{"id":659028,"date":"2026-05-09T22:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T22:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/659028\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T22:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T22:16:16","slug":"we-were-the-biggest-band-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/659028\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We were the biggest band in the world\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The problem, according to Simon Le Bon, was the girls; those young women, the Duranies, who chased Duran Duran around the 1980s. He is not complaining. I am not sure I have ever met a man less prone to moaning. It is just that predominantly female fanbases tended to put off the snooty male critics. \u201cThey thought we were the next Bay City Rollers,\u201d Le Bon says with a sigh. So Duran Duran did not have the respect they deserved? \u201cCertainly not.\u201d He grins and cackles at the memory of the highly regarded Tom Petty scoffing at him in a hotel lobby in Los Angeles. \u201cBut, you know, that\u2019s the price you pay for being hot,\u201d he says, laughing, before stopping abruptly. \u201cYou won\u2019t take that out of context, will you?\u201d he asks, a little nervously.<\/p>\n

Still, Le Bon does have a point. Duran Duran were a whirlpool of fantastic sound and vision who took the theatrics of their hero David Bowie and made it Eighties. They were\u00a0Princess Diana\u2019s favourites. <\/p>\n

The band formed in Birmingham in 1978 and were labelled the Fab Five, posing for the burgeoning MTV as rather, yes, hot young men playing their indelible, funky, rousing synth-pop. For some it was more style than substance, something that Moby calls the \u201cBee Gees curse\u201d \u2014 meaning when an artist is so \u201csuccessful and stylised\u201d that they are not taken seriously. Not that Le Bon is bothered. With songs such as Rio, Girls on Film and Ordinary World, they never disappeared up their own art, instead selling more than 100 million records and scoring 15.6 million monthly Spotify listeners (equal to their rivals Spandau Ballet and Culture Club combined). Despite multiple line-up changes and various fears that it might all come to an end, they are still at it, headlining London\u2019s BST Hyde Park for a second time this summer.<\/p>\n

\"PrincessPrincess Diana and the band at a Prince\u2019s Trust gig in July 1983Pete Skingley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were the biggest band in the world,\u201d says Le Bon, an extremely relaxed 67-year-old frontman, sprawled out on a sofa in a caf\u00e9\u00a0near his London riverside home. He is dressed down in blue jeans and a T-shirt and is cheeky, camp, convivial. \u201cWe were aiming for a meteoric rise to success \u2014 and we got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duran Duran are a four-piece now. Andy Taylor, a key member in the band\u2019s heyday, left long ago, leaving Le Bon (vocals), Nick Rhodes, 63 (keyboards), John Taylor, 65 (bass), and Roger Taylor, 66 (drums). (None of the Taylors are related.) I spend a week following the band as they prepare for an American tour \u2014 expect all the hits \u2014 and the release of their disco-tinged new single, Free to Love, which features their old collaborator Nile Rodgers, who first worked with them on The Reflex in 1984.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Rodgers tees them up well. \u201cDuran Duran took us on a journey,\u201d he says. \u201cBritain and America had depressions. Queues for petrol. Blackouts. But they took us to places that looked beautiful, like Rio. Their world was one we wanted to see. When we met we had the time of our lives. And not just because we were high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le Bon smiles. \u201cWe have long been accused of having our head in the sand, or fiddling while Rome burns,\u201d he says of his group\u2019s long-held default position of fun. \u201cBut there\u2019s a place for a positive attitude and we\u2019ve always, very much, been the band whose glass is half full.\u201d This is why, years ago, Le Bon said Duran Duran were \u201cthe band to dance to when the bomb drops\u201d. They played on through many sinking Titanics, including in Birmingham in 1981 the day after the Handsworth riots. I remind Le Bon of something he said in 1987 about feeling safe while playing Belfast during the Troubles \u2014 \u201cAnybody who blows up groups would be very unpopular indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said that?\u201d he says, grimacing. Sure did, but the very point of his band is to exist outside politics, right? \u201cLook, there\u2019s always bad shit happening,\u201d he reasons. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean good things don\u2019t happen. I do not want everything to be about the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>. We have got to maintain positivity, but there are some artists who feel that they have to remind everyone that it\u2019s shit, and that doing so makes them more credible.\u201d Artists might be naive to think they can effect change, I say, but want to show they care. \u201cAnd that they have agency,\u201d Le Bon adds. \u201cWhich is unrealistic, really, and laughably conceited. There is always politics, but people need a good time. People need to have sex, have babies. Otherwise it\u2019s the end of the human race. And we can be part of that positivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is one Duran Duran song, though, that is explicitly political: The Edge of America, released in 1988 and remastered in 2010, about a country falling apart \u2014 \u201cWhere is your nation now?\u201d \u2014 while vigilantes roam on the streets. It feels rather pertinent. Le Bon nods. \u201cBut the thing about American politics is that America chose the person they want to lead the country, and whether we like him or not, we have to respect that,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s the choice of the American people, and we don\u2019t go out of our way to offend anybody.\u201d (Asked if they would play the song on their imminent tour of the US, Rhodes says: \u201cWe\u2019re doing a big festival. It\u2019s probably not the right vibe.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\"DuranRoger Taylor, John Taylor, Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon of Duran DuranStephanie Pistel at Koko, Camden, asst: Christian Young; Stylist: Rebekah Roy, asst: Melania Peluso; Make-up: Grace Sinnott; Hair: Cristiano Basciu at Richard Ward Hair; Lighting Dir: Luke Johnson; Post prod: Stephan Lesger; Prod: Frankie Production<\/p>\n

