November 4, 2021 • 37 mins
Duran Duran changed music when they introduced rock music onto the dance floor. As the leaders of the new romantic revolution, they did everything together and swept the 80s off their feet. The group created an innovative aesthetic that went beyond their music, from art to fashion. Fame also brought the band struggles — with alcohol, drugs, and inspiration. As the world evolved into the 90s, Duran Duran wanted to break new ground with the new decade, which brought forth their biggest hit, Ordinary World. 20 years since the airing of their last Behind The Music episode, the Fab Five look back on the past of their success and their struggles, while celebrating what the present holds. For more Duran Duran, watch Behind the Music now streaming on Paramount+.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
They were the fab five of eighties New Waves who
made their mark with a unique blend of rock, funk
and futuristic pop, and the superstardom they achieved was beyond
their imaginations. Duran Duran became the British masters of style
who seduced the world with glamour, groove and good looks.
(00:24):
Their unique musical styles made them famous, but it was
also tearing them apart. As the eighties came to a close,
they were left for dead, but Duran Duran dug deep
and scored their biggest hit. Now, over twenty years since
Duran Durand's original episode of Behind the Music aired, they're
reflecting on key moments of their lives, giving new insights
(00:46):
on the past, and celebrating the present. This is Duran Duran,
the Story Behind the Music. In the spring of Duran
Duran was finishing work on their fifteenth album, Future Past.
(01:08):
The record marks the continued evolution and artistic innovation of
Simon Laban, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, and Nick Rhodes. There's
plenty of scope in that the men don't see. What's
always driven us to move forward is curiosity, intrigue, excitement
about what's next. What can we do? How far can
(01:29):
we push it? Why can't we do that? Let's try.
You have to keep on moving. Food have stopped at Rio.
I don't think we'd have got very far. Anybody that
gets to do what we do for this length of
time needs to justify themselves. Roger, Nick, myself and Simon
we all and still impress each other, you know. We
bring something new to it, so it's exciting. We really
(01:52):
believe in what we're doing. We really believe in the
music we're making. We believe in Duranne Duran Duran Durand's
artistic journey began in the late seventies in Birmingham, Ingland.
The images of the Beakles going around the world, you know,
as a four or five year old kid, were pretty
indelible and thinking, I like the idea of doing that.
(02:14):
You know, now, what do I have to do? John
I met when I was about ten years old. We
hit it off pretty much straightaway. We're both only children,
were both Gemini's. We were both super creative. We were
always interested in in art and cinema. We had a
keen interest in photography. We got into all sorts of
(02:35):
things together. But we also had shared love of music,
particular music. John and I came from a sort of
clam rock t Rex David Bowie, Roxy music, Sparks, and
then we went through disco. Unlike other people, we kind
of like disco, especially Sheep. We also loved electronic music
(03:00):
and punk rock, the energy of punk rock, the Sex Pistols,
the Damned Susie, and the band Shoes of Clash. We
had inspiration all around us. By their late teens, John
and Nick were devoted scholars of innovative sound and vision.
We'd ride home after these gigs and which say, what
(03:21):
did you like the projections? And that opening song was cool?
Right the way that they did that thing with the
with the synth, and what was that synth? The two
friends began to learn the craft and devised an artistic
mission to create their own brand of cutting edge music
and take on the world. We wanted to take rock
music onto the dance floor. We wanted the sound we
(03:41):
made to become a sound that everybody liked. If John
and I want to make something work, if we agree,
it usually happens. It's making your own opportunities and seizing
those opportunities. People don't get lucky. People make bed luck.
(04:02):
After a year of playing with local musicians who couldn't
match their creative ambitions, John and Nick recruited drummer Roger Taylor,
who was immediately struck by their intense focus and shared sensibilities.
And when those who were just on the same page
from day one, they had this connection between them, they
were like brothers. It was a huge moment in my
(04:23):
life to find these people that they have the same influences,
be they kind of a dressed like me, and see
they were just totally committed to what we wanted to do.
Duran Duran became the house band at the rum Runner
Club in Birmingham, where they befriended club owners Paul and
Michael Barrow, who started to manage the band for a
(04:44):
bunch of teenage kids like ourselves. You know that they had.
They were able to give us old jobs in the
club and they brought me an amber and get us
somewhere to rehearse. John and Roger used to collect glasses
and wash up. Nick was the DJ, Great DJ Nichols.
We had a goal and everybody did everything they could
day and nice in order to achieve it. When Nick
(05:05):
and John placed a wite air in the music trade
magazine Melody Maker. He caught the eye of guitarist Andy Taylor.
You know, they had this whole scene the rehearsal room
off this club, officers above the managers and the club.
I thought, well, this is all right. I thought were
going to tell at the bar, you know, oh yeah yeah.
And one of the barmaids at the run and I said, oh,
(05:26):
you should get my boyfriend to come down. And Simon
walked into the kitchen one day and that was it.
I found the rum runn up down a little alleyway,
and I said, is this where I will find Duran? Duran.
As soon as I saw Simon, I thought, yeah, he's
got that swagger, he's got the confidence, he's got the
cockiness that it takes to be a singer. I was
(05:48):
in drama students since I was five years old, and
I guess I was used to being on stage, and
when I walked down that alleyway, I was on age. Roger, John,
Andy and Nick were immediately struck by Simon's charisma. They
just talked he had the voice to match. I hope,
please please just let him be able to sing as
(06:11):
long as he can sing in tune. We can, we
can get around it. I'm sure. Then we went into
this little triangular room called the tri Tech Room and
they started playing their music and Simon was like, oh,
hang on a second, you know, and he had this
I mean, this is mythology and the Duran Duran story
had this book with lyrics in it, which we were like, oh.
(06:34):
Then I said, I think, I think I can. I've
got something that would work with that. As soon as
he started to sing, he was just the right tonality.
I knew as soon as he opened his mouth he
was going to work. We have these glances around the
room so as to say this is this is the guy,
We've got it. He just felt right. He was one
(06:56):
of us. The new band Meats began writing songs together
and gigging around in where they're heart edge dance grooves
quickly grabbed the British music scene. Roger and John wanted
to be in cheap you know. And then Andy comes
to Newcastle. It's like a tougher place. He's got a
bit more of this like heavy rock background. Then Nick
(07:17):
just built this sonic architecture out of all these sins
time and just brings the like already weird abstract lyrics,
so like they were at this vaults on. We had
a chemistry between us and when we started playing, something happened.
The fuse caused the electricity to fire all around the room.
(07:39):
We all appreciated that together we were capable of achieving
something great, Like I may be really kind of different
to this guy, but it's I get really close to him,
maybe we can really do something. In nineteen eighty, the
five members of Duran Durant each brought their different musical
backgrounds to form a collective vision, and through their songs, John, Nick, Andy,
(08:00):
Roger and Simon became inseparable. It was really the music
that made the personalities. Joel and we went everywhere together
and did everything together. We were very very close. Duran
Duran carefully designed and innovative aesthetic that went way beyond music,
meticulously building their image through photography, art, hairstyle, and fashion.
