But we also loved the Clash, the Pistols, the Damned-and then goth: Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Cure. I mean, we all liked glam rock and Bowie and Roxy and T Rex and Sparks. And, unusually for the time, we liked quite a few different things from different genres. NICK: We also had the benefit of having lived through the 1970s musically, which was the most adventurous, crazy decade, with all these different genres. The whole glam thing became a part of the scene, and Kraftwerk became a big part of the scene as well-and all of that filtered through the new things that people were doing. ROGER: We also started looking back a little bit as well, to Bowie and Roxy Music. And I turned up, famously, in pink leopard-skin pants.
And as teenagers, after six months of that we were ready for the next thing, y’know? There was a collective consciousness: There were shops in Birmingham like the Oasis where suddenly color had come back into fashion. But then something happened between us and punk: It went into a slightly more austere kind of style where everybody wore black, and the album covers were monochrome. SIMON: Punk affected our musical style, our way of dressing it affected me lyrically massively-the single biggest lyrical influence on me was Patti Smith. I think I get how punk changed your lives-but how did you get from the Pistols to what became your musical signature, which was somewhat exotic, beautiful, escapist pop? OK, before we turn this into a MasterClass of early liturgical music, let’s get back to where we were with punk. So I started playing on pots and pans and piles of books and found I had an aptitude for it.
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And when I was fishing around for something that I could do, I saw Dave Brubeck playing on TV and I saw his drummer, who was amazing, and I thought That’s what I want to do. He always had this dream that he could be something outside of his day job. I got into music quite young-my dad worked in a factory, but he dabbled at playing instruments: He played classical guitar, and he was in a harmonica band. ROGER: When I heard “Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols, it opened up an entire other world of possibility.
And punk rock was like You don’t need to play! You just need to be the right age.
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JOHN: Punk was the key, though, because none of us really knew how to play. We wanted to get out of Birmingham-we wanted to see New York and travel the world we were curious. When I saw Bowie on Top of the Pops for the first time, it was a revelation: Coming from the grey and the factories and the unemployment of Birmingham and the IRA and terrorism-that was the backdrop of England in the 70s-you had to dream outside of that. NICK: For me and for many musicians of our generation, it was David Bowie, without a doubt. If you’re familiar with the band-I mean, at this point, could one not be?-the new record makes sense as a Duran Duran album (it’s their 15th), but it also makes sense as a 2021 album without having to try to hard.Įarlier this summer, I sat down in a private room at Manhattan’s Neue House with the four pop principals of the band-lead singer Simon Le Bon (in jeans, an agitprop t-shirt, and Chuck Taylors), keyboardist Nick Rhodes (in an impeccably appointed powder-blue peaked-lapel summer suit), bassist John Taylor (wearing the sort of wide-lapeled screaming-green jacket that would stop traffic on the streets outside), and drummer Roger Taylor (the only normcore-ish one of the bunch, in white tee, camo jacket, jeans, and black sneakers)-for a wide-ranging chat about everything from their art-school origins to their uber-80s screaming stardom to their almost shocking (for pop stars) ability to actually enjoy one another’s company. Duran Duran’s newest album, Future Past-just out-is that rare thing: a new album from a legendary band that manages to thread an impossible needle.
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