Duran Duran formed when the childhood friends John Taylor, whose father worked in a factory, and Rhodes, whose mother ran a toy shop, decided to form a band \u2014 their first gig was in April 1979 at the Birmingham Polytechnic. Soon they were joined by the others, including the Pinner County grammar schoolboy Simon Le Bon. They are named after Dr Durand Durand, a character in the cult sci-fi favourite Barbarella, an otherworldly name to show that pop music could offer an antidote to the doldrums of Britain. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a total retaliation against what we went through in the Seventies,\u201d Roger Taylor says. \u201cGrowing up in Birmingham was pretty grim. The city was in industrial decline \u2014 you would get ready to go to school in candlelight and so glam was a saviour for kids like us.\u201d He means artists such as Bowie and Roxy Music. \u201cThis aspirational scene ran parallel to the grim reality and we were just copying our idols, really.\u201d He remembers sharing a rehearsal space with their fellow Birmingham band UB40 when both groups were on benefits. \u201cBut while they were singing about being on the dole, we were writing Girls on Film.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I meet Rhodes for a glass of chablis in Chelsea. He\u2019s a fantastically attired man, in a sharp black suit and a prominently collared white shirt, his Brummie accent and shock of hair still intact. His main adjective for the city that he grew up in when he was a kid? \u201cGrey. From the colour of the sky, to the buildings, to the looks on people\u2019s faces.\u201d He is a terrific raconteur. The video for Free to Love is a homage to the dearly departed Top of the Pops. \u201cIt was a great leveller,\u201d Rhodes says. \u201cThe best songs could be held off the No 1 spot by Joe Dolce or Lieutenant Pigeon.\u201d I always guessed that the atmosphere on that show was raucous. \u201cWell, the BBC had rules for the audience,\u201d he says, before adding cheekily, \u201cThough I\u2019m not sure the same could be said for their employees\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did he enjoy being famous? \u201cWell, we had to leave Britain for a few years in the mid-Eighties because it was too difficult,\u201d he says. \u201cI would open my window and there would be someone outside with a long lens, and that\u2019s not a fun way to live. But you don\u2019t complain about it, you just deal with it. I simply moved to Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mostly, though, Rhodes just seems proud. Thrilled that in 2019 Duran Duran played at the Kennedy Space Center to mark 50 years since the moon landing. \u201cHow has a band from Birmingham, who were little kids watching this on black-and-white TV, ended up celebrating this moment at Nasa?\u201d he says, beaming. He is also rightly proud of the band\u2019s superb and fame-weary early-1990s double whammy Ordinary World and Come Undone. \u201cTimes had changed and a lot of people wanted to lock the door on the 1980s and leave us on the other side,\u201d Rhodes says. \u201cSo we had to find our way into the 1990s.\u201d He even claims to have \u201cpushed the button on the world\u2019s first download\u201d \u2014 something I have to check later, but lo and behold, he is right; in 1997, Duran Duran became the first major label artist to sell a download.<\/p>\n