(08:24):
I definitely loved the visual of the band, and I
went to get my hair cut when I was eleven,
and I remember taking this picture like folded up from
like some fan magazine John Taylor like in my back pocket,
and I literally like me to my back pocket, like
so this please and I remember leaving and my mom
was like, what's wrong with you? Like I wasn't crying,
(08:46):
but I was like really upset, and I was like,
he cut my hair like Nick Rhodes, and I showed
him John Taylor by Duran. Duran became the leaders of
(09:07):
the new Romantic music revolution with a release of their
self titled debut album. They took full advantage of an
exciting new record marketing tool, the music video. It became
a very very important way that we could manifest ourselves
all over the world. Was done because our managers thought
(09:28):
it would get us a lot of attention. They were
right about that. It was an eye opener. Their debut
reached number three on the UK Album's chart. After a
ten month tour, they worked quickly to record a follow up.
One Saturday morning, Simon and Nick dragged themselves into the
studio after a night of heavy drinking that morning. I
(09:48):
don't know why I agreed to go into the studio
on a Saturday. I hadn't shocking hangover. I didn't really
want to go into the studio tool, but I had
a relatively new synthesizer at that time, and I wanted
to play around with it. Simon came in, heard it
and said, wait a minute, Okay, do that again, and
(10:08):
suddenly we had something going. The rest of the band
came in and they just loved it, and he thought,
I think probably one of the greatest rock riffs of
the eighties. Down there was something about it that just
sounded right. In just under two hours, Duran Duran had
created Hungry Like the Wolf. The band was creatively firing
(10:31):
on all cylinders, and as the sessions progressed for their
second album, Rio, Duran Duran knew they were making a masterpiece.
I don't recall there being any self doubt with that record.
It was just everything flowed. When Rio was released in
May two, Duran Durand formulated a plan for a new
music video. We had this idea to make a video
(10:54):
that was kind of based on Raiders of the Lost Arc,
hence the hat. You know, it was a quest and
it wouldn't have worked if as singer hadn't have had
some experience in acting. Duran Durand premiered Hungry Like the
Wolf on MTV in February of three, while the fledgling
network was still working to find a wider audience. It
(11:17):
was interesting because MTV was only in about three or
four cities at that time, and we could see that
the people that were seeing MTV, there was a spike
in our radio play. It was going up because people
were calling into the radio station saying, I want my
Duran Duran. MTV most definitely had an effect. As MTV's
(11:40):
viewership grew, so did Duran Durant's fan base. The band
arrived in America, where the media hyped them as the
New Beatles and dubbed them the Fab Five. They soon
found it wasn't safe to travel the streets alone during
teenage fans pursued them everywhere. We're really enjoying the success
because this is a bunch of guys that have gone
(12:01):
into the music business for the affirmation and we wanted
people to like us. The success that we had out
of the gate and the kind of success it was,
I mean, we didn't see it coming. We get on
stage and we play our songs, which a lot of
them weren'd sexual, and we'd have this wave of sexual
energy sort of come towards us. For us, the world
(12:24):
had changed and we were these icons. Suddenly we were
rock stars. It was sort of thrilling we'd seen the
four Teacher of the Beatles and the Doors and the
Rolling Stones, and nobody had expected to see that again.
And somehow it was us. With our conquest of America,
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Duran Durand became international cover boys. They were besieged by
Vans seeking the ultimate autograph. It was a babe fest
backstage for all the security. Somehow the girls would get through,
and it didn't hurt that they all the silpermodel type.
I definitely felt a rivalry with John for attention, for
(13:06):
female attention, and John won that battle completely and utterly.
He won it. I mean, there was a competitiveness between
the band. Almost couldn't help it. You know. When they
started doing like individual T shirts and individual posters sets,
and somebody had mentioned how many. I saw how many,
and he sold and I think that they were the
(13:29):
seeds of descent. We all started to get girlfriends. That
changes the dynamic completely, because you're not just a gang
of five young guys running around doing stuff together. You
get separated out suddenly you want the partners will say
I don't know, I don't think you should be doing that,
or why isn't there more of you in that video?
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When we started there was a bunch of guys that
would hang out and spend seven together. But I think
as the pressure built up, everybody kind of retreated a
little bit. It just begins to fragment. As with anything
you build, the cracks start to show. In three. Despite
an emerging divide within Duran Durant, excitement continued to follow
(14:15):
the band on tour as their concerts became sold out
teenage screamfests. With that much fun going on at the shows,
where everybody people having that much fun, you couldn't just
unplug everything. We're having fun. We are definitely having fun.
I mean I was. I noticed that Roger wasn't feeling
(14:38):
the same way about it as I was. He didn't
really like that kind of attention and he didn't feel safe.
Roger Taylor's growing discomfort with the hysteria that stopped Ran
Duran came to a head One night in Manchester, England.
He played a show and the Fister was kind of
on its own block and the crowd had around it
(15:01):
the entire block, and we couldn't get out, and the
noise around her, you could just hear these people screaming
and shouting and singing and chanting It was loud, and
it was intense. You couldn't you could not escape from it.
And I looked at Roger and then he had his
look on his face was was like and I said
(15:23):
to me, said the U cases. He said, this is
how are we going to get out of here? How
are we going to get out of here? A little
bit of fear crept in because it was going somewhere
that you couldn't have foreseen. I didn't know we were
going to be like the next Beatles, but suddenly I
felt my life kind of closing in a bit. Roger
(15:44):
stuck it out at the time, but it was clear
the band's success was turning into something they had never anticipated.
We were celebrating really what would achieved, and no one
was at stop us. And sometimes it would get where
I happened while each member Duran Duran dealt with fame
in the wrong way. For John Taylor, the party was
(16:04):
getting out of control. My drugged choice was coke. I
was able to be this up guy, you know, twenty
four hours a day, especially after midnight. It was really useful. Then.
You know, drugs and no ALCOHOLO about numbing emotions and feelings,
you know, I mean, I think there was just so
many feelings going on the entire experience of band's career.
(16:29):
It was just like two much. I was just waking
up every morning thinking, now if I got what I
need to get myself through the day. The drugs and
alcohol were kind of running me, and it wasn't about
do I want to, It was like I have to.
Despite the toll their success was taking on the band, Duran,
Duran retreated to the south of France to write their
(16:50):
highly demanded follow up, Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Recording
sessions lasted a ruling six months, and unlike their previous
albums that have had, a band was no longer seeing
eye to eye artistically. The third album was Crime, and
it's amazing that any of us were still speaking to
each other by this time we finished that album. You know,
(17:11):
Andy would want to bring it in this direction, nich
would maybe want to bring it over to that direction.
And he's also got a very forceful character in a way.
He's like me like that, and that when he decides
he wants to do something, that's what he wants to do.
They were never particularly suited to each other. If they
weren't see a band together they would have never been friends.
(17:33):
As we started getting further and further and further apart,
I think the elastic broke. The band was forced to
keep it together to support the release of Seven and
the Ragged Tiger in four, but by the end of
the tour and he was on the verge of quitting
Duran Duran and he was like, I'm not doing this again.
