Post by ©DURANMANIA Board Team on Mar 4, 2005 0:34:59 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Duran Duran recovers from the '80s[/glow]
Kerry Gold/ Vancouver Sun/Thursday, March 03, 2005
If any band encapsulated the '80s, it was Duran Duran -- the pretty boys with the poofy hair, the makeup and songs glisteningly upbeat as baubles about girls on film, wild boys, hungry wolves and Rio.
Between 1982 and 1985, the Birmingham boys were superstar teen idols who'd emerged from the British new romantic underground. Since their debut they sold 70 million records, becoming one of the biggest bands in the pop world.
Singer Simon LeBon and keyboardist Nick Rhodes were the band's highest-profile members, but talented bass player John Taylor was the male model of the bunch. Still is, it turns out, because the band's biggest party boy turned his life around and became the picture of clean living.
"I had to take myself right to the edge, but now I'm the farthest from the edge," he says of his self-preservation.
Duran Duran (from left: Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor) are at GM Place on March 4./2005
In 2001, the original lineup returned to the studio for the first time since 1983, with a new record released last year, Astronaut. They've set out on a 12-week North American tour that brings them to GM Place Friday night.
The hair is as intact as the ability to conjure a funky electro-pop sound, and it's an even better sound, because Duran Duran are finally being taken seriously, and judging from contemporary hard-hitting, dance-floor productions like Astronaut and Want You More, they're taking the job a lot more seriously too. If the critics were harsh back in the day, they'll be softening considerably.
In their 40s with 12 children among them and 25 years of both glorious fame and the bruising of has-been status behind them, Duran Duran is grateful they've got the chance again. Judging from recent shows, their audience may be in its 30s, but they're acting like giggly schoolkids to see the band playing old and new material.
"When we first got [back] together we were going to get the biggest deal, we thought it was going to happen like that and it didn't," says Taylor, sounding amused at their naivete.
"Every day there was an awakening. The first guy that we took on to manage us said, 'Listen, I think the most we can get is probably $2 million advance for the album.'
"Well, we'd just read that Robbie Williams got $40 million, so we fired him," he says, laughing.
"Two years later, we were like, "$1 million will do!"
Having signed a four-album deal with Sony, the band is still cautious this time around. Duran Duran has to prove itself, and as Taylor says: "It's all contingent on results."
Duran Duran may have been off the radar for a while, but it's not like the band has come out of retirement. The band members have mostly stayed working since the halcyon days of new wave. They haven't always worked together, but they've had solo and side projects to see them through.
But nothing ever so good as those early days, when even Diana, Princess of Wales, was gushing over her love of the band. For his part, it's not a moment that Taylor savours.
"My father has that picture on his wall," he says dryly.
Rhodes, Taylor and friends Simon Colley and Stephen Duffy formed the band in 1978, playing the Birmingham bar circuit. Duffy and Colley left within a year, and drummer Roger Taylor joined. Eventually, the band settled on guitarist Andy Taylor and former punk rocker and drama student LeBon as the singer, in 1980. By the end of that year, they were hugely popular in England at the forefront of the new romantics movement. A string of hits followed, including Girls on Film, Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf, Save a Prayer.
Kerry Gold/ Vancouver Sun/Thursday, March 03, 2005
If any band encapsulated the '80s, it was Duran Duran -- the pretty boys with the poofy hair, the makeup and songs glisteningly upbeat as baubles about girls on film, wild boys, hungry wolves and Rio.
Between 1982 and 1985, the Birmingham boys were superstar teen idols who'd emerged from the British new romantic underground. Since their debut they sold 70 million records, becoming one of the biggest bands in the pop world.
Singer Simon LeBon and keyboardist Nick Rhodes were the band's highest-profile members, but talented bass player John Taylor was the male model of the bunch. Still is, it turns out, because the band's biggest party boy turned his life around and became the picture of clean living.
"I had to take myself right to the edge, but now I'm the farthest from the edge," he says of his self-preservation.
Duran Duran (from left: Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor) are at GM Place on March 4./2005
In 2001, the original lineup returned to the studio for the first time since 1983, with a new record released last year, Astronaut. They've set out on a 12-week North American tour that brings them to GM Place Friday night.
The hair is as intact as the ability to conjure a funky electro-pop sound, and it's an even better sound, because Duran Duran are finally being taken seriously, and judging from contemporary hard-hitting, dance-floor productions like Astronaut and Want You More, they're taking the job a lot more seriously too. If the critics were harsh back in the day, they'll be softening considerably.
In their 40s with 12 children among them and 25 years of both glorious fame and the bruising of has-been status behind them, Duran Duran is grateful they've got the chance again. Judging from recent shows, their audience may be in its 30s, but they're acting like giggly schoolkids to see the band playing old and new material.
"When we first got [back] together we were going to get the biggest deal, we thought it was going to happen like that and it didn't," says Taylor, sounding amused at their naivete.
"Every day there was an awakening. The first guy that we took on to manage us said, 'Listen, I think the most we can get is probably $2 million advance for the album.'
"Well, we'd just read that Robbie Williams got $40 million, so we fired him," he says, laughing.
"Two years later, we were like, "$1 million will do!"
Having signed a four-album deal with Sony, the band is still cautious this time around. Duran Duran has to prove itself, and as Taylor says: "It's all contingent on results."
Duran Duran may have been off the radar for a while, but it's not like the band has come out of retirement. The band members have mostly stayed working since the halcyon days of new wave. They haven't always worked together, but they've had solo and side projects to see them through.
But nothing ever so good as those early days, when even Diana, Princess of Wales, was gushing over her love of the band. For his part, it's not a moment that Taylor savours.
"My father has that picture on his wall," he says dryly.
Rhodes, Taylor and friends Simon Colley and Stephen Duffy formed the band in 1978, playing the Birmingham bar circuit. Duffy and Colley left within a year, and drummer Roger Taylor joined. Eventually, the band settled on guitarist Andy Taylor and former punk rocker and drama student LeBon as the singer, in 1980. By the end of that year, they were hugely popular in England at the forefront of the new romantics movement. A string of hits followed, including Girls on Film, Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf, Save a Prayer.