the Ramones, Television, Blondie, and Patti Smith. "Oh yeah," said Smith when she met Talking Heads. "You're that art school band. I wish my parents were rich enough to send me to art school."

Frantz has stories about all the other CBGB regulars, as well as older heads like Andy Warhol (who invited the band to his shiny, corporate post-shooting Factory) and Lou Reed (unstable and weird, but still a musical hero who would later collaborate with Tom Tom Club on a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale"). Frantz remembers Seymour Stein as almost literally salivating to sign Talking Heads, who were a perfect fit for his label Sire.

Remain In Love is a memory-dump memoir, but there are plenty of music fans who will be more than happy to download these memories. Frantz makes a point of describing just how down-and-out the Bowry was; Remain in Love is an apt companion piece to Debbie Harry's recent memoir, where she similarly recalls a contrast between the musical magic happening at CBGB and the unmistakable danger of a neighborhood where she was personally raped by a home intruder. Frantz recalls stepping over dead bodies, and writes that when he and Weymouth were loft-shopping for Talking Heads' first living/rehearsal space, they saw one property that was just casually aflame, with no apparent effort to douse the blaze.

Frantz recalls being over the moon at the opportunity to work with Brian Eno, whose genius as a producer was to leave room for Talking Heads to be themselves and to drop in with judicious suggestions like slowing down their cover of "Take Me to the River." Talking Heads weren't too slow to be a famed live act, though: a perfect match for tourmates including the Ramones (who obliterated audiences that Talking Heads warmed up) and the B-52s (who reminded Frantz of his art-school friends).

Perhaps the craziest gig Frantz recounts was a show in Belgium in the days when pogo-ing was a thing. Some of the band's young fans, Frantz remembers, "had managed to pogo right through the floor, landing in the basement below. They would then climb back up the stairs and push the crowd so that the kids in front of them dropped through the hole they had created."

As Talking Heads became increasingly a vehicle for Byrne's vision (Frantz evinces a little schadenfreude at the flop of True Stories), Frantz and Weymouth increasingly settled into their home in the Bahamas; Tom Tom Club was born from their active participation in Island Records founder Chris Blackwell's successful attempt to turn his Compass Point Studio into a landmark of pop reggae. Frantz and Weymouth produced Ziggy Marley, befriended Robert Palmer, worked out with Grace Jones, and even got to hang out with the Godfather of Soul himself.

Frantz's father happened to be visiting at the same time Brown was in town, and when the drummer introduced the two, his dad said the most dad thing possible. Referring to the growled mention of Brown in "Genius of Love," Frantz's father said, "You know, Mr. Brown, my son made you famous."

"You know, General Frantz," Brown said to the Army man, "your son may be a genius, but I was already famous."

Sign up for The Current Rock and Roll Book Club e-mail newsletter

A monthly update with a note from Jay, a roundup of recent reviews, previews of upcoming books, and more.

You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about American Public Media programs. See Minnesota Public Radio Terms of Use and Privacy policy.

Upcoming Rock and Roll Book Club picks

Tune in to The Current at 8:30 a.m. (Central) every Wednesday morning to hear Jay Gabler and Jill Riley talk about a new book. Also, find Jay's reviews online.

July 29: Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show by Richard Zoglin (buy now)

August 5: Larger Than Life: A History of Boy Bands from NKOTB to BTS by Maria Sherman (buy now)

August 12: Knock! Knock! Knock! On Wood: My Life In Soul by Eddie Floyd (buy now)

August 19: And In the End: The Last Days of the Beatles by Ken McNab