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Duran Duran.
Duran Duran were my favourite band in the world when I was ten.
I even remember arguing with my family's hairdresser about her
refusal to dye my fringe blonde like John Taylor (Fiona, if
you're reading this, thank you). From 1981 to 1984 Duran were
one of the biggest bands in the world and one of the only UK
bands since the Beatles to crack the US market, spearheading
what popular music historians call The Second British Invasion.
Singles like Rio and The Reflex were worldwide
chart toppers. They sold out stadia everywhere they played.
Then, in 1985, the wheels began to fall off. Drummer Roger Taylor
quit, citing exhaustion, and retired to his farm. Guitarist
Andy Taylor followed suit. The remaining Durans - frontman Simon
le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and bassist John Taylor - continued
on with hired-gun sidemen for the next decade to diminishing
returns (despite a huge hit with Ordinary World in 1992)
until Taylor quit in 1996. Then long-serving guitarist Warren
Cuccurullo left in 2001 to reform his old band Missing Persons.
A very chipper sounding Roger Taylor describes the vibe in the
newly-reformed original lineup as "Very buoyant at the moment.
We're very pleased with the album [the forthcoming 'Astronaut'],
and we're feeling very happy. And yes, there is a sense of deja
vu," he laughs, "but it feels as fresh as when we started back
in the 'eighties. The lifespan of the original band was very
short, and we were at the top of our game when we split up,
and we feel we've got a lot more to give."
He sounds genuinely delighted when I tell him that, even without
le Bon's immediately recognisable voice, his trademark use of
roto-toms in new single (Reach Up For The) Sunrise was
the moment I went "ahh! This is Duran!"
"It was timbales, actually," he laughs. "But the thing is, when we plug in and play together, it sounds like Duran Duran: we don't play like Led Zeppelin or the Chili Peppers or something."
That was one thing I admired as a kid: unlike most of their peers, Duran could actually cut it live. "We never slid completely into that electro-trap - which in the 'eighties was very tempting because everyone was knocking out songs on keyboards and rhythm units," Taylor agrees. "We could just plug in and play. And thankfully we can still do that today."
While the rest of the band have been active in their own musical pursuits, one imagines that Taylor would have been the hardest to convince to get back into it. "I was kind of ready for it, actually," he reveals. "I'd slowly gravitated back into music in the 'nineties and was thinking of putting something together for my drumming, and then John just called me out of the blue with the classic line 'what would you think about getting the boys back together?' I thought he meant just a one-off, like a charity gig, and went 'hmm, maybe.' And when he said 'No, we're going to write a new album, get a new deal, the whole thing,' I just went 'Right: when do we start?'" he laughs.
"The great thing is that we'd drifted apart but there was never any animosity - we'd never had a great punch up or anything. Andy I'd had quite a lot of contact with, Nick and Simon I'd see around from time to time, but John I didn't see or hear from in a number of years. But it was really easy: we remind each other of some of the best parts of our lives and there was still that chemistry between us."
Although the band are resolutely looking forward, the recent re-release of a lot of Duran's video legacy on DVD means that the band have some charges to answer. Most seriously: Taylor, explain the band's long-form video movie, 'Arena.'
"You know, I haven't seen it in 20 years. That's the very pretentious version of a live concert, isn't it, with tigers in the audience and stuff?" He laughs. "Well, you know, that was what was happening then, it was the birth of a new artform, and sometimes you got it right - and then sometimes..."
Andrew P Street
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Sony release 'Astronaut' on Mon 18 Oct.
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