{"id":878624,"date":"2026-10-11T13:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T13:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878624\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T13:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T13:58:12","slug":"we-look-like-soft-made-up-blokes-but-were-really-tough-duran-duran-on-80s-excess-tabloid-scrutiny-and-their-halloween-glow-up-duran-duran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878624\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We look like soft, made-up blokes, but we\u2019re really tough\u2019: Duran Duran on 80s excess, tabloid scrutiny and their Halloween glow-up | Duran Duran"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2022, Duran Duran<\/a> were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It felt like a big deal, a sweet moment of acknowledgment for the band\u2019s five-decades-long career, the 100m records sold, the string of bulletproof hits: Save a Prayer, Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf, Girls on Film. They were inducted by actor Robert Downey Jr; Drew Barrymore, Naomi Campbell and Gwen Stefani were on hand to pay heartfelt tribute and, as keyboard player Nick Rhodes points out, \u201cIt\u2019s a big national live TV broadcast in America that goes out to millions of people,\u201d so the band booked some warm-up shows. \u201cAnd it so happened that there was a date that came up in Las Vegas on 31 October,\u201d says Rhodes. \u201cAnd I looked at everyone and said: \u2018Well, we can\u2019t do a normal show. Las Vegas on Halloween \u2013 surely that\u2019s the opportunity for a little bit of fun?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

They worked up a set of suitably themed material, including covers of Billie Eilish\u2019s Bury a Friend and Talking Heads\u2019 Psycho Killer. There were, of course, costumes involved, because, as Rhodes drily notes, \u201cWhen have Duran Duran ever not dressed up?\u201d<\/p>\n

Extraordinary world \u2026 Duran Duran at their Manchester Halloween show last year. Photograph: Shirlaine Forrest\/WireImage<\/p>\n

He has a point, although not even in their new romantic pomp had Duran Duran dressed up like this. Replete with the unexpected sight of the band\u2019s heart-throb-in-chief, bassist John Taylor, \u201cwith silver hair down to my waist, like some kind of Scandinavian orc\u201d, the show proved such a success that Duran Duran\u2019s Halloween gigs have become an annual event \u2013 they performed one at Madison Square Garden in New York in 2024 and at Manchester\u2019s Co-op Live in 2025, while this year\u2019s takes place at the O2 in London \u2013 and spawned an album, 2023\u2019s Danse Macabre. Guitarist Andy Taylor, who left the band in 2007 and announced he was suffering from stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, returned to play on it, while among its covers lurked a version of the Specials\u2019 Ghost Town, an intriguing choice, given that, back in the early 80s, the Specials\u2019 politically engaged social realism was seen as diametrically opposed to Duran Duran\u2019s nakedly ambitious jet-setting glamour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember being in a taxi with John after one of our first rehearsals, talking about stuff,\u201d nods frontman Simon Le Bon. \u201cI\u2019d been in a rock band and a punk band before called Dog Days, and I said: \u2018But John, what about street credibility?\u2019 And John said: \u2018Simon, Duran Duran\u2019s got about as much street credibility as Chanel No 19.\u2019 And, at that point, I thought: \u2018OK, I\u2019ll go with that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markWe survived the cutting of the tall poppies and I think that endeared us to peopleSimon Le Bon<\/p>\n

Along the way, the Halloween shows have got increasingly elaborate (the Manchester gig had pyrotechnics, dancers and fire-eaters), while even Le Bon, who by his own admission is \u201cnot a fan of Halloween \u2013 I think it\u2019s become just a sort of marketing thing\u201d, can\u2019t be faulted for his enthusiasm for the whole venture.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the first one, I was a werewolf, but since then it\u2019s developed. The next one, I was like the ghost of a north Atlantic convoy sea captain. There was a sort of nautical theme which suits me down to the ground.\u201d Readers old enough to remember Duran Duran\u2019s heyday may recall Le Bon\u2019s adventures with his 78ft yacht Drum, which capsized during the 1985 Fastnet race, resulting in the singer being airlifted to safety wearing only his underpants. \u201cAnother time I was a kind of cross between Mad Max and a mummy, but I also had this one scene where I was determined to wear antlers, like a druid god. And last time I was sort of aiming for something but it fell a bit short: I was a jellyfish, but it ended up looking like \u2026 I was going to say something off RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race, but I\u2019d be flattering myself. This time, I want to do something like Shiva the Destroyer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boys on film \u2026 Duran Duran on Top of the Pops in 1981. Photograph: Michael Putland\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