This isn't working for me, and you know, I didn't
(17:55):
want to lose him. In late eighty four, John and
Andy decided to form The Power Station, a side project
with hard hitting, guitar driven rock. It was a clear
and intentional departure from Duran Durant. It's like, come on,
let's just go and do something where you can play
as loudly as you like. There could be lots of
room for solos. They can be as long as you
want them to be. One of Andy's driving forces to
(18:20):
make The Power Stations was to get away from Nick.
The album was a hit, and John and Andy started
to realize they might be able to have careers beyond
the Fab Five. You know, it started to seem like
maybe it's this is something more than a one off
for Simon, Nick and Roger. It was clear that the
(18:41):
musical differences that once brought Duran Duran together, we're now
tearing them apart. Musically, we were always pulling in two
different directions, and the tension between what I do and
what Andy was doing was one of the great things
about the dynamic in early Duran Duran records. When Andy
decided he wanted to go a bit further and a
(19:02):
bit more rock, that's that's just too much for me.
I have no interest in that. Nick and I were
interested in something different. We wanted to be more experimental.
In the summer of eight five, Simon, Nick and Roger
formed Arcadia and recorded an album with several high profile
(19:23):
guest stars. An amazing time we had, incredible It was
a good line up in a Dave Gilmore sting Grace Jones.
I mean, it was an amazing line up. All the
groove and the guitar and the heaviness seemed to go
to power Station and then all the kind of synth
and clever, weird, alternative witness went to Arcadia. It kind
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of like took something that you really loved and like, Okay,
we're gonna take half of it here and take half
of it here, so it sounded a bit like that.
On opposite ends of the creative spectrum. Arcadia and power
Station created a schism within Duran Durant. Of course you
get competition coming into playing. I didn't want power Station
to be any more successful. You know, we've got to
make a better album than they're making. John Andy were
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doing this project here, Simon that we're doing this project here,
and I was putting one for in each project, and
these kind of two ships were sailing apart from each other,
and I was kind of in the middle of it,
you know, trying to hang onto both, thinking are we
going to like each other when we get back together?
After six months apart, the band honored a commitment to
shoot the music video for the new James Bond theme
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of You to a Kill in a true case of
our Imitating life. As the tensions amongst the band were
practically lethal. I remember it as being pretty toxic. There
was an error resentment. We weren't get him along at all,
and he locked himself in his trailer. He wouldn't come
out to do his filming. We're not really playing well
(20:53):
with each other. I think you can see when Andy
is trying to actually kill me during the video. Yeah,
but that that was about as close as you'd get
to h to reality. I hate that video and I
don't think anybody looks good in it. And then we
just went our separate ways and didn't come together again
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until Philadelphia. In the Live AI in July, Duran Duran
was given an offer they couldn't refuse when their friend
Bob Geldoff organized Live Aid, a global fundraising event for
African famine relief that featured performances from the biggest names
and music. Yes, they were going down, but what are
you going to do? Call out of the Live AIG
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show because it's not quite right now. You've just got
to get on with it. You've got to pull up
a big gig here. You're gonna go and play in
front of but I don't know how many billion people.
So you have the pressure doing the biggest show that's
ever been put on the up before Duran Duran would
take the stage that evening John and Andy and listed
(22:00):
on performing with power Station. The fact that John and
Andy had already been on stage with power Station said
something about the whole day. A few hours after power
Station left the stage, Duran Duran was about to play
their first show in nearly a year in front of
the entire world. I was totally committed. I think Nick
(22:23):
was totally committed as well. I think Roger was feeling
very anxious, and I think John and Andy were thinking,
I'm not sure I like this as much as being
on stage with power Station. Live Aid was a bit
of a disaster. And when we got on stage, we've
got no monitors. I couldn't even hear myself and it's
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quite terrifying. I was having to sort of turn around
and look at Roger thinking, Okay, this has been broadcast
to billions of people, I cannot actually hear what I'm playing,
and them we're just being more impressed with Led Zeppelinton.
Anything we were doing. We were woefully under rehearsed. Really,
when I watch it, I can feel that it's, uh,
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you know, we're not having a good time. It was
just trying to hang on to a very thin piece
of string. We'd really played all our chips, put them
all on the table. At that point, it was the
end of a relationship. After Duran Durant's difficult performance at
Live AID, John and Andy Taylor returned to touring with
power station in Roger decided he was ready to take
(23:29):
himself out of the limelight. It was a very odd
time for us, because we thought we were going to
have a five piece band back together again. But Roger
had actually had enough of the music business and he
didn't want to come back. I think he was just exhausted,
quite honestly, There's only so much attention and so many
(23:52):
glaring lights that some people can take, you know, you
do take on a besieged mentality. Roger Taylor left the
band and withdrew from public life. He didn't want to
have anything to do with it anymore. I don't think
a lot of people really understood while I was going
through at the time, and I think people tended to,
you know, label it with different things. And I don't
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think I was emotionally prepared for the height of fame
that we achieved. I didn't have the tools to deal
with that. It sounds like a cliche, but it was like,
I need to find the real me. Who am I
when I look back at myself in those early days
and who is that? And when I left, I just
(24:34):
kind of found myself. Losing Roger was a stunning blow
to the band. It was time for Duran Duran to regroup,
but Andy Taylor ignored requests to return to the fall.
He blows your confidence a little bit when people leave.
When Roger and Andy left, I think that the band
kind of lost a little bit of his innocence. Then
it's never it was never going to be the same.
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But by six John Taylor was ready to rejoin Simon
and Dick. They set aside their creative differences to try
and keep Duran Duran alive. The three of us had
so bonded we just felt we were on the right path.
We clung on to each other and to the idea
of Duran Duran. We learned very much to make our
(25:19):
egos subservient to the band. Of course, it felt very
different not having two members there that we spent every
day with the five years, But at the same time,
it was a new adventure and in the spirit of
Duran Duran, we embrace change. The trio entered the studio
(25:40):
to record Duran Durand's fifth album, Notorious, with one of
their biggest influences as producer, sikes Nil Rogers. When I
showed up to do the album Notorious and there was
no Andy and there was no Roger. I wasn't quite
sure they would feel like I was working with Durant.
But the thing is is that spirit of Durand is
(26:01):
sort of bigger than the individual players, and it felt
really like Duran. We've never been as funky. There's Notorious
before all since, which is Nile's got the funk. The
more you heard what you were doing, the more you
have belief in it. Na Rogers is the person who
rescued Duran Duran. It was this new evolution. It sounded
(26:25):
like they've been holed up in some very expensive New
York recording studio. Like some of those records in that
Erra just sound like cocaine and money, and I feel
like that's one of them. When Notorious was released in
November of eighty six, it reached number twelve on the
U S Album charts. But as Duran Duran closed out
the eighties and their follow up albums Big Thing and
(26:47):
Liberty failed to make a mark. As they entered a
new decade, Duran Duran were deemed a relic of the past.
