Why Is Duran Duran Good Music to Do Art to

maio 04, 2022 Enviar um comentário

If you had only five minutes and four seconds to show someone what the 1980s were like, all you'd have to practice is cue upwardly Duran Duran'south "Rio" music video, a Technicolor blast of cheekbones and excess.

The British popular grouping filmed it in 1982 on the island of Antigua, where they rented a 70-foot yacht and, wearing pastel silk suits, posed coolly while passing over the Caribbean Bounding main. "Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand," singer Simon Le Bon lip-synced from the bow of the transport.

A new television receiver channel called MTV latched on to this video and fabricated information technology a centerpiece of its programming. The band members spent only three or iv hours onboard, just the paradigm was and then powerful that people began to think a typical day for Duran Duran involved a yacht and a model in body paint. They were labeled a "video ring," which carried the connotation of being a fleeting success. "It was quite annoying for a while, that we were pigeonholed like that," Le Bon says.

Next yr will be 40 years since the "Rio" video, and Duran Duran is all the same around. Different a lot of supposed 1980s bands, they had hits well into the '90s (in the U.S.) and the 2000s (in the U.One thousand.). There've been enough of changes to the lineup of Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and the 3 unrelated Taylors (bassist John, guitarist Andy and drummer Roger), just they've never broken up. They've made great albums, uneven albums, terrible albums (1995'south "Thank You" included ill-advised versions of Bob Dylan and Public Enemy songs), and a snappy and snazzy new album, "Future Past," their 15th. For an "'80s band," they sure have lasted a long time.

In recent years, Duran has handsomely integrated guest musicians and producers into albums, and the credits on "Future Past" include Giorgio Moroder, Graham Coxon of Blur, Mark Ronson, Tove Lo, British rapper Ivorian Doll and Japanese popular group Chai.

The lineup that recorded "Hungry Like the Wolf," "Girls on Film," "Save a Prayer," "Marriage of the Snake," "The Reflex" and "A View to a Kill," each a huge hit, reassembled in the early 2000s. Guitarist Andy left for a 2d time in 2006, and the absence of his power chords has left room for a renewed focus on electronic sounds.

Le Bon, who will plough 63 on October. 27, and John Taylor, 61, called from a hotel room (a luxury suite, most likely) in Austin, where the band was co-headlining the Austin Urban center Limits festival. Talk turned chop-chop to Le Bon'southward unusual approach to lyrics, COVID-19, David Bowie, plastic trousers and Eurovision. Both maintained a merry disposition throughout the hourlong interview. If the music thing doesn't work out, Le Bon and Taylor take a bright future as a comedy duo.

Disco keen Giorgio Moroder produced 2 of your new songs, "Beautiful Lies" and "Tonight United." When I interviewed him a few years ago, he said disdainfully, "Life is also short to piece of work with bands." Why were you the exception?
Taylor: (laughs) I tin can understand where he's coming from. You accept to have a strong tummy to piece of work with a band. But we were very deferential and polite with him. He'south probably one of the artists we respect the near.

Le Bon: He loved working with usa. I've merely kind of bandage my mind back to the session, and we came upwards with so many ideas so quickly and he conducted it all.

John, do you need to know what a song is about when you lot're recording a bass part? Simon sometimes has what one could call an oblique approach to writing lyrics.
Le Bon: (laughs) I'll be back in a few moments.

I've listened to "Hammerhead" a few times, and I have no idea what that vocal is about.
Le Bon: Really?

Taylor: Merely recollect Marvel Universe and a sort of vengeful wife.

Le Bon: From Red china.

Taylor: It'south very cartoon-like, very manga. Look, I don't think I appreciated a lot of the work Simon was doing in the '80s. "The Reflex" is an extraordinary lyric and 1 of the most — what was the give-and-take you used? Esoteric?

Oblique.
Taylor: One of the most oblique lyrics to always reach No. 1. You'd be hard-pressed to get away with a lyric like that today.

"Future By" is a very emotionally deep album. There's not a lot of faff on it. About of the lyrics were written earlier nosotros went into lockdown. Many of the songs are about emotional crises, or long-term intimacy issues, allow's call them. When we came back after lockdown, I felt that those lyrics, specially "Invisible," spoke to the moment, because the last eighteen months have really been most intimacy politics.

Le Bon: Well said for a man wearing a pair of duvets on his anxiety. (laughter) That was very skilful.

Back in July, the ring had a promotional consequence scheduled in New York that was canceled because of COVID concerns. Have you had COVID?
Le Bon: I accept.

Taylor: Then have I.

Le Bon: And we were vaccinated besides, right at the very beginning.

Are you back to feeling healthy?
Le Bon: I recovered very rapidly.

Taylor: Long COVID is quite a paranoid notion, isn't it? Every time something doesn't quite feel right, this little chimera goes, "Is it long COVID?"

Le Bon: "Oh, I don't feel like going to work today."

Both at once: Long COVID! (laughs)

The two of you lot have such an easy rapport when you're interviewed together. Is there a topic you disagree almost?
Le Bon: Maybe nosotros don't want to respond that question.

Taylor: Maybe we do.

Le Bon: At that place y'all go.

Simon, you don't tweet very oftentimes, just yous went on a tweeting spree in May during the Eurovision music competition. What is it y'all love virtually Eurovision?
Taylor: At that place's something nosotros disagree on!

Le Bon: (laughs) Oh, information technology's hilarious, and occasionally you get really practiced songs on it. One of the funniest things is the English obsession with "doing well" at Eurovision. I call back this year they were definitely punishing us for Brexit. I got excited most Twitter for a while and so I just felt that I had more important things to do with my creativity. I use it now to promote my radio show on SiriusXM [called "Whooosh!"].

