Duran Duran on the ‘crazy s***’ in their 20s to new album Future Past
WITH my bedroom walls plastered with their posters, as a teen I was a huge Duran Duran fan.
Thirty years on, this fandom has not waned as I push to the front of their Birmingham homecoming gig, elbows at the ready to do battle with anyone who dares to block my view of my idols.
With like-minded fans packed into the O2 Institute like sardines, this could be 1982, when the pop gods were the biggest band in the world. But it is decades later and the New Romantics are about to release Future Past, their 15th studio album and proof they are as relevant as ever.
“Anniversary is a new song that not only commemorates our ability to stay together for 40 years but tips the hat to any partnership and friendship that has stayed together,” says bassist John Taylor a week later.
“Yeah,” agrees singer Simon Le Bon. “We’ve come to appreciate the value of each other and acknowledge the work and the dedication it takes to still be here.
“If you can accept without any embarrassment that you’ve been together as long as we have, it doesn’t make you feel old.
“You have the most fun together because you know each other so well. After this much time, we’ve learned to accept our differences as well. We’ve all had enough experience of working on our own and working with other people to know this is the best of it.
“These are the guys I really want to work with because they do something that brings the absolute best out of me. And if I can do that for them as well, it’s something very special.”
I meet Duran Duran in a luxurious central London hotel. And once I’ve fanned myself down about being in the company of my favourite band, I chat first to John, 61, and Simon, 62, then keyboardist Nick Rhodes, 59, and drummer Roger Taylor, 61, about their return.
‘Feel of early records’
“I can’t recall any gigs we’ve ever played going down better than those two Birmingham shows,” says Roger.
Nick agrees: “The first two Birmingham nights were ecstatic. I thought the place was going to fall down at one point.
“They were such special shows. Then we fell into the deep end with the Isle of Wight Festival. It was so great for us to be playing live again.
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“We hadn’t struck a note for nearly two years, so the build-up was quite intense. But to get that affirmation from 50,000 people felt like a big moment for us.”
Future Past is Duran Duran at their best. Songs like Invisible, Anniversary and Tonight United fit comfortably in their set list alongside classics Planet Earth, Girls On Film and Come Undone.
“This one probably has more of the Duran sounds, elements and themes than perhaps any Duran album has for a long time,” says Nick. “It’s the first time we’ve allowed ourselves the luxury of being self-referential.
“We usually wipe the slate clean and say, ‘We’re going in a different direction, blinkers are on and we’re moving forward’.
“With this one we decided that after four decades, we could actually look back a little — particularly with Anniversary, which is celebrating our time together. We reference lots of things, most notably Wild Boys.
“But I think it feels very much a song we could have made at any period in our career.”
Working with Erol Alkan as producer on the album was the band’s inspiration to focus on their classic sound. The former DJ and remixer has worked on music by The Killers, Depeche Mode and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
“He was really passionate about our songs,” says Simon. “To have someone else outside of the four of us to care as much . . . he had such creativity and enthusiasm.”
Roger says: “Erol came in and said, ‘I want you to go back in a live room and play the way you used to play together’.
“He wanted the feel of our early 12in records, which he’d been playing in the clubs for years. So he’s kind of responsible for that beginning.
“He told us to forget technology for a little while and get in a room and play together. And that’s how we wrote this.”
Simon adds: “Some-one said we are creating a future past and we liked that, as it said so much about life. It’s easy to just miss it if you don’t nail it down from time to time.
“Nostalgia is a double-edged sword and makes you sad that you will never do certain things again.
“So you need to look back and enjoy but you’ve got to live now.”
John laughs: “Erol turned into Captain Kirk. He took us on a journey. He wasn’t afraid to really push us and said we needed to be pushed — we are lazy as f***!”
Frontman Simon says lockdown allowed them to focus on their new songs and make the changes the album needed.
He says: “It meant we had the time to step back and leave it, then see it again.
“I almost feel like when we started off before lockdown, it was like driving at night with the headlights on, when we can only see that bit of road in front of you.
“But when we returned and the sun came up, we could see all the country around us and what we needed to do to get to the right place.”
Roger adds: “I think lockdown gave Simon time to look into himself, as the lyrics are quite introspective.
“And I don’t think we’ve had that for a while. I think he’s written some amazing lyrics on this record.”
We did some crazy s*** in our twenties. I thought, I'm never gonna get over this
John Taylor
John says that even though times have changed in music, their aim is always to make an album.
He adds: “I know lots of pop is about singles, but making an album is always the objective (for us). Whether anybody listened to it or not doesn’t matter but that’s the standard I was raised on.