The landscape had changed. We've been pretty successful through the
eight and I think a lot of people I thought
we were synonymous with that period, and when they locked
the door behind the eighties, some people were determined that
(27:11):
we were going to be on the other side of
the door, and they were taking the key with them,
And that's kind of when you realize that that moment
had passed. We weren't anymore. We were like, it's over there,
damn you know. Can we Maybe if we paddle faster
we can catch it up, But it's hard in the
band went to work on their seventh album, writing with
(27:33):
guitarist Warren Coucarulo, who broughtened their sound. As the sessions progressed,
one track emerged as particularly promising, and Simon Leban channeled
his emotions about a recent tragedy into the lyrics. I
wrote about the death of a very very dear friend
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of mine who died tragically, very very very young, and
when he died, I dedicated a part of myself to him.
I was finding it very difficult to let go of
the sadness and to move into the next chapter of
my life, and I had to free myself. I wanted
(28:17):
to say goodbye, and that's why I said, but I
won't cry for yesterday. There's an ordinary world that I
want to live in now and I will, I will
carry on and I will survive. And that really was
my way of burying my friend instead of trying to
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keep him alive in my own heart, but with sadness
and loss. Simon's tribute to his late friend connected to
millions across the globe. Released as a single in December
of ninety two, Ordinary World became the biggest hit of
Duran Durand's career. To have your biggest hit, what thirteen
(29:01):
years after your first hit or your breakthrough like that
just doesn't happen in music like that means that you
have a true place in people's hearts and you have
a truly special song. Ordinary World propelled the wedding album
to the top ten. Seemingly out of nowhere. Duran Duran
had once again returned to the mainstream. We're back and
(29:23):
we're in the nineties, and that for me was one
of the most significant moments in that Korea. The band
continued to record and tour over the next four years,
but in the band suffered an unexpected blow. John Taylor
(29:48):
decided to leave Duran Duran. It was hard because you know,
I've been a member of this band, my entire adult
life since I was seven. It was almost like, for
once in my life, I had to invest in my
personal life. It wasn't easy, but it was necessary. John
(30:10):
moved to Los Angeles, got married, and checked into a
rehab facility to finally get his substance abuse issues in order.
Getting sober was a big one for me, maybe the biggest.
You know, it's an incredible rebirth. I mean, it was
good to know, at least in the way that I
understood my recovery, that that it wasn't my fault, you know,
(30:31):
that I had like a faulty, faulty brain when it
came to you know, alcohol and drugs, that it wasn't
just that I was making bad choices or that I
was lacking in discipline. With John tending to his personal life, Aldie, Simon,
and Nick remained from the original Fab five. John leaving
was a monumental blow. I felt deserted when John left
(30:55):
the group. For the next three years, they carried on
recording and touring, but was becoming a parrot. That inspiration
was fading. I really questioned whether I wanted to carry
on At that point. To me, it didn't feel like
Duran Duran anymore. I think there was a couple of options.
One was to just stop or look at going all
(31:16):
the way back to the beginning again and putting the
original lineup together. I called up John, Nick, and Simon
and I had lunch. He was ready, really excited, and
he said, right, let's call Roger's home here by the
pool with Simon and Nick would think about a game
the original band together again. At that point I kind
of nearly fell through the floor. So I think, you
(31:38):
know what, I'm going to really embrace this, so I'll
call him back there. I said, yeah, okay, I'm in.
So then there was only Andy and it was a
case of finding it. Andy had moved to the Spanish
island of Abisa. After a phone call with Roger, he
was on board. The five original members of Duran Duran
got together in a studio and for ads to see
(32:00):
if they could recapture the old magic. Everybody had the
same dynamic. Andy and I still didn't really get on.
These five people not spend any time together in a room.
But what was it eighteen years or something. We had
some real personality issues. How do we relate artistically? Can
(32:21):
we still beat Duran Duran? It was really hard. Despite
the clashing in the studio, the band managed to write
new material for a reunion album, but when they shopped
their songs to record labels, to their surprise, there was
little interest. I think we thought that just by getting
together will take a polaroid and then it'll be a
(32:43):
blank check, and it wasn't. The industry was like, WHOA
which an army? What's the interest level? The band recruited
former Aerosmith manager Wendy Leaster to help right the ship.
Her idea get the boys out of the studio and
back on stage. I felt that we needed to create
(33:04):
a demand. Rather than going knocking on doors. I wanted
people knocking on their door. So we put shows on
se We said let's do something, and sold out in
some crazy amount of time, I mean so much quicker
than we had even thought of. On July seven, two
thousand three, Duran Duran was set to play their first
show as the Fab five in eighteen years. Banned tensions
(33:27):
at an all time high. I'll remember the night before
the first show, I thought I'm going to kill somebody.
The intra personal differences were so you know, on fire,
and I mean I'm sure I was making people crazy
as well. In my back of my head, I just
(33:47):
thought we'd just got to get to the stage. We
could hear the crowd, the anticipation out there. It was terrifying.
It was one of those moments where you had to
walk through her, to walk through the beer. The weight
of it. It was a big deal. A crowd went
(34:09):
absolutely bananas. Once we're in front of the audience, it
becomes so obvious that it's so much bigger than we are.
It's an entirely different calculation. It's like it's me and
then it's us, and then we managed to find our
way back to the chemistry that we had. It just
(34:32):
sent chills down the spine, you know, that moment of
of realizing that actually this is going to work and
the world is going to love during Duran again, we
knew that there were areas that we would disagree, but
I think we are all prepared to put those aside
in order to create something special. As Duran Duran, Simon,
(34:56):
John Nick, Roger, and Eddie continue touring of the next
two years, playing some of their biggest shows ever. Critics
began to praise the return. As they released their comeback album,
Astronauts but the reunion would be short lived for Andy Taylor,
who once again bowed out in two thousand five. Andy
had been becoming more difficult to work with. Everybody in
(35:20):
the band felt that we weren't all going in the
same direction. That was clear. I can't say I missed
Andy terribly. I know how creative he is and I
would never ever take that away from him, but personality wise,
and he never really fit in with the rest of us.
To fill the space of their departing guitarist Duran, Duran
(35:41):
embraced the idea of the band as a collective with
a wide range of producers and collaborators to add fresh
elements to their magical sound. It's come to be, you know,
the empty chair, you know, which is like the X factor.
So it's actually a way of injecting energy and creativity
into the situation. We have found that it's good to
(36:05):
have another person in the room. Having different people in
different energy changes the way you work. I think it's
really made the four of us really kind of open
our minds and our imaginations, and it's broadened our perspectives
(36:26):
in Duran Duran expanded their artistic scope once again as
they wrapped up work on their fifteen album Future Past,
working with producers Errol Alkin and Georgio Moroder while collaborating
with Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and Mark Ronson. Their influence
on me is basically indelible. Because they were my first
(36:50):
favorite band. I get to have this little, very personal
relationship with everybody. It's really exciting to know that you
can still do it, you know, after all this time.
