As the rhythm section in definitive New York 70s band Talking Heads, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth were they key characters to introduce a dance element to the otherwise rock dominated genre of punk. Going on to launch a more overtly danced based spin-off project called Tom Tom Club in 1981, they enjoyed worldwide hits with Wordy Rappinghood and Genius Of Love, which became their main focus when both walked away from Talking Heads in 1988.

15 years on (and 30 since they first met at the Rhode Island School Of Design) both are revered as Godfathers of punk-funk, the new rock/dance fusion that's bubbled up alongside electroclash as house culture's paused for thought. In London to headline Return to New York latest affair, the pair took time out between sound checking and grabbing a snack, to chat to Skrufff's Jonty, in their suite at the Great Eastern Hotel.

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Punk-funk's taken off recently with bands like The Rapture, DFA, !!! and loads more, with both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club routinely being cited as definitive punk-funk originals . . .

Tom Tom Club (Chris): "Are we really?"

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "We haven't seen ourselves in the magazines yet though that's a pretty good description of what we are. We really like that whole keeping-it-raw vibe which people like Chicks On Speed or Peaches are doing, of bands using four track recorders to create music rather than slick studios and lots of samples. We still find that kind of music more exciting, creative and innovative than the imitators we have nowadays.It's horrible what's happened to the music business in America, it's become completely corporate and it's not interesting. The only interesting musical area these days is dance music, even punk is 20 years old now but at least it's being made by teenagers."

Skrufff: What do you make of musicians looking to the 80s for inspiration?

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "We like to support and encourage everybody involved in music because we understand that not everybody is going to be innovating immediately, they need to first learn what they're doing and the whole history of it, then eventually they understand it and maybe take it forwards. But what we've noticed is that young musicians are stymied in their ability to evolve because they're so quickly taken over by corporate aspects. You might get the chance to make two albums then that's it, you're finished, your career is over. There is no loyalty from the fanbase and definitely no loyalty from the record companies anymore. Though it's not that the record companies want to be like this, it's because the shareholders decide and they only want to make money, they don't care about making music. When artists criticise labels, we're not criticising the people who are working in them, who are wonderful and love the music, we're criticising the boards of directors who make decisions to sell."

Skrufff: Back in the 70s, when you were starting out with Talking Heads, were you thinking 'we're going to live our lives as musicians', did you consider the career aspect at all, during the punk era?

Tom Tom Club (Chris): "We were just living in the moment and were really excited about the fact that we were living in New York and playing music. We were particularly excited the day we were able to quit our day jobs and pay our rents by playing twice a month at CBGBs. We were thinking about the future to a certain extent, though at that time people didn't really talk in terms of having a career or making a lot of money, it was more about being a part of this exciting scene that was going on there. There was a lot of excitement going on mixing with people like Patty Smith, Debbie Harry, Television, Richard Hell and the Ramones. When Andy Warhol would come down to a show, that was way more exciting than if some record company guy would come down to the scene."

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "There was definitely a sense of commitment to living a lifestyle in art- to being an artist. Though none of us ever thought 'This is all we're going to do'. We never imagined specialising in making paintings or making music, we thought, we can do this AND that, we can make videos, write books and make music, whatever. Chris says we weren't thinking in terms of having a career, and he's right in that we weren't thinking in that calculated sense. He's also right when he says we were living in the moment, that was absolutely true because we couldn't anticipate what would happen at all; nobody had a crystal ball. But we tried to be sensible in a certain way in order to survive because we felt as artists we had an obligation because no-one was going to come along and fund us or discover us or do anything for us. There were no artist grants for punk music so if we were going to survive we needed to keep ourselves fresh and living in the moment."

Skrufff: That 70s period was an incredibly creative period musically, what made that era so productive?

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "It's just where the (creative) energy was at the time. You hear about the days when F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and all those people were writing books, they were the heroes of their day, then it moved over into rock. They were the people who were outspoken from the counter culture, who were outspoken about what was unsatisfying as a quality of life in their time, about the status quo and what was being pushed on- what we were being taught in school. It's important for kids to realise that maybe the energy might need to move to another area outside music. When we were young, there was rock & roll, yes, but there was also painting. But then the galleries usurped all the control and power and it became a little bit too ch chi and it became about who you slept with and that disempowered young artists."

Skrufff: How did the punk scene sit alongside the New York art scene?

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "The punk thing was a way of empowering ourselves, even as we abased ourselves by calling ourselves punks. We were downgrading ourselves in a sense by saying 'yes, we can't play our guitars'. Actually some of us were more accomplished than others but didn't want people to know too much about it. Chris was a great drummer and that helped early Talking Heads a lot, it helped us get away with lots of other things, such as distortion guitars, which weren't your typical rock hero thing. The singing wasn't typical either. But we meant for the sound to be that way and we meant for the song lyrics not to be about love . For kids today it's the same thing but they might have to move away from rock because you've got movies like School of Rock where little kids are making rock, every advertisement you see on TV is little kids dressed as rock stars, pretending to make rock music. Americans are such paedophiles, they're such fetishists for children, the people buying Britney Spears records are not just 12 year olds, there are 35 and 40 year olds buying them."

