Start Making Sense, a Talking Heads tribute band will play at The Waterhole Saturday night. (Photo provided)

SARANAC LAKE — Once at a local bar in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Jesse Braun and his fellow musicians spent a whole night playing covers of the Who and Led Zeppelin and other classic rock bands. The owner suggested they come back next week and perform a bunch of Talking Heads songs.

“We were a nine-piece group essentially practicing for one gig,” Braun said, “and now here we are more than a decade later still going strong with it. I guess it was kind of a happy accident. We were all fans of Talking Heads growing up, but we never figured we’d have a project like this.”

Talking Heads tribute band Start Making Sense will perform at the Waterhole at 8 p.m. Saturday. The smooth funk group Harsh Armadillo will open the show.

Talking Heads is one of the most prolific groups in musical history, right up there with the Beatles and the Velvet Underground in terms of influence. They were a post-punk group that mixed fringe sounds of art-pop, world music and avant-garde funk into mainstream, digestible tunes. Songs such as “Once in a lifetime,” “Burning down the house,” and, of course, “Psycho Killer” are some of Talking Heads’ more notable tracks. Frontman David Byrne was known for his eccentric stage presence, wearing overly-large suits and performing interpretive dance moves with standing lamps.

“They brought African and Cuban music into punk, and that impact has lasted to this day,” Braun said. “They’re certainly the most available band that combined all those types of music.

“It’s really crazy to see bands like Vampire Weekend and OK GO having a similar aesthetic. A lot of bands take from Talking Heads’ sound, and it seems like that kind of nerdy, art school vibe really influenced people.”

Braun plays drums for the group, filling the shoes of Talking Heads member Chris Frantz, while his brother Jon embodies Byrne. Their father was also a drummer, so the brothers were constantly around music and live performances at young ages.

“Jon would be able to tell you stories of going to a gig with dad and sleeping in the bass drum on the car ride home,” he said.

On multiple occasions, Start Making Sense has performed the live show from Talking Heads’ 1984 documentary “Stop Making Sense,” which is often regarded as one of the finest music films ever produced. Braun said they try to perform it as close to the film as possible.

“We’re each studying what our respective members are doing,” he said. “A lot of the guys have notes on facial expressions and when to scratch their nose. It’s a massive production. It took a couple of years before we were able to do it fully through. Now we’re fine-tuning it, and each time it gets a little closer to the original.”

Even with the film recreation, Braun says he tries not to overdo it and become a carbon copy of Talking Heads at other shows.

“We don’t want to fully imitate them,” he said. “There’s a certain line with tribute bands that if you cross, it could go a little cheesy. One funny thing I have noticed, though, a lot of times I’m singing along as I play. Chris Frantz can be seen doing that in plenty of videos, but wasn’t a conscious thing on my part.”

Sometimes Braun and a few other members of Start Making Sense will open shows as their original alternative rock band Ruby Dear, similar to when Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads would open shows as Tom Tom Club.

“I never really thought of it that way before, but that’s pretty funny we do the same thing,” Braun said. “Ruby Dear has a completely different sound, though.”

Braun said the band likes to branch out occasionally with solos and jam sessions.

“We really try to get the vibe of Talking Heads but we allow a little room for each musician to put themselves in,” he said. “It’s funny because when Talking Heads formed, David Byrne said he never wanted a guitar solo on a song, but when you get a guitarist like Adrian Belew in your band, how do you not have a guitar solo. So they started taking some breaks for jams in there live performances and demo tracks.”

The good thing about being in a Talking Heads tribute band is that the songs are finite, Braun said.

“I’ve heard some recordings of our early gigs and those are kind of cringey,” he said. “It takes at least a couple of years to settle into what you’re doing, and because there is no new material, we’re able to play from a catalog over and over again and really perfect it.”