What do you love about doing the show?
Le Bon: It awoke my interest in new music. I came down to breakfast 1 morn and my daughter Tallulah was listening to BBC Radio six, which is a sort of culling music service. I'm like, "I'm gonna put Radio 4 on." Radio four is mostly politics and issues. And she said, "Dad, you lot phone call yourself a musician? Y'all don't even like music, particularly new music."

At that place's a syndrome that artists are vulnerable to. It starts off with you getting into a taxi after yous've spent 12 hours in the studio. The driver says, "What do you want to listen to on the radio?" And you say, "I've been listening to music all day. Maybe we'll have a little fleck of quiet." And that grows and grows until you lot reach the signal where you lot're only listening to the music y'all're working on, and the stuff that got you into a band in the first place.

Using Spotify and SoundCloud and Bandcamp, I started to discover so much incredible music. Artists like LA Priest, J. Bernardt and Arlo Parks. I came across Chai and we put them on the song "More Joy." I got into London rap, and that's the reason Ivorian Doll is on "Hammerhead," to have that really street-y sounding vocalisation.

Simon, you're not an original member of the band.
Taylor: (laughs) And we remind him of that fact every day.

Le Bon: No, I'm not an original member. It keeps me awake at nighttime!

Do Nick and John e'er call you the new guy?
Le Bon: (laughs) I don't listen. I like annihilation with the discussion "new" in the title.

John has made fun of you for wearing pinkish leopard-print pants when you auditioned to be the new singer. Turnabout's fair play, what was he wearing?
Le Bon: The film I have is leather trousers —

Taylor: Plastic!

Le Bon: Plastic trousers, and a absurd jacket, which I idea had big shoulder pads, but then I institute out it'southward just the way he walks. And he had very good hair, I thought.

The five members of Duran Duran in 1981.

He withal does. I also want to ask about finding your voice. When singers begin, they're more than or less imitating a person or a few of them, and and so they effigy out how to find their ain singing vocalization. What did you sound like at starting time?
Le Bon: I was trying to imitate David Bowie, I but did a very bad chore of it. Well, that'due south a little bit flippant. I imitated Bowie, Peter Gabriel and I wanted to sound a bit like Patti Smith too.

As soon as we started writing our own songs, the songs gave me the vox. When "Planet Earth" was finished and my vox was in the mix, I could hear the power and the emotion in it. That was me, that wasn't me pretending to be David Bowie.

Taylor: Onstage, we're sometimes amused by the sincerity with which we play our early hits. Simon will sing a phrase: "Look now! Look all around!" And we all laugh.

Annie Zaleski has a new book nearly your second album, "Rio." She describes the press coverage at the kickoff of your career as "skeptical, dismissive and occasionally quite mean." Does that ring true?
Taylor: I causeless we were going to be an NME [New Musical Express, a weekly music newspaper] favorite, because that was my bible. That's where we got our manner tips and our attitude. But the NME was inbound a sort of nihilistic phase.

Le Bon: Do you think that [NME] review that started with the headline: "A ripple in a stagnant pool"?

Taylor: (laughs) We'll never forget that. Not that these things matter to us, merely I remember the terminal line of that review too. "Duran Duran are going to exist huge, and they don't deserve any of it."

Le Bon: (laughs) I beloved that.

Taylor: In the 2nd one-half of the '80s, people would say, "Are you still playing 'Girls on Motion picture' on stage? My God, it's and then old." And we'd be thinking, "Is it?" Anthony Burgess of "Clockwork Orange" wrote an editorial piece for a Armada Street paper and said, "Pop music is ephemeral. They're here today, gone tomorrow. The pop stars demand to know that." And I'm merely similar, "Y'all c—. Who are yous?"

Y'all both seem very comfy with your position in the world of music. Maybe there was a fourth dimension when you lot had a chip on your shoulder, only the feeling I get is, you know you've won. You've won the long game.
Taylor: Correct now, we're in hotel rooms that face flashing billboards saying "The Stones! The Stones! The Stones!" They're coming to play Austin in a couple of weeks. They're a polestar, to some caste, for bands similar ours. People were maxim to them in 1970, "Yous guys are yet going?"

You come up to run across that maybe you're being of service by staying together and bringing people together.

Simon Le Bon standing onstage with arms outstretched.

In that location are so many different factors that go into having longevity every bit a band. What'southward the psychological dynamic that has kept Duran Duran together?
Le Bon: We've hammered into each other the fact that we make better music together than every bit individuals. We've rammed that nail well and truly right through each other'southward skulls. And it's true, past the manner.

Taylor: The best moment in my life is when the lights go downwards and our intro music comes on.

Le Bon: I recollect I have measured my life by shows and tours. Is that sad?

Taylor: No.

Le Bon: I'thousand a adept dad, a good granddad, a good husband — some of the fourth dimension. But when somebody says, "What were you doing in so-and-and so yr?" I think, "That was the 'Sing Blue Silver' tour." Or "that was the 'Strange Behaviour' tour." I don't call up, "That's when Amber was born" or "That'southward when the first grandchild turned up."

There might be some injure feelings if your family unit reads this interview.
Le Bon: No, they already know.

So your next question will be, well, how long are you going to proceed going? And I'm going to say, nosotros don't f— know. We'll keep going while information technology'southward however fun.

Information technology seems like the reason the band isn't going to end is very similar to the reason the band had success.
Taylor: And what is that?

Bloody-mindedness.
Le Bon: Ha! I like that.

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Source: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-10-20/duran-duran-simon-lebon-john-taylor