Duran Duran is Ready to Talk About 'Future Past'
Photography by Alan Gelati
Styled by Chloe Beeney
They were one of the iconic bands of the '80s—it was hard to find a teenager without a poster of John Taylor or Simon Le Bon in their room. At the beginning of the MTV era, their videos "Girls on Film," "Save a Prayer," "Hungry Like the Wolf," were broadcasted non-stop and were fundamental in the creation of Duranmania. Crowds of groupies, including Princess Diana, seemed willing to do anything to be close to them and their music made everyone dance.
Their story begins with two teenagers from Birmingham: Nick Bates and Nigel Taylor. Close friends since childhood, Bates and Taylor changed their names to Nick Rhodes and John Taylor and in 1978 formed their soon-to-be-famous band, whose name is inspired by the movie Barbarella. Soon after, drummer Roger Taylor, guitarist Andy Taylor, and singer Simon Le Bon joined, and the band was officially formed. In 1981, the band made their debut with their album Duran Duran, and the band’s first single "Planet Earth" became a hit in the British Top Charts.
It is the band's second album, Rio, however, that launched them to the top of the American charts and transformed Duran Duran from a club band to pop stars.
Amidst the celebrity-filled parties and model girlfriends, however, tensions within the group began to grow and quickly escalate. In 1984, the band separated - John, Andy, and Palmer formed Power Station and Rhodes and Le Bon formed Arcadia, with Roger Taylor playing in both. In 1985, however, the band temporarily came back together to perform at Live Aid, the world’s biggest musical event in history.
In 1986, the band recorded the hit album Notorious while Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor were planning their second exit from the group. In 1997, John Taylor, too, removes himself from the band, and the public eye, in order to attempt to rehabilitate himself from a cocaine addiction.
L'O: On October 22, the new album, the fifteenth of your career, Future Past was released six years after the previous one in 2015, Paper Gods. How was this project born?
NICK RHODES: We had started working on the album before the lockdown, and when we got back to everyone's perspective it was very different. It was very inspiring to have Graham Coxon, the Blur guitarist, and Mike Garson, Bowie's pianist, an absolute legend for us in the studio, but also Giorgio Moroder. We have admired him for forty years and this is the first time we have worked. with him, managing to create, I believe, a song 100-percent Duran Duran and 100-percent Giorgio Moroder.
JOHN TAYLOR: It's an album where the personality of each member of the band and each of the artists we asked to collaborate shines through. While in the beginning, we made records dominated by super producers, because in a way we didn't know who we really were.
L'O: Who are the musicians who have influenced you the most?
NR: David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Kraftwerk, Sparks, and then T. Rex, Roxy Music. John and I discovered punk rock, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees together, later Giorgio Moroder's electronic music.
JT: Obviously the Beatles and not only for the genius of their lyrics and their music, but because they have experimented with everything, opened all roads. And David Bowie, the absolute reference for every member of the band, the Clash, Queen ... I like versatile bands that never cease to reinvent themselves, to leave the comfort zone of a single musical genre. This is why I don't usually listen to the music I love, and instead I spend a lot of time listening to the music I don't know.
L'O: You broke up, reconciled, moved away, different musicians joined the band. How are the dynamics of your relationships?
JT: With Nick, the bond is very strong, we are both only children, both Gemini, with Simon there is a deep alchemy, in reality, we are like a family, linked by many different dynamics. We are not songwriters, I would say that rather we work as architects, we are abstract expressionists: we can work on the sound of a song six months before writing the text. We are four and we are a democracy, and we work with a whole series of collaborators, listening to many opinions when by now most of contemporary music is born with only two figures, artist and producer. I think that if we have remained relevant it is because we have fought to be, we have not settled on a groove repeated over and over again. Ours is a form of group therapy based on the strength of being together. Personally, I need a boost, the success and the years have made me lazy, I made albums where I played two notes and which were then picked up by others. In Rio, we played whatever it was possible to play to grab attention, later in New York, working with crazy musicians, I questioned myself, I felt small, not too good. I started with the guitar, but then I switched to bass because everyone wanted to play the guitar...
NR: John and I are very close friends, I was 10 when I met him, he was twelve. We were only children and we grew up as brothers. But also with the other members of the band, the relationship is very close. It seems impossible to me 40 years have passed, we have been together for a long time, we have always been very ambitious, we have always aimed to be the best and we have always tried to be contemporary, to use the most advanced technology. We have never identified with a musical genre and we have not become attached to a single type of music. John and I have always been obsessed with graphics and have always considered ourselves a collective of creatives.
L'O: The favorite album of all those of Duran Duran?
NR: Actually our work has to be considered in its entirety, even if obviously Rio, in '82, was the key album. But I would also say Notorious, which I think has influenced many other artists, and The Wedding Album, from '93, with what is perhaps my favorite song, Come Undone. And then also the album of our reunion. We have always been very meticulous, very demanding on all the details, it is no coincidence that in 40 years we have made a total of 15 albums, we could have done twice as many, but perhaps that is why we have stood the test of time.