It all points to a certain freedom, a desire to do what you want, regardless of whether it\u2019s considered cool. \u201cThe thing is, I don\u2019t give a fuck what people think about me,\u201d offers Le Bon, now 67 and a grandfather \u2013 or, as he put it on social media, glamfather \u2013 of four. \u201cI\u2019m not talking for the whole band \u2013 I\u2019m sure some of them do care \u2013 but me, I just do what I do, and that\u2019s all it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also suggests a sense of self-deprecating humour that Rhodes thinks might have been overlooked after their 1982 album Rio catapulted them to superstardom, when Duran Duran had fair claim to call themselves the biggest band in the world. In fairness, it wasn\u2019t always easy to spot amid the expensive jet-set videos, supermodel girlfriends and Antony Price suits. \u201cI think it was missed by some people,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we grew up with Monty Python and Fawlty Towers and all of those amazing 70s British TV shows and so, inevitably, that was part of what we were doing. It doesn\u2019t mean we were going to put it into songs \u2013 I guess we weren\u2019t ever going to write The Laughing Gnome \u2013 but at the same time, you know, the videos are filled with humour. Watch A View to a Kill or Rio. It\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking to the band\u2019s four members about their heyday is intriguing. It was, all agree, exactly what they\u2019d wanted in the first place. They loved being on Top of the Pops \u2013 the video for their recent single Free to Love was a hugely affectionate homage to the show \u2013 and clearly relished enjoying themselves in the grandstanding style of the times, palling around New York with Andy Warhol and calling up supermodels\u2019 agents in order to ask their clients to dinner. \u201cBeing single was good fun,\u201d smiles Le Bon, when asked what he misses about that era, before his expression changes. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t say that, should I? Being married has been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pop art \u2026 Nick Rhodes at Andy Warhol\u2019s birthday party in 1985. Photograph: Patrick McMullan\/Paul Bruinooge\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Equally, it\u2019s hard to avoid the sense that the kind of global fame they enjoyed in the 80s \u2013 not to mention the unfailing attentions of their diehard fans, the Durannies \u2013 was a lot to take on. \u201cIt was a mindfuck, actually,\u201d offers drummer Roger Taylor. \u201cI was sitting in my bedroom teaching myself the drums when I was 16; by the time I was 21 we were playing Madison Square Garden. I wasn\u2019t prepared for it in any way. My dad worked in a car factory; my mum worked on the switchboard at a warehouse. I didn\u2019t have any kind of grounding for great success in my life. Five years into it, I thought: \u2018I\u2019m not sure I can live with this level of scrutiny.\u2019 The music press was hounding us, the tabloids were chasing us. It was the first time they really wanted to feature musicians as part of their journalism. The fanbase was 12 to 16 years old and very intense. It was definitely time to step away.\u201d<\/p>\n

