Still making sense

He was the leader of a seminal new wave band, and has enjoyed a quirky, if not often commercially successful, solo career. He runs his own record label, putting out albums of good music from around the globe. He’s a filmmaker, an artist, a composer.

And the name of this man is David Byrne.

The former Talking Heads frontman, who will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 23, at the State Theatre in Portland, is enjoying life these days. Now 49, he’s married to designer Adelle Lutz and has an 11-year-old daughter, Malu.

By morning, he presides over his record label, Luaka Bop, home to such diverse artists as Afro-Peruvian singer Susana Baca, Indian-British collagists Cornershop, Colombian psychotropical rockers Bloque, Belgian-African vocal group Zap Mama and Brazilian pioneers Caetano Veloso and Tom Ze.

Then, in the afternoon, he squirrels himself away to write. He has no fear of music and where it takes him, even if some critics and old Heads fans sometimes think he’s speaking in tongues. The now gray-haired Byrne has never stopped making sense.

That’s particularly true on his latest album, “Look Into the Eyeball.” The release is short and eclectic, with Byrne wedding melodic strings with the rhythms he has been exploring for more than a decade. It’s Byrne the observer at his finest, full of sometimes true stories about little creatures.

Many critics have called “Look Into the Eyeball” Byrne’s finest solo album. Will Hermes writes in Entertainment Weekly: “Now, just as fans are re-evaluating their IRAs, he makes his Great Solo Album, folding his obsessions with Afro-Cuban rhythms, Brazilian art song, American soul-funk, and workday surrealism into perhaps his sweetest melodies ever.”

What were Byrne’s goals for the album?

“The only particular idea was [to have] a lot of drums and bass and percussion and a lot of strings,” he told Flaunt magazine. “Within that, musically, it was just all over the map. At some point I thought, ‘I wonder if this is going to hang together or not.’ ”

How did Byrne get here?

Born in Scotland, he spent most of his childhood in Maryland. In rock bands through his school years, he hooked up with fellow freshmen Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth at the Rhode Island School of Design. They started as a trio called The Artistics in 1974, changing their names by the time of their first album (“Talking Heads ’77”). Jerry Harrison joined in 1978. After their seminal work in what became known as American new wave, the group broke up over creative differences in 1990.

Byrne could have chosen to remain in the spotlight, but the twitchy frontman wasn’t then comfortable being naked to the world. Instead, he took the road less traveled, indulging his love of rhythm, resulting in a drop in commercial popularity and, not coincidentally, radio airplay.

Still, he has few regrets with the path his career has taken.

“Even though I am not in the center of the commercial tornado, I do feel like some kind of survivor,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “I’ve been able to make the kind of music I want to make. I’ve been able to do side projects and quirky things, and to make pop music the way I want to make it and not cater to whatever the flavor of the month is. I’ve been lucky, because there aren’t too many people in a position like this.”

Tickets are available at the State Theatre box office and all Ticketmaster outlets, by calling 775-3331 or online at www.sfx.com.