As soon as you start hearing that sound coming back,
and it's a real moment. You never tire of that
moment when you hear coming back through the speakers. We're
making an album that we're all very excited about. It's
(37:14):
cutting edge in some aspects, but it still sounds like
Duran Duran, and that puts us all in a very
good frame of mind. I was an only child. I'm
magiced into the world brothers, and I have brothers. We
were all kind of equal shareholders in the dream. There's
no other band I'd want to be in. Listen to
(37:36):
Behind the Music on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Want more episodes,
you can watch remastered best of the vault and new
episodes are behind the music only on Paramount Plus
They were the fab five of eighties New Waves who
made their mark with a unique blend of rock, funk
and futuristic pop, and the superstardom they achieved was beyond
their imaginations. Duran Duran became the British masters of style
who seduced the world with glamour, groove and good looks.
(00:24):
Their unique musical styles made them famous, but it was
also tearing them apart. As the eighties came to a close,
they were left for dead, but Duran Duran dug deep
and scored their biggest hit. Now, over twenty years since
Duran Durand's original episode of Behind the Music aired, they're
reflecting on key moments of their lives, giving new insights
(00:46):
on the past, and celebrating the present. This is Duran Duran,
the Story Behind the Music. In the spring of Duran
Duran was finishing work on their fifteenth album, Future Past.
(01:08):
The record marks the continued evolution and artistic innovation of
Simon Laban, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, and Nick Rhodes. There's
plenty of scope in that the men don't see. What's
always driven us to move forward is curiosity, intrigue, excitement
about what's next. What can we do? How far can
(01:29):
we push it? Why can't we do that? Let's try.
You have to keep on moving. Food have stopped at Rio.
I don't think we'd have got very far. Anybody that
gets to do what we do for this length of
time needs to justify themselves. Roger, Nick, myself and Simon
we all and still impress each other, you know. We
bring something new to it, so it's exciting. We really
(01:52):
believe in what we're doing. We really believe in the
music we're making. We believe in Duranne Duran Duran Durand's
artistic journey began in the late seventies in Birmingham, Ingland.
The images of the Beakles going around the world, you know,
as a four or five year old kid, were pretty
indelible and thinking, I like the idea of doing that.
(02:14):
You know, now, what do I have to do? John
I met when I was about ten years old. We
hit it off pretty much straightaway. We're both only children,
were both Gemini's. We were both super creative. We were
always interested in in art and cinema. We had a
keen interest in photography. We got into all sorts of
(02:35):
things together. But we also had shared love of music,
particular music. John and I came from a sort of
clam rock t Rex David Bowie, Roxy music, Sparks, and
then we went through disco. Unlike other people, we kind
of like disco, especially Sheep. We also loved electronic music
(03:00):
and punk rock, the energy of punk rock, the Sex Pistols,
the Damned Susie, and the band Shoes of Clash. We
had inspiration all around us. By their late teens, John
and Nick were devoted scholars of innovative sound and vision.
We'd ride home after these gigs and which say, what
(03:21):
did you like the projections? And that opening song was cool?
Right the way that they did that thing with the
with the synth, and what was that synth? The two
friends began to learn the craft and devised an artistic
mission to create their own brand of cutting edge music
and take on the world. We wanted to take rock
music onto the dance floor. We wanted the sound we
(03:41):
made to become a sound that everybody liked. If John
and I want to make something work, if we agree,
it usually happens. It's making your own opportunities and seizing
those opportunities. People don't get lucky. People make bed luck.
(04:02):
After a year of playing with local musicians who couldn't
match their creative ambitions, John and Nick recruited drummer Roger Taylor,
who was immediately struck by their intense focus and shared sensibilities.
And when those who were just on the same page
from day one, they had this connection between them, they
were like brothers. It was a huge moment in my
(04:23):
life to find these people that they have the same influences,
be they kind of a dressed like me, and see
they were just totally committed to what we wanted to do.
Duran Duran became the house band at the rum Runner
Club in Birmingham, where they befriended club owners Paul and
Michael Barrow, who started to manage the band for a
(04:44):
bunch of teenage kids like ourselves. You know that they had.
They were able to give us old jobs in the
club and they brought me an amber and get us
somewhere to rehearse. John and Roger used to collect glasses
and wash up. Nick was the DJ, Great DJ Nichols.
We had a goal and everybody did everything they could
day and nice in order to achieve it. When Nick
(05:05):
and John placed a wite air in the music trade
magazine Melody Maker. He caught the eye of guitarist Andy Taylor.
You know, they had this whole scene the rehearsal room
off this club, officers above the managers and the club.
I thought, well, this is all right. I thought were
going to tell at the bar, you know, oh yeah yeah.
And one of the barmaids at the run and I said, oh,
(05:26):
you should get my boyfriend to come down. And Simon
walked into the kitchen one day and that was it.
I found the rum runn up down a little alleyway,
and I said, is this where I will find Duran? Duran.
As soon as I saw Simon, I thought, yeah, he's
got that swagger, he's got the confidence, he's got the
cockiness that it takes to be a singer. I was
(05:48):
in drama students since I was five years old, and
I guess I was used to being on stage, and
when I walked down that alleyway, I was on age. Roger, John,
Andy and Nick were immediately struck by Simon's charisma. They
just talked he had the voice to match. I hope,
please please just let him be able to sing as
(06:11):
long as he can sing in tune. We can, we
can get around it. I'm sure. Then we went into
this little triangular room called the tri Tech Room and
they started playing their music and Simon was like, oh,
hang on a second, you know, and he had this
I mean, this is mythology and the Duran Duran story
had this book with lyrics in it, which we were like, oh.
(06:34):
Then I said, I think, I think I can. I've
got something that would work with that. As soon as
he started to sing, he was just the right tonality.
I knew as soon as he opened his mouth he
was going to work. We have these glances around the
room so as to say this is this is the guy,
We've got it. He just felt right. He was one
(06:56):
of us. The new band Meats began writing songs together
and gigging around in where they're heart edge dance grooves
quickly grabbed the British music scene. Roger and John wanted
to be in cheap you know. And then Andy comes
to Newcastle. It's like a tougher place. He's got a
bit more of this like heavy rock background. Then Nick
(07:17):
just built this sonic architecture out of all these sins
time and just brings the like already weird abstract lyrics,
so like they were at this vaults on. We had
a chemistry between us and when we started playing, something happened.
The fuse caused the electricity to fire all around the room.
(07:39):
We all appreciated that together we were capable of achieving
something great, Like I may be really kind of different
to this guy, but it's I get really close to him,
maybe we can really do something. In nineteen eighty, the
five members of Duran Durant each brought their different musical
backgrounds to form a collective vision, and through their songs, John, Nick, Andy,
(08:00):
Roger and Simon became inseparable. It was really the music
that made the personalities. Joel and we went everywhere together
and did everything together. We were very very close. Duran
Duran carefully designed and innovative aesthetic that went way beyond music,
meticulously building their image through photography, art, hairstyle, and fashion.