He departed Duran Duran and upped sticks to Gloucestershire in 1986. To his delight, the minute he left the band, the fans that had camped outside his house disappeared. \u201cGod bless them, but it was a bit of a relief. The only people that tracked me down were the Sun, who banged at my door at six in the morning, then wrote this feature with the headline \u2018Roger Taylor: The Hermit of Pop\u2019. But it was great not to be bothered and live a quiet, simple life.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 1989, the hits had dried up for Duran Duran. \u201cI felt huge anxiety, like water-running-out-of-the-bathtub sort of anxiety,\u201d says Le Bon, who along with Rhodes is Duran Duran\u2019s only constant member since he joined in 1980. They rolled up their sleeves and toughed it out through the band\u2019s lean years, in the company of American guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, the latter a curious character who at one juncture marketed a sex toy modelled on his own penis, but also co-wrote Ordinary World, the 1993 single that briefly returned Duran Duran to the upper echelons of the global charts and remains their biggest streaming hit today. At one juncture, Le Bon wrote a song called Undergoing Treatment that depicted the band \u201cwatching others in the news\u201d, while finding themselves \u201cresigned to the mid-price section\u201d. Today, he feels like their wilderness years were the band\u2019s making.<\/p>\n

Their own way \u2026 Duran Duran today. Photograph: Stephanie Pistel<\/p>\n

\u201cWe survived the cutting of the tall poppies and I think that endeared us to people, in a way,\u201d he says. \u201cIt proved we\u2019re tough, actually. We might look like a bunch of soft, made-up middle-class blokes, but actually, we\u2019re really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly, you can\u2019t miss a distinct shift in perception of Duran Duran since the original quintet reformed in 2001. The bad reviews that plagued them throughout their imperial phase seem to have been consigned to the past. \u201cI remember coming offstage one night and someone saying: \u2018The sound of the crowd has changed,\u2019\u201d says bassist John Taylor. \u201cIt had dropped an octave from that shrill treble. Clearly, we\u2019d moved on from that audience that Duran Duran used to get, largely female and teenage, which was fine for us, but the kind of audience that gets pooh-poohed. That felt like, \u2018OK, we\u2019re on an even pitch now. We can move forward.\u2019 The guys were done hating us.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you want evidence of national treasure status, well, they have just been featured on a series of Royal Mail stamps. Everyone from Beck to Brandon Flowers of the Killers to emo band Panic! at the Disco has cited them as an influence. Moreover, they never seem to run out of younger artists to collaborate with: Mark Ronson co-produced 2015\u2019s Paper Gods, Blur\u2019s Graham Coxon turned up on its successor, Future Past, and last summer, Le Bon and John Taylor unexpectedly popped up on stage in Hyde Park with Sabrina Carpenter, belting out Hungry Like the Wolf. Le Bon is hugely enthusiastic about having persuaded the Margate-based band Pigeon to support them on tour, although what the Durannies will make of their \u201cno-wave psychedelic punk\u201d remains to be seen. \u201cWe really respect youthful energy. You want to get some of that in the group, some of that in the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

That said, there are aspects of 21st-century music they seem very wary of. Rhodes offers some cautious optimism about AI\u2019s impact on music \u201cif you use it as an artistic tool\u201d, but Le Bon says he recently encountered an AI take on a Duran Duran song, and still seems scarred by the experience: \u201cIt was absolutely abominable! It was a horrible tune \u2013 the vocal was awful. I can\u2019t remember the title but the cover was a girl standing on a yacht, so no cliches there. I do worry that people might just start getting used to it and accepting it in the same way you would accept really bad school dinners, just because you were hungry and it\u2019s food. It\u2019s shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides, as he points out, there\u2019s no need for an AI Duran Duran, given that the real deal is still extant and intends to remain so. \u201cI think being in the band gives me the impetus and energy and motivation to try to keep myself mentally flexible, physically strong. I purposely run up and down stairs because I don\u2019t want to suddenly go, \u2018Oh, I need to move to a bungalow. My knees have gone.\u2019 I can\u2019t change the age I am, but I can act as youthful as I can and I think that makes you last longer. Until I drop dead on stage? Well, it\u2019s not a bad way to go, to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duran Duran\u2019s Halloween show is at the O2, London, 31 October as part of their 2026 UK and Europe tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2022, Duran Duran were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It felt like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-878624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}