The only previous time I met him, on the staircase at the aftershow of a gig at Birmingham City FC, I was so overwhelmed I could only blurt out "HELLONICKRHODES!!!" (He just laughed at me.) I handle things a little more calmly this time.
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Impossibly stylish, insouciantly effeminate and unashamedly arty (in 1984, for example, he put out a book of manipulated Polaroid photos called Interference), he's the one who's always exuded the slightly aloof air of someone who only suffers the other members because he's obliged to, but who secretly knows he's their superior. Nick Rhodes, Duran's keyboardist and, at 48, the baby of the band, is something of a personal hero.
![duran duran young duran duran young](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/57/d4/5a57d402fbc9574f6434ec026fc9f580.jpg)
Roger Taylor, who seldom gives interviews, is the most immediately affable and friendly of the band, thanking me for all the nice reviews I've written (I'm frankly blown away that a member of Duran Duran has even noticed my existence), asking about my faint Welsh accent, and chatting tangentially about Cardiff cocktail-funkers Blue Rondo A La Turk before we've even begun. It's as though, when you're one of Duran Duran, you're so stellar that even your dandruff is made of glitter. Throughout our chat, a solitary piece of stray tinsel is glinting in his hair. One on one, the razor-cheekboned bassist - who has been on the 12 Step programme since seeking help for alcoholism and drug addiction in 1994 - is a different, diffident creature, wary and slightly ill at ease, curling his gangly frame defensively into a leather armchair and putting down the portcullis if the conversation takes a turn with which he's uncomfortable (for example, the subject of 'Nigel', his teenage self who he killed off to create the pop persona of 'John', but later resurrected to write a column on his personal website). John Taylor is garrulousness personified onstage, winking and grinning and gurning and sharing off-mic banter with the studio audience. In the break between rehearsal and showtime, I'm led through labyrinthine corridors to meet four sickeningly well-preserved men, their ages dotted around the 50-mark, in their individual dressing rooms, munching on baked potatoes, half-watching the football on a flat-screen monitor, and fending off the door-knocks and demands of their anxious entourage.Īway from the spotlight, Simon Le Bon is thoughtful, more intelligent than Duran's detractors would ever imagine, magnanimous and self-deprecating. Don't let anyone fool you that television is glamorous. Just when the end appears nigh, a shower of glitter-rain having surely presented a continuity obstacle to any more re-records, a team of cleaners appears, unbelievably, to sweep it away with V-shaped mops. Later on, everyone's excitement at being in the presence of rock & roll royalty will slowly simmer down to tedium as classic songs - thrilling at first - are re-recorded several times over a period of four hours, along with fluffed autocued links from Christine Bleakley, while a warm-up guy gamely toils to raise flagging spirits and clap-sore palms. (They ought to release it like that some day.)
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It actually works brilliantly, the champagne-bubble exuberance of Rhodes' synths contrasting with the suavely sotto voce monologue from the main man. On the studio stage, bedecked with LED logos from all eras of the band's career, Le Bon prowls his practiced, alpha-male, lead-singer prowl on a run-through of 'Hungry Like The Wolf', delivering the lyrics in spoken word form to preserve his larynx for the real recording.
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Even now, after countless comebacks and full or partial reunions, they retain something of the regal.
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Between 1981-1985, with their blusher and cheekbones, lush lipgloss and perfect pouts, swaggering shoulderpads and big bouffant hair, freako sci-fi videos and effervescent disco-rock tunes, Duran epitomised the bulletproof battleship confidence of British pop in the first half of the 80s as they effortlessly conquered America and the rest of the earth. There's something about Duran Duran that still reverberates in the folk memory, even for people who weren't around for their Imperial Phase.