But then, the band was always at the forefront of technology. \u201cAnyone who thinks AI will go away is certifiably insane,\u201d Rhodes says. The band even went viral on TikTok with their recent song Invisible when some random user made it a theme for the video game Metal Gear Solid<\/a>. \u201cSo, thanks for that, whoever you are,\u201d Rhodes says, smiling. \u201cNothing to do with us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"CollageOn the cover of Smash Hits magazine in October 1981<\/p>\n

More in their control were the exuberant pop videos that took them global \u2014 with their self-titled debut album released in 1981, the same year MTV started, and Duran Duran\u2019s manager meeting the boss of the channel before the launch in an attempt to capitalise on the new era. The Wild Boys riffed on Mad Max. Rio was on the high seas. Girls on Film? A romp, a sexual fantasy \u2014 if you\u2019re into riding men like horses. <\/p>\n

Has the latter video been discussed with the kids? The band have nine children between them. \u201cOf course it comes up,\u201d Rhodes says, laughing. \u201cIt\u2019s very kitsch and of the period, but with what we\u2019ve seen in hip-hop videos since, it\u2019s pretty harmless. Yet would we make it now? Of course not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was everybody in the band on board with these videos? \u201cSimon was in his element,\u201d Rhodes says. \u201cHe\u2019d been to drama school, so if there was any acting he was there with his union card. I didn\u2019t love the boat, but, then, it wasn\u2019t difficult. Really, all a director said to us was, \u2018OK, look like you\u2019re looking for something\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

John Taylor is at home in Wiltshire, in a black and yellow tracksuit, full of life, his face locked in a permanent smile. \u201cWe always had this thing about jeans,\u201d he says, pondering Duran Duran\u2019s image. \u201cYou just can\u2019t go on stage in jeans.\u201d He says that the band\u2019s style, spread by MTV, was as crucial as their music. \u201cPeople were able to identify with us, right?\u201d he says. \u201cLonely, alienated people, sitting at home thinking that they don\u2019t relate to anyone. Then some weird f***ing videos came on this music channel and they see themselves in us.\u201d He stops. \u201cHonestly, Jonathan, so many kids have said to me, \u2018I was at home in Akron, Ohio, and MTV made me want to be a hairdresser. So I moved to New York!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Image in pop, though, is a funny old business. Duran Duran\u2019s lavishness was seen as fluffy and contrived, while any artist who goes minimal and wears a T-shirt and dull trousers is seen as authentic. Surely, though, whatever a pop star wears is very much thought through? \u201cExactly,\u201d Taylor says, exasperated. \u201cThink about Born in the USA<\/a>. Bruce has the jeans, trucker cap; it\u2019s one of the most contrived covers around.\u201d He smiles. \u201cBut, then, I just love clobber, you know? I love clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor left the band in 1997, feeling wiped out, before rejoining in 2001, having needed time away playing small venues and even busking to realise he missed his friends. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure I was a fan of Duran Duran any more,\u201d he says. Indeed, every member apart from Le Bon and Rhodes has jumped ship at some point, although the present line-up has been stable for two decades. \u201cIt\u2019s like a marriage, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Taylor says. \u201cEven the best, long-lasting marriages go through periods where you go, \u2018Is this it?\u2019 And then you have to find something new about your partner, so that you want to be with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the band began, 48 years ago, was there an expectation of longevity? \u201cNo!\u201d Taylor says. \u201cBack then, even with the Rolling Stones and the Who, there was a sense that it was just a matter of time. \u2018Surely it\u2019s not long until they retire? This has to be the farewell tour?\u2019 But, I think, we have all come to value longevity in a way that we did not [before]. I became a musician in the punk era. It was very much, \u2018Out with the old.\u2019 And when we got to the end of the Eighties Duran Duran felt pass\u00e9. But then you reach a point where you go through a cupboard \u2014 a bit like into Narnia \u2014 and your music just becomes timeless. It just does.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughs. \u201cAnd as I always say, \u2018Stay alive and anything\u2019s possible.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SimonSimon Le Bon with Yasmin, his then future wife, in 1984Steve Blogg<\/p>\n