(08:24):
I definitely loved the visual of the band, and I
went to get my hair cut when I was eleven,
and I remember taking this picture like folded up from
like some fan magazine John Taylor like in my back pocket,
and I literally like me to my back pocket, like
so this please and I remember leaving and my mom
was like, what's wrong with you? Like I wasn't crying,
(08:46):
but I was like really upset, and I was like,
he cut my hair like Nick Rhodes, and I showed
him John Taylor by Duran. Duran became the leaders of
(09:07):
the new Romantic music revolution with a release of their
self titled debut album. They took full advantage of an
exciting new record marketing tool, the music video. It became
a very very important way that we could manifest ourselves
all over the world. Was done because our managers thought
(09:28):
it would get us a lot of attention. They were
right about that. It was an eye opener. Their debut
reached number three on the UK Album's chart. After a
ten month tour, they worked quickly to record a follow up.
One Saturday morning, Simon and Nick dragged themselves into the
studio after a night of heavy drinking that morning. I
(09:48):
don't know why I agreed to go into the studio
on a Saturday. I hadn't shocking hangover. I didn't really
want to go into the studio tool, but I had
a relatively new synthesizer at that time, and I wanted
to play around with it. Simon came in, heard it
and said, wait a minute, Okay, do that again, and
(10:08):
suddenly we had something going. The rest of the band
came in and they just loved it, and he thought,
I think probably one of the greatest rock riffs of
the eighties. Down there was something about it that just
sounded right. In just under two hours, Duran Duran had
created Hungry Like the Wolf. The band was creatively firing
(10:31):
on all cylinders, and as the sessions progressed for their
second album, Rio, Duran Duran knew they were making a masterpiece.
I don't recall there being any self doubt with that record.
It was just everything flowed. When Rio was released in
May two, Duran Durand formulated a plan for a new
music video. We had this idea to make a video
(10:54):
that was kind of based on Raiders of the Lost Arc,
hence the hat. You know, it was a quest and
it wouldn't have worked if as singer hadn't have had
some experience in acting. Duran Durand premiered Hungry Like the
Wolf on MTV in February of three, while the fledgling
network was still working to find a wider audience. It
(11:17):
was interesting because MTV was only in about three or
four cities at that time, and we could see that
the people that were seeing MTV, there was a spike
in our radio play. It was going up because people
were calling into the radio station saying, I want my
Duran Duran. MTV most definitely had an effect. As MTV's
(11:40):
viewership grew, so did Duran Durant's fan base. The band
arrived in America, where the media hyped them as the
New Beatles and dubbed them the Fab Five. They soon
found it wasn't safe to travel the streets alone during
teenage fans pursued them everywhere. We're really enjoying the success
because this is a bunch of guys that have gone
(12:01):
into the music business for the affirmation and we wanted
people to like us. The success that we had out
of the gate and the kind of success it was,
I mean, we didn't see it coming. We get on
stage and we play our songs, which a lot of
them weren'd sexual, and we'd have this wave of sexual
energy sort of come towards us. For us, the world
(12:24):
had changed and we were these icons. Suddenly we were
rock stars. It was sort of thrilling we'd seen the
four Teacher of the Beatles and the Doors and the
Rolling Stones, and nobody had expected to see that again.
And somehow it was us. With our conquest of America,
(12:45):
Duran Durand became international cover boys. They were besieged by
Vans seeking the ultimate autograph. It was a babe fest
backstage for all the security. Somehow the girls would get through,
and it didn't hurt that they all the silpermodel type.
I definitely felt a rivalry with John for attention, for
(13:06):
female attention, and John won that battle completely and utterly.
He won it. I mean, there was a competitiveness between
the band. Almost couldn't help it. You know. When they
started doing like individual T shirts and individual posters sets,
and somebody had mentioned how many. I saw how many,
and he sold and I think that they were the
(13:29):
seeds of descent. We all started to get girlfriends. That
changes the dynamic completely, because you're not just a gang
of five young guys running around doing stuff together. You
get separated out suddenly you want the partners will say
I don't know, I don't think you should be doing that,
or why isn't there more of you in that video?
(13:52):
When we started there was a bunch of guys that
would hang out and spend seven together. But I think
as the pressure built up, everybody kind of retreated a
little bit. It just begins to fragment. As with anything
you build, the cracks start to show. In three. Despite
an emerging divide within Duran Durant, excitement continued to follow
(14:15):
the band on tour as their concerts became sold out
teenage screamfests. With that much fun going on at the shows,
where everybody people having that much fun, you couldn't just
unplug everything. We're having fun. We are definitely having fun.
I mean I was. I noticed that Roger wasn't feeling
(14:38):
the same way about it as I was. He didn't
really like that kind of attention and he didn't feel safe.
Roger Taylor's growing discomfort with the hysteria that stopped Ran
Duran came to a head One night in Manchester, England.
He played a show and the Fister was kind of
on its own block and the crowd had around it
(15:01):
the entire block, and we couldn't get out, and the
noise around her, you could just hear these people screaming
and shouting and singing and chanting It was loud, and
it was intense. You couldn't you could not escape from it.
And I looked at Roger and then he had his
look on his face was was like and I said
(15:23):
to me, said the U cases. He said, this is
how are we going to get out of here? How
are we going to get out of here? A little
bit of fear crept in because it was going somewhere
that you couldn't have foreseen. I didn't know we were
going to be like the next Beatles, but suddenly I
felt my life kind of closing in a bit. Roger
(15:44):
stuck it out at the time, but it was clear
the band's success was turning into something they had never anticipated.
We were celebrating really what would achieved, and no one
was at stop us. And sometimes it would get where
I happened while each member Duran Duran dealt with fame
in the wrong way. For John Taylor, the party was
(16:04):
getting out of control. My drugged choice was coke. I
was able to be this up guy, you know, twenty
four hours a day, especially after midnight. It was really useful. Then.
You know, drugs and no ALCOHOLO about numbing emotions and feelings,
you know, I mean, I think there was just so
many feelings going on the entire experience of band's career.
(16:29):
It was just like two much. I was just waking
up every morning thinking, now if I got what I
need to get myself through the day. The drugs and
alcohol were kind of running me, and it wasn't about
do I want to, It was like I have to.
Despite the toll their success was taking on the band, Duran,
Duran retreated to the south of France to write their
(16:50):
highly demanded follow up, Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Recording
sessions lasted a ruling six months, and unlike their previous
albums that have had, a band was no longer seeing
eye to eye artistically. The third album was Crime, and
it's amazing that any of us were still speaking to
each other by this time we finished that album. You know,
(17:11):
Andy would want to bring it in this direction, nich
would maybe want to bring it over to that direction.
And he's also got a very forceful character in a way.
He's like me like that, and that when he decides
he wants to do something, that's what he wants to do.
They were never particularly suited to each other. If they
weren't see a band together they would have never been friends.
(17:33):
As we started getting further and further and further apart,
I think the elastic broke. The band was forced to
keep it together to support the release of Seven and
the Ragged Tiger in four, but by the end of
the tour and he was on the verge of quitting
Duran Duran and he was like, I'm not doing this again.
This isn't working for me, and you know, I didn't
(17:55):
want to lose him. In late eighty four, John and
Andy decided to form The Power Station, a side project
with hard hitting, guitar driven rock. It was a clear
and intentional departure from Duran Durant. It's like, come on,
let's just go and do something where you can play
as loudly as you like. There could be lots of
room for solos. They can be as long as you
want them to be. One of Andy's driving forces to
(18:20):
make The Power Stations was to get away from Nick.
