Covering Their Bases: Houses In Motion

Cover bands. Say what you will about them, but unlike their more successful and famous counterparts, they’ll always play the hits and won’t be snobby assholes about it. In Covering Their Bases, Decider asks a cover band to weigh in on contentious issues regarding the reason for their existence. In this edition, guitarist Matt Skemp and drummer Jeff Sauer of local Talking Heads tribute band Houses In Motion (which plays Friday at Café Montmartre) discuss the challenge of replicating the weirdness of David Byrne, why covering Talking Heads is unlike covering any other pop band, and whether or not the latest Byrne/Brian Eno collaboration is worth a second listen.

Decider: It requires serious ambition to take on such a monumentally eccentric band. Do you feel that you have done justice by Byrne and company?
Matt Skemp: Well, it has definitely been a challenge, and when the band first started we weren’t really expecting anyone to say, “Wow, you guys are doing it perfectly!” But over time, it has really caught on for us. The Heads’ discography is interesting because the early stuff is really just neurotic pop and then all of the sudden it turns into Afrobeat. When we do the two sets, it is almost like two different bands, which we think is a cool feature that we wouldn’t get covering a band with only one sound.
D: What are the toughest aspects of the Talking Heads to try and replicate?
MS: I think a big challenge is the range of David Byrne’s voice and luckily [singer-bassist] Greg [Ujda] has an outstanding voice to imitate David Byrne and a great falsetto to get to the higher notes. Another huge challenge is the fact that Greg is playing bass while singing, so some songs can take a while to learn.
Jeff Sauer: Also, in the later material, where you have more and more layers of song, we are forced to ask ourselves, "What is doable? What instrument is that to begin with?"
D: How many people do you have up there doing this with you?
JS: Well, first set we do as a four-piece and we cover ’76 to ’79 up through Fear Of Music, and second set we bring up a percussionist and two backing vocalists and go up through ’83 around Speaking In Tongues.
D: Has Greg ever tried to wear an oversized suit for the show?
MS: [Laughs.] Typically, no. However, we did actually try this once for a Halloween show at Café Montmarte, which was very crowded and warm.
JS: Before there was a capacity. [Laughs.]
MS: Yeah, he actually ended up getting very dizzy and overheated and had to take the suit coat off in the middle of the show, so I think that kind of put a nix on the suit coat.
JS: We aren’t trying to create the physical image of the group. They basically dress like normal guys anyway.
D: Did you feel about the latest Byrne/Eno collaboration, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, lived up to its predecessor, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts?
JS: To be honest, I’ve only heard a couple tracks. It was interesting considering it had been 27 years since Bush Of Ghosts. I mean, it was groundbreaking in ’81. I thought what I heard was pleasant, and I’m happy to have Eno and Byrne collaborating again, but I was not particularly blown away.