(Credits: Far Out / Shervin Lainez)
Wed 15 October 2025 23:00, UK
The perfect drunk is a beautiful and elusive thing. If we’re all being honest, most of us think we are it. We think that a drink simply turns us into social butterflies and not sloppy, raving lunatics. The heartbreaking news is that it isn’t true, for it is, but maybe it is for David Byrne.
In an industry tragically overrun by addiction, where getting fucked up is not only standard but is the expectation to a damaging degree, it’s rare to hear someone in music talk joyously about having a little drink. There are sad stories of artists fading away under the weight of alcoholism. There are also messy stories where booze fuelled utter chaos. But the nice middle ground isn’t often heard of.
That’s partly because it’s unremarkable. Not too much gossip can come from a singer having a few drinks and handling them calmly. There is no real story in someone having a nice night out, enjoying their time with friends, maybe dancing a little, or just having a few drinks and some good conversations. That’s a good Saturday, not a tale to be told in the media.
So historically, we’ve favoured the wild cards and pored over stories of people who cannot help but fall into the deep ends of excess. Byrne doesn’t live there though, he’s always remained balanced, doing his little dances and cycling his bike around, living a nice life, and enjoying a tipple at the end of the day.
“A person who can achieve the perfect state of drunkenness,” Byrne mused to Hot Press. “It’s what everybody is looking for, I guess.” To him, that’s a type of nirvana. It’s the ultimate goal everyone should be trying to achieve: learning to hit the perfect level of intoxication and handle themselves well within it. To him, it’s a place “when you’ve just had enough to release inhibitions and feel happy but not enough to be falling down.”
Refusing to be humble about this niche brag, he’s outright with it – David Byrne is the perfect drunk. “Absolutely,” he said. “Well, I try to be.”
He’s pretty sure he pulls it off. Delivering one of those rare commentaries about how nice a drink can be if you can handle it well, Byrne said, “It’s perfect for me when I drink enough to get just a little bit looser, a little bit more talkative, a little bit more eager to laugh.” It simply loosens him up, likely fuelling all those iconic moments of Byrne dancing and grooving on stage, moving his body like an inflatable man and loosening those limbs.
Specifically, Byrne likes a bourbon now. Back in the Talking Heads days, their 1983 tour rider showed that the band always wanted cold bottles of Heineken or Tsing Tao beers, a bottle of vodka on ice and then a bottle of red and white wine. Keeping them loosened up during the Stop Making Sense tour, the band being beautifully half-cut suddenly seems to account for the pure joy of the concert.
There is only one issue. Byrne’s drinking never makes him moody or fighty; he’s not a grumpy drunk or a loud one. Instead, if he pushes his limits too much, he just gets a little snoozy, telling the magazine, “If I have too many, I get sleepy and sometimes actually fall asleep, which is kind of embarrassing if you’re in a bar with friends, especially when it’s your turn to pay the tab.”
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