The album was a hit, and John and Andy started
to realize they might be able to have careers beyond
the Fab Five. You know, it started to seem like
maybe it's this is something more than a one off
for Simon, Nick and Roger. It was clear that the
(18:41):
musical differences that once brought Duran Duran together, we're now
tearing them apart. Musically, we were always pulling in two
different directions, and the tension between what I do and
what Andy was doing was one of the great things
about the dynamic in early Duran Duran records. When Andy
decided he wanted to go a bit further and a
(19:02):
bit more rock, that's that's just too much for me.
I have no interest in that. Nick and I were
interested in something different. We wanted to be more experimental.
In the summer of eight five, Simon, Nick and Roger
formed Arcadia and recorded an album with several high profile
(19:23):
guest stars. An amazing time we had, incredible It was
a good line up in a Dave Gilmore sting Grace Jones.
I mean, it was an amazing line up. All the
groove and the guitar and the heaviness seemed to go
to power Station and then all the kind of synth
and clever, weird, alternative witness went to Arcadia. It kind
(19:46):
of like took something that you really loved and like, Okay,
we're gonna take half of it here and take half
of it here, so it sounded a bit like that.
On opposite ends of the creative spectrum. Arcadia and power
Station created a schism within Duran Durant. Of course you
get competition coming into playing. I didn't want power Station
to be any more successful. You know, we've got to
make a better album than they're making. John Andy were
(20:09):
doing this project here, Simon that we're doing this project here,
and I was putting one for in each project, and
these kind of two ships were sailing apart from each other,
and I was kind of in the middle of it,
you know, trying to hang onto both, thinking are we
going to like each other when we get back together?
After six months apart, the band honored a commitment to
shoot the music video for the new James Bond theme
(20:32):
of You to a Kill in a true case of
our Imitating life. As the tensions amongst the band were
practically lethal. I remember it as being pretty toxic. There
was an error resentment. We weren't get him along at all,
and he locked himself in his trailer. He wouldn't come
out to do his filming. We're not really playing well
(20:53):
with each other. I think you can see when Andy
is trying to actually kill me during the video. Yeah,
but that that was about as close as you'd get
to h to reality. I hate that video and I
don't think anybody looks good in it. And then we
just went our separate ways and didn't come together again
(21:15):
until Philadelphia. In the Live AI in July, Duran Duran
was given an offer they couldn't refuse when their friend
Bob Geldoff organized Live Aid, a global fundraising event for
African famine relief that featured performances from the biggest names
and music. Yes, they were going down, but what are
you going to do? Call out of the Live AIG
(21:37):
show because it's not quite right now. You've just got
to get on with it. You've got to pull up
a big gig here. You're gonna go and play in
front of but I don't know how many billion people.
So you have the pressure doing the biggest show that's
ever been put on the up before Duran Duran would
take the stage that evening John and Andy and listed
(22:00):
on performing with power Station. The fact that John and
Andy had already been on stage with power Station said
something about the whole day. A few hours after power
Station left the stage, Duran Duran was about to play
their first show in nearly a year in front of
the entire world. I was totally committed. I think Nick
(22:23):
was totally committed as well. I think Roger was feeling
very anxious, and I think John and Andy were thinking,
I'm not sure I like this as much as being
on stage with power Station. Live Aid was a bit
of a disaster. And when we got on stage, we've
got no monitors. I couldn't even hear myself and it's
(22:45):
quite terrifying. I was having to sort of turn around
and look at Roger thinking, Okay, this has been broadcast
to billions of people, I cannot actually hear what I'm playing,
and them we're just being more impressed with Led Zeppelinton.
Anything we were doing. We were woefully under rehearsed. Really,
when I watch it, I can feel that it's, uh,
(23:06):
you know, we're not having a good time. It was
just trying to hang on to a very thin piece
of string. We'd really played all our chips, put them
all on the table. At that point, it was the
end of a relationship. After Duran Durant's difficult performance at
Live AID, John and Andy Taylor returned to touring with
power station in Roger decided he was ready to take
(23:29):
himself out of the limelight. It was a very odd
time for us, because we thought we were going to
have a five piece band back together again. But Roger
had actually had enough of the music business and he
didn't want to come back. I think he was just exhausted,
quite honestly, There's only so much attention and so many
(23:52):
glaring lights that some people can take, you know, you
do take on a besieged mentality. Roger Taylor left the
band and withdrew from public life. He didn't want to
have anything to do with it anymore. I don't think
a lot of people really understood while I was going
through at the time, and I think people tended to,
you know, label it with different things. And I don't
(24:14):
think I was emotionally prepared for the height of fame
that we achieved. I didn't have the tools to deal
with that. It sounds like a cliche, but it was like,
I need to find the real me. Who am I
when I look back at myself in those early days
and who is that? And when I left, I just
(24:34):
kind of found myself. Losing Roger was a stunning blow
to the band. It was time for Duran Duran to regroup,
but Andy Taylor ignored requests to return to the fall.
He blows your confidence a little bit when people leave.
When Roger and Andy left, I think that the band
kind of lost a little bit of his innocence. Then
it's never it was never going to be the same.
(24:56):
But by six John Taylor was ready to rejoin Simon
and Dick. They set aside their creative differences to try
and keep Duran Duran alive. The three of us had
so bonded we just felt we were on the right path.
We clung on to each other and to the idea
of Duran Duran. We learned very much to make our
(25:19):
egos subservient to the band. Of course, it felt very
different not having two members there that we spent every
day with the five years, But at the same time,
it was a new adventure and in the spirit of
Duran Duran, we embrace change. The trio entered the studio
(25:40):
to record Duran Durand's fifth album, Notorious, with one of
their biggest influences as producer, sikes Nil Rogers. When I
showed up to do the album Notorious and there was
no Andy and there was no Roger. I wasn't quite
sure they would feel like I was working with Durant.
But the thing is is that spirit of Durand is
(26:01):
sort of bigger than the individual players, and it felt
really like Duran. We've never been as funky. There's Notorious
before all since, which is Nile's got the funk. The
more you heard what you were doing, the more you
have belief in it. Na Rogers is the person who
rescued Duran Duran. It was this new evolution. It sounded
(26:25):
like they've been holed up in some very expensive New
York recording studio. Like some of those records in that
Erra just sound like cocaine and money, and I feel
like that's one of them. When Notorious was released in
November of eighty six, it reached number twelve on the
U S Album charts. But as Duran Duran closed out
the eighties and their follow up albums Big Thing and
(26:47):
Liberty failed to make a mark. As they entered a
new decade, Duran Duran were deemed a relic of the past.
The landscape had changed. We've been pretty successful through the
eight and I think a lot of people I thought
we were synonymous with that period, and when they locked
the door behind the eighties, some people were determined that
(27:11):
we were going to be on the other side of
the door, and they were taking the key with them,
And that's kind of when you realize that that moment
had passed. We weren't anymore. We were like, it's over there,
damn you know. Can we Maybe if we paddle faster
we can catch it up, But it's hard in the
band went to work on their seventh album, writing with
(27:33):
guitarist Warren Coucarulo, who broughtened their sound. As the sessions progressed,
one track emerged as particularly promising, and Simon Leban channeled
his emotions about a recent tragedy into the lyrics. I
wrote about the death of a very very dear friend
(27:54):
of mine who died tragically, very very very young, and
when he died, I dedicated a part of myself to him.