Tom Tom Club (Chris): "Do you think so?"

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "That's what I was told when I went in the record store and asked who was buying it. Maybe they're buying it for their kids but on the other hand there is an incredible fetishism of youth going on, this absolute fear of death. Fear is everywhere in the States right now and the same thing was happening in the 70s. You had the Cold War going on, Vietnam had only just ended but the fear was still there. We had gas (petrol) rationing, price wars, crazy Texans pulling out guns and shooting each other for petrol and it was pretty amazing that the culture was so violent. It's exactly the case today that it's a creative time because things are interesting again. There is an opportunity today, as long as people aren't all copycats. If you see a bunch of people that are all doing David Bowie, Madonna and Michael Jackson then you just think 'Oh not, that again, how old hat, it's horrible,' then you're going to be turned off rock & roll. I'm turned off by rock & roll, I can't stand it."

Skrufff: The US establishment seems hell-bent on outlawing dancing through such laws as the RAVE Act, what do you make of it?

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "The Christian right has taken over, we have a very fascist country right now. We have an administration in power that we didn't even elect and it's very, very scary. The bigger the Bible, the bigger the hypocrite. We're going to keep hanging in there because if James Brown can hang in there into his 70s and keep (adopting a different voice) 'sticking it to the Man', then we're going to hang in there too and try to help young people to be part of something. Because that's our job. Alan Ginsberg never quit helping young people, right up to his death, Roy Lichtenstein, the painter, was the same, Andy Warhol too. That's our job and that's our obligation and that's the way we serve the community. That sounds very establishment but I think it's a different way of doing it, by siding with the people who we believe are going to contribute something of real value, to the world."

Skrufff: You've created songs with both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club that have become universal, almost pop songs, such as Psycho Killer and Wordy Rappinghood, do you feel a sense of ownership over those songs?

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "Legally we own them but there's definitely some kind of a collective consciousness involved in their creation."

Tom Tom Club (Chris): "With those kind of songs like Wordy Rappinghood and Genius Of Love, something magical happens and it's almost beyond our control, if we could control it, we'd do it more often. But it doesn't happen every day and if you get lucky then it happens once or twice in a lifetime."

Skrufff: Do you see music as a force for genuine change?

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "It certainly has been a force for genuine change, don't you believe that Chris?"

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "Of course, from The Beatles, Bob Marley, James Brown, even Motown bands had a real effect on people and changed the way they felt about things."
Tom Tom Club (Tina): "And Michael Franti from Spearhead, he's wonderful. We found that after September 11, we really needed to get out on the road. You feel silly singing about nihilism and 'Burning Down The House' when there's a real war going on but we felt we needed to get out there and empower people through lightness. We've been on this mission for a long time and it gets more potent as we continue. If it's in our power to change things then I don't know, except by example, by hanging in there, by staying alive, by still doing things and by inventing. Look how people get around obstacles. We did it with Tom Tom Club several times, when nobody would give us a chance. We'd say 'OK fine, you don't take us seriously that way, we'll just make a dance record'. Then we'd have a number one on the R&B chart."

Tom Tom Club (Chris): "There's an element of melancholia in certain types of music and our Tom Tom Club stuff, in general, is not the least big melancholic. So people think we're not serious. But we're dead serious about having a really good time and lifting people up. It's almost like a gospel thing."

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "I don't know how those people who are depressives write songs at all, because the only way we keep from being depressed in to write happy songs, otherwise we'd be crying all the time. People can fuck you over again and again and again but you always have a choice, you always have an ability to choose how you respond to that- whether you're going to let it kill you and depress you or whether you're going to smile in their faces and laugh at them."

Skrufff: Are you believers in luck and destiny, can you create your own fortune?

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "Definitely, you have to create it."

Tom Tom Club (Chris): "It seems like the harder you work the more often great stuff happens. It's not usually the case that you wake up and have a brilliant idea, you have to apply yourself."

Tom Tom Club (Tina): "You create good luck and opportunities by being a magnet of positivity. If you are positive and you are giving, it will come back to you. Sometimes it seems like you need to work extra hard and hard knocks come, sometimes seemingly endlessly and you can't believe how bad your luck is, but eventually it has to turn. It's not for ever, there's always something going on that will change things."

Tina will be in Europe again on April 3rd, performing in Leiden, The Netherlands, with Chicks On Speed (who recently covered Wordy Rappinghood,). Tom Tom clubband expect to be playing in Miami, at the Winter Music Conference and are currently in the studio working on their new album, Chris told Skrufff this week.