“I loved pop songs when they came on the radio but then the first few Roxy Music albums transformed things.
“As an artist you want to unpack different ideas and make a great album.” Simon says the fact they work as a band when making an album, not as individuals, is why they are still here producing great records.
He says: “It’s always about the group and what’s good for Duran Duran, not Simon, John, Nick, Roger or even (former guitarist) Andy Taylor.”
Roger adds: “Everything has to be decided by the four of us. No one person ever goes off on a tangent.
“And we have a great team working for us.”
Simon says: “Every time you let go of your ego, the flow takes you. It’s a lesson.”
Roger again: “Saying that, we’re all pretty grounded these days. No one’s ever been able to get too egotistical because the other three of us can pull him back down again.
“And I think the pandemic has been a huge ego check for everyone.
“If you’re an NHS nurse, you are far more important than a flippin’ rock star or movie star. They got the centre stage, which was great. People that do the important things became the stars. I was out there clapping every Thursday. It was emotional.”
Duran Duran have worked with some of the biggest names in music — including Nile Rodgers, Justin Timberlake, Janelle Monae, John Frusciante, Mark Ronson and Kelis.
‘We’ve a tendency to be controlling’
Collaborators on Future Past include disco legend Giorgio Moroder, who produced Tonight United, while Swedish electro popster Tove Lo features on new single Give It All Up. Blur’s Graham Coxon plays guitar throughout the album.
“Giorgio is the maestro,” says Nick with a smile. “I will always be a fan, so it was an honour to work with him. It’s strange that we’d never worked together before as we are such a perfect fit.
“We could’ve worked with him at any time in our career, really. He would’ve been great on our very first album.
“Then Tove as well. There are a lot of fantastic divas out there but Tove was that bit edgier and darker. And with Graham, well, he was interesting and has this incredible energy. I can’t pretend to know all of Blur’s entire catalogue, though.”
John adds: “Erol brought Graham in because they’re close.
“Nick had met him and Nick — who is NOT a Blur fan — had said, ‘You know, Graham Coxon would be interesting’. It seemed like it was in the stars.
“We have a tendency to be very controlling, particularly with very noisy guitar players. We suppress them and, before you know it, they just sound like a keyboard part! We couldn’t do that with him — you just had to let him roar. And it was quite surprising because we all loved it. It was electric.”
“He came in and he blew us all away,” adds Simon. “His determination to not do cliched work is amazingly inspiring.”
“We became a five-piece again with Graham,” says Nick. “And that created a different dynamic. Graham fitted like a glove, like he’d always been there.”
We move on to Andy Taylor, the founding member who quit the band in 1986, rejoined in 2000 and called it a day again in 2006.
“We reformed the original band, we went on that adventure and then we were done with Andy,” says John who now practises yoga and meditation — and this year celebrates 27 years of sobriety after overcoming addictions to cocaine and alcohol.
“We did some crazy sh*t in our twenties and there was a while when I thought, ‘I’m never gonna get over this’. But we change.
“With Andy it was just a slight difference in philosophy or the way that we look at life and that became really apparent.
“I love Andy’s guitar playing. You have to be very open-minded and flexible to be in this group. You’ve got to be able to go with the flow. And, you know, he just wasn’t that guy.”
Simon is still in contact with the guitarist, who has recently been playing with Reef as well as performing solo shows. “I send him texts,” says the singer.
“I watched him play some Duran Duran tracks on Chris Evans’s show and even though it was weird watching him play Hungry Like The Wolf with another singer, I was so happy to see him working and involved in music because he’s such a great musician.”
There are not many things Duran Duran have not achieved in their 40-year career but, having come to festivals relatively late, they are keen to play more.
Nick says: “We played Coachella a few years ago, which was great.
“In the Eighties, if you were a pop band you weren’t really asked to play a festival. It’s something we’ve had to learn.”
What about Glastonbury? Are they keen to play there?
“We are up for it — if we get the right slot,” says Simon.
“We’re not going to play in a little acoustic tent but if we get the right slot, we’d love to do it.”
lThe album Future Past is released today.
Duran Duran
Future Past
★★★★☆
1. Invisible
2. All Of You
3 Give It All Up (ft Tove Lo)
4. Anniversary
5. Future Past
6. Beautiful Lies
7. Tonight United
8. Wing
9. Nothing Less
10. Hammerhead (ft Ivorian Doll)
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11. More Joy! (ft Chai)
12. Falling (ft Mike Garson)