The Duran aesthetic was influenced by that. We'd been to Studio 54 and heard how dance music was changing. Paul Berrow (Rum Runner owner and Duran Duran's first manager): My brother and I were importing all the new Giorgio Moroder-style records from New York.
But they had a hell of a lot of ambition. He turns up for the audition wearing pink leopard-skin pants, pointy boots, a suede jacket and sunglasses.Īndy Taylor (guitarist): My initial reaction was how out of touch I was dress-sense wise, but how shit they were at playing. Meanwhile, Simon Le Bon, a first year drama student at Birmingham University, is recommended by his girlfriend, Fiona Kemp, a waitress at the Rum Runner. Finally, Andy Taylor answers an ad for a guitarist and travels down from his hometown, Newcastle. They also have a chorus remnant that features the refrain 'Girls on film!' The two Taylors and Rhodes form the core. Among their first songs is 'See Me, Repeat Me', which later becomes 'Rio'. Peter and Michael Berrow, the owners of Birmingham's Rum Runner club, give them use of an upstairs room to practise. (Duffy later forms the Lilac Time and also has a solo hit, 'Kiss Me', as Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy.) Drummer Roger Taylor (none of the Taylors is related) joins and John takes up bass. I didn't think you said that sort of thing.ĭuffy decides to leave the group, thinking they're too commercial. I hated the bitch, but in that sort of climate of misery and repression, people expressed themselves in an underground way.ĭuffy: Nick wanted to be successful and famous, whatever it took - he said that once, and I didn't think I'd heard him right. It was the same with Margaret Thatcher in Britain. I said: 'Don't worry, Nick, in six months' time all men will look like this.' I was wrong - in six months only he looked like that.īoy George (singer, Culture Club): I think it was Marilyn Manson who said Bush being elected was a bad day for humanity but a great day for art.
It was rhythm units, synthesizers, two bass players, John on guitar, and a clarinet and vocals.ĭuffy: We used to wear strange old clothes from charity shops, quite nice 1950s fitted jackets.
Nick Rhodes (keyboards): We were very much an art-school band. We had songs called things like 'Hold Me, Pose Me', which was what it said on the side of a doll box. Nick got his synthesiser out and John played the guitar. Above the shop was this storeroom with lots of dolls and things. I passed the audition, so then we got together over Nick's father's shop - Bates's Toy Corner. We got together in Nigel's parents' house in Birmingham. Stephen Duffy (original singer): I met John, who was then Nigel, at art school.
Duran duran drums movie#
However, when John Taylor sees the 1968 psychedelic sci-fi movie Barbarella, he suggests the band name itself after Milo O'Shea's character, Duran Duran. Together with friends Stephen Duffy and Simon Colley, they form a band briefly known as RAF. Taylor begins using his middle name, John, and then persuades Bates to adopt the last name Rhodes. They discuss starting a band and decide a makeover is immediately necessary. 'I see this as part two,' warns lead singer Simon Le Bon.īirmingham, 1978: Nigel Taylor and Nick Bates are school friends drinking at the Hole in the Wall pub. 'But first,' guitarist Andy Taylor points out, 'we had to see if we could sit around a table without vomiting on one another.' After a box set of singles and a recent, frenzied British date, a new album and a reunion tour will follow. Now, amid an insatiable nostalgia for all things Eighties, Duran Duran's original line-up has re-formed for the first time since saying 'Cheerio' to one another backstage at Live Aid in 1985. After that, it was as if they couldn't hear the director screaming 'Cut!': They ordered supermodels over the phone, played Live Aid, formed rival bands, made Princess Di even more doe-eyed, went crazy, raised chickens, bought a Picasso on credit, recorded Grandmaster Flash's 'White Lines' with a straight face and fell to pieces. Duran Duran obliged by stuffing their videos with chicks, beaches, cocktails and yachts. By the time 'Hungry Like the Wolf' became a global hit in 1983, they were the right boys in the right shade of rouge at the right time: MTV was just starting, asserting the primacy of 'look' over technique.
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