I was finding it very difficult to let go of
the sadness and to move into the next chapter of
my life, and I had to free myself. I wanted
(28:17):
to say goodbye, and that's why I said, but I
won't cry for yesterday. There's an ordinary world that I
want to live in now and I will, I will
carry on and I will survive. And that really was
my way of burying my friend instead of trying to
(28:39):
keep him alive in my own heart, but with sadness
and loss. Simon's tribute to his late friend connected to
millions across the globe. Released as a single in December
of ninety two, Ordinary World became the biggest hit of
Duran Durand's career. To have your biggest hit, what thirteen
(29:01):
years after your first hit or your breakthrough like that
just doesn't happen in music like that means that you
have a true place in people's hearts and you have
a truly special song. Ordinary World propelled the wedding album
to the top ten. Seemingly out of nowhere. Duran Duran
had once again returned to the mainstream. We're back and
(29:23):
we're in the nineties, and that for me was one
of the most significant moments in that Korea. The band
continued to record and tour over the next four years,
but in the band suffered an unexpected blow. John Taylor
(29:48):
decided to leave Duran Duran. It was hard because you know,
I've been a member of this band, my entire adult
life since I was seven. It was almost like, for
once in my life, I had to invest in my
personal life. It wasn't easy, but it was necessary. John
(30:10):
moved to Los Angeles, got married, and checked into a
rehab facility to finally get his substance abuse issues in order.
Getting sober was a big one for me, maybe the biggest.
You know, it's an incredible rebirth. I mean, it was
good to know, at least in the way that I
understood my recovery, that that it wasn't my fault, you know,
(30:31):
that I had like a faulty, faulty brain when it
came to you know, alcohol and drugs, that it wasn't
just that I was making bad choices or that I
was lacking in discipline. With John tending to his personal life, Aldie, Simon,
and Nick remained from the original Fab five. John leaving
was a monumental blow. I felt deserted when John left
(30:55):
the group. For the next three years, they carried on
recording and touring, but was becoming a parrot. That inspiration
was fading. I really questioned whether I wanted to carry
on At that point. To me, it didn't feel like
Duran Duran anymore. I think there was a couple of options.
One was to just stop or look at going all
(31:16):
the way back to the beginning again and putting the
original lineup together. I called up John, Nick, and Simon
and I had lunch. He was ready, really excited, and
he said, right, let's call Roger's home here by the
pool with Simon and Nick would think about a game
the original band together again. At that point I kind
of nearly fell through the floor. So I think, you
(31:38):
know what, I'm going to really embrace this, so I'll
call him back there. I said, yeah, okay, I'm in.
So then there was only Andy and it was a
case of finding it. Andy had moved to the Spanish
island of Abisa. After a phone call with Roger, he
was on board. The five original members of Duran Duran
got together in a studio and for ads to see
(32:00):
if they could recapture the old magic. Everybody had the
same dynamic. Andy and I still didn't really get on.
These five people not spend any time together in a room.
But what was it eighteen years or something. We had
some real personality issues. How do we relate artistically? Can
(32:21):
we still beat Duran Duran? It was really hard. Despite
the clashing in the studio, the band managed to write
new material for a reunion album, but when they shopped
their songs to record labels, to their surprise, there was
little interest. I think we thought that just by getting
together will take a polaroid and then it'll be a
(32:43):
blank check, and it wasn't. The industry was like, WHOA
which an army? What's the interest level? The band recruited
former Aerosmith manager Wendy Leaster to help right the ship.
Her idea get the boys out of the studio and
back on stage. I felt that we needed to create
(33:04):
a demand. Rather than going knocking on doors. I wanted
people knocking on their door. So we put shows on
se We said let's do something, and sold out in
some crazy amount of time, I mean so much quicker
than we had even thought of. On July seven, two
thousand three, Duran Duran was set to play their first
show as the Fab five in eighteen years. Banned tensions
(33:27):
at an all time high. I'll remember the night before
the first show, I thought I'm going to kill somebody.
The intra personal differences were so you know, on fire,
and I mean I'm sure I was making people crazy
as well. In my back of my head, I just
(33:47):
thought we'd just got to get to the stage. We
could hear the crowd, the anticipation out there. It was terrifying.
It was one of those moments where you had to
walk through her, to walk through the beer. The weight
of it. It was a big deal. A crowd went
(34:09):
absolutely bananas. Once we're in front of the audience, it
becomes so obvious that it's so much bigger than we are.
It's an entirely different calculation. It's like it's me and
then it's us, and then we managed to find our
way back to the chemistry that we had. It just
(34:32):
sent chills down the spine, you know, that moment of
of realizing that actually this is going to work and
the world is going to love during Duran again, we
knew that there were areas that we would disagree, but
I think we are all prepared to put those aside
in order to create something special. As Duran Duran, Simon,
(34:56):
John Nick, Roger, and Eddie continue touring of the next
two years, playing some of their biggest shows ever. Critics
began to praise the return. As they released their comeback album,
Astronauts but the reunion would be short lived for Andy Taylor,
who once again bowed out in two thousand five. Andy
had been becoming more difficult to work with. Everybody in
(35:20):
the band felt that we weren't all going in the
same direction. That was clear. I can't say I missed
Andy terribly. I know how creative he is and I
would never ever take that away from him, but personality wise,
and he never really fit in with the rest of us.
To fill the space of their departing guitarist Duran, Duran
(35:41):
embraced the idea of the band as a collective with
a wide range of producers and collaborators to add fresh
elements to their magical sound. It's come to be, you know,
the empty chair, you know, which is like the X factor.
So it's actually a way of injecting energy and creativity
into the situation. We have found that it's good to
(36:05):
have another person in the room. Having different people in
different energy changes the way you work. I think it's
really made the four of us really kind of open
our minds and our imaginations, and it's broadened our perspectives
(36:26):
in Duran Duran expanded their artistic scope once again as
they wrapped up work on their fifteen album Future Past,
working with producers Errol Alkin and Georgio Moroder while collaborating
with Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and Mark Ronson. Their influence
on me is basically indelible. Because they were my first
(36:50):
favorite band. I get to have this little, very personal
relationship with everybody. It's really exciting to know that you
can still do it, you know, after all this time.
As soon as you start hearing that sound coming back,
and it's a real moment. You never tire of that
moment when you hear coming back through the speakers. We're
making an album that we're all very excited about. It's
(37:14):
cutting edge in some aspects, but it still sounds like
Duran Duran, and that puts us all in a very
good frame of mind. I was an only child. I'm
magiced into the world brothers, and I have brothers. We
were all kind of equal shareholders in the dream. There's
no other band I'd want to be in. Listen to
(37:36):
Behind the Music on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Want more episodes,
you can watch remastered best of the vault and new
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