Le Bon has been married to his wife, Yasmin, n\u00e9e Parvaneh, a model, since 1985. The couple have three daughters, Amber, Saffron and Tallulah. Was fame always fun? \u201cAbsolutely,\u201d Le Bon says, bullishly. \u201cWouldn\u2019t change a thing.\u201d But surely it is harder with a family and children who have to live with a fame that\u2019s not their own? \u201cYes, there is that,\u201d he adds, more subdued. \u201cAnd Yas and I are very lucky our girls haven\u2019t been self-destructive, like so many children of famous people are. They\u2019re just getting on with their lives and are in their thirties now \u2014 two of them are parents themselves, which is amazing. But the worst thing about the job was not the fame, but that it was so travel-intensive, so it took me away when the children were young. When I look back at that, it does make me sad.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were flown about the world,\u201d he continues, \u201cbut also worked so hard, to exhaustion. The first half of the Eighties were just all up and then we hit issues around 1985. The innocence had gone. Reality caught up.\u201d In what way? \u201cA whole load of negative stuff. Our popularity waned and we were hanging on for dear life. But still, even when tired, you had to get yourself up the next day, so some resorted to drugs, which nearly killed somebody in the band.\u201d (John Taylor and Andy Taylor were the heaviest users.) Was their cover of White Lines (Don\u2019t Do It) like a note to self? \u201cIt was originally,\u201d Le Bon says, laughing. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think anyone needs the exact message now. The danger, though, is just the overwork. And then whatever you use to help, whether drugs or alcohol, turns out to be the thing that kills you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I put a theory I have about the 1980s to Le Bon: how that decade of mass MTV exposure led to more superstar casualties than from the 1960s and 1970s, how the new visual media gave artists such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince and George Michael less of a chance to escape. \u201cThere have always been casualties,\u201d Le Bon says. \u201cHeroin was the big killer. But I do think that the arrival of different psychoactive substances had an effect. When, for a while, cocaine was replaced by ecstasy for instance, that changed the survival rate for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I ask Rhodes if drugs ever help creativity, he says: \u201cIt\u2019s arguable, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s hard to think of a great debut album made by someone who was not taking any drugs at all. The only one I can come up with is Abba.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le Bon and I end up chatting way over our arranged time \u2014 he is in his element, anecdote-heavy, frequently giggling over his extraordinary world. I ask if their music has ever been used in ways they did not approve? \u201cThere is always pressure on us to let Burger King use Hungry Like the Wolf,\u201d he says. \u201cBut Nick, a committed vegetarian, won\u2019t have it at all.\u201d <\/p>\n

We talk about Duran Duran\u2019s masterful James Bond song, A View to a Kill, which he starts singing to me to prove that John Barry, one of the co-writers, was wrong about a particular chord change. \u201cBecause it only resolves at the end of the song!\u201d he says, thrilled. A decade ago, Duran Duran suggested Kanye West could do a Bond theme. \u201cKanye, I really despair for him,\u201d Le Bon says now. \u201cMarketing swastika T-shirts is such a stupid thing to do \u2014 though it wasn\u2019t in 1976, when Vivienne Westwood was doing it\u2026\u201d He is a music connoisseur, namechecking Angine De Poitrine, Thundercat and Young Fathers \u2014 his choice for a new 007 song today \u2014 as favourites, adding that hearing She Loves You by the Beatles on the radio in 1963 \u201cblew my f***ing mind; it changed my life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Where next, then? An Abba-style hologram show? \u201cI\u2019d love to do one,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019d also like to do the Sphere in Las Vegas.\u201d What about Glastonbury \u2014 they have never played the festival. \u201cWell, we want to \u2014 but not in a disco tent at 3pm, which is what we were offered.\u201d He scoffs. \u201cWe want the right slot.\u201d Which would be? \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be below anybody on the bill,\u201d he says, hinting that you can take the band out of the Eighties, but you cannot take the Eighties out of the band. \u201cSo, we\u2019ll hold out because we\u2019re a headline act \u2014 that\u2019s all there is to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Free to Love is out now. Duran Duran headline BST Hyde Park on Jul 5 <\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favourite song by Duran Duran? Let us know in the comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The problem, according to Simon Le Bon, was the girls; those young women, the Duranies, who chased Duran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-659028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}