JT: Rio and Seven and the Ragged Tiger ('83).
L'O: What is your favorite phase in making a record?
NR: The initial one, of creation still without limits, boundaries, direction, when you start from a blank page in the morning and leave the studio in the evening with the awareness of having created something. But if you asked Simon the same question he would tell you that his favorite moment is the live performance.
JT: I like the initial creative phase, the one where we determine the mood, the tone, the one where we are most prolific; then we slow down: Simon can spend months on a text and I go crazy. As a bassist, I can sit in the studio doing some encouraging sounds, but I am perfectly aware that they go on without me. And then there is the live moment, it has always been my element, it is when the talking ends and the pure level of connection with music begins, a magic that has attracted me since I was a boy. I was 16 when I started performing in public, but that feeling of danger before starting because anything can happen, and then the rush of adrenaline that gives you people's happiness when they start singing and dancing to your music, are always present. We played in front of small audiences like in festivals like Whight's where you could only see audiences up to the horizon. It has been incredible every time.
L'O: The concerts you are most attached to?
JT: Of course Live Aid, because being part of that crazy lineup of artists was exhilarating, but also the first UK tour with just two singles and screaming girls. They were under the stage and didn't even really listen to us, the only thing they wanted was to catch our attention. Coachella was also an incredible experience, and then I remember some crazy concerts in Italy: in Milan for the Notorious tour, we performed for the first time in a stadium.
L'O: What do you like to do when you are not working?
NR: I didn't stop working, in the initial phase of the lockdown I was horrified at not being able to do it. I solved it by arranging my digital archive of photographs and producing Astronaut, four albums with Wendy Bevan, released separately on this year's solstice and equinox dates, with the latest coming out in December. Wendy is creative, chic, humoral, we have many things in common, she is also a photographer. I had worked as a producer on his record, then when we realized that with the lockdown we had to block everything because it made no sense to make it without promoting it on tour, etc., etc, we decided to work on some purely instrumental songs, and it was so stimulating that the pieces they became 52.
JT: I think lying by the pool is one of the great pleasures in life, it's not for nothing that I chose to live in California.
L'O: You have always been very fashion-conscious, and your look has undoubtedly been one of the reasons for your success.
NR: I like well-designed, well-structured clothes, I hate sportswear, you will never see me in jeans or tracksuits. I have always followed new designers, especially those who came out of Central Saint Martins, I like to go to their shows, support them publicly. I loved Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent, I think it was the golden moment of menswear. I don't like ridiculous fashion, although I appreciate a touch of sense of humor, I want to feel elegant and chic. Among the items in my wardrobe that I love most are some McQueen outfits from when there was Lee, some incredible pieces by Gaultier from the 80s, but also by Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, by a great tailor like Antony Price [figure fundamental in the creation of the style of Bryan Ferry], Thierry Mugler, Montana, Galliano, Tristan Webber. Looking fabulous is one of life's pleasures. From a fashion point of view, the lockdown was a catastrophe.
JT: I've always been a fashion victim, perhaps for a genetic question, my father created (literally, he chose the fabrics and then sewed them) some clothes for my mother, and then the music scene was dominated by artists like Queen or David Bowie, there was a lot of competitiveness on the clothes. Without forgetting the influence of punk rock, of the Sex Pistols. We have never worn jeans. My wife [Gela Nash, co-founder of Juicy Couture] is a fashion designer, we talk about fashion all the time.
L'O: At the time you used make-up, like Bowie and Adam Ant...
NR: I'm absolutely comfortable with make-up, it makes you feel different, it adds a touch of theatricality to the grayest day, I started wearing make-up at 16 and I never stopped, I look in the mirror in the morning and I think my face could only improve with makeup. Back then there was a lot of closure, the fact that we were made up of only like a gay fan base, today the mentality is more open, there is much more freedom of expression.
JT: If I really want to make a sensation I wear eyeliner, but I don't care anymore. Instead, I work a lot on my body, I take it very seriously, I am very healthy, and I do constant work to keep it up to the demands of a tour.
L'O: Do you consider yourself primarily a British band?
NR: Undoubtedly, although I still feel European despite Brexit. I don't like those who think small, if we all worked together in harmony instead of witnessing conflicts between superpowers it would be much easier to deal with the big problems of the planet such as climate change in a more efficient way. But we are a British band because we would not be conceivable without English music that came before us, without David Bowie for example, or without English fashion, without Vivienne Westwood or without the tailor of Roxy Music...
L'O: Is it possible to be a music star without being narcissistic?
JT: At 22, I was not a narcissist, at 26, yes, because the whole lifestyle of a rock star pushes you to be one, to focus all attention only on yourself. It is obvious that such an attitude when working in a team is disastrous, tensions explode. I have never stopped being a narcissist.
HAIR Cristiano Basciu @ RICHARD WARD HAIR
MAKEUP Carol Morley @ CAROL HAYES MANAGEMENT using ARMANI BEAUTY
DIGITAL OPERATOR Vlady Vala
PHOTO ASSISTANT Stephen Young
STYLING ASSISTANT Natalie Richardson
