Steve Malins - Duran Duran: Wild Boys

For Isobel

G iven the excitement and pace of Duran Durans story, which accelerates from early 1970s Birmingham glam-rock to a triumphant comeback in the 21st Century with barely a pause for breath, it is astonishing that this is the first in-depth biography on the band. They are paradoxically one of the most underrated pop bands of all time, yet also one of the most written about a reflection of and comment on the celebrity rocknroll lifestyle that weve become so obsessed with. It is, after all, a modern fairytale where Simon Le Bon chooses his future wife from a model agency portfolio, John Taylor lives out his James Bond fantasies by dating an Octopussy girl and driving a classic Aston Martin, and Nick Rhodes meets his cult heroes, including Andy Warhol and Federico Fellini (He didnt disappoint).

There are sky-scraping highs, in particular the bands 1984 debut show at New Yorks Madison Square Garden, plus the artistic and commercial zeniths of the lilting Save A Prayer (a number-two hit in the UK and sixteen in America) and Ordinary World a decade later. I also describe the flipside, such as the dark, rainy mornings on the M1 as the band drove up to London in a Citroen estate to record their debut album or drummer Roger Taylor suffering heart palpitations every time the phone rang in the months leading up to his decision to quit. At the start of the new century, John Taylors solo career was crash-diving: one night in Florida he ended up playing in front of twenty people; Andy Taylor hadnt recorded an album in years and Roger Taylor found himself experimenting with dance music just as everyone else was trading in their turntables for real instruments. At almost the same moment, Duran were dropped by the Disney-owned Hollywood Records, witheringly described by Nick Rhodes recently in an interview with Rolling Stone: Never was there a place that felt less like a record company: seven giant dwarves hold up the building. Youre listening to these people and finally I had to say, How funny that your corporate logo is a large pair of ears, yet none of you in here happens to have any.

Although Duran Duran are a pop band (Le Bon: Were not afraid of being sold a bit, were not afraid of being prostitutes), the character of their music is rooted in bizarre, extreme twists. Their songs are fuelled by a love of films, fashion, electronics, glam, hedonism, punk, funk and art that is light years away from the modern definition of pop as a stage-school, characterless pursuit. Duran Durans inspiration ranges from Simon Le Bon being stuck out in a desert in Israel in 1978 listening to Patti Smiths Horses album over and over to the arrival of eccentric Brooklyn guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, a man who used to perform so regularly in drag with his mentor Frank Zappa that he was nicknamed Sophia Warren.

Now in 2005, their beautiful wives from the 1980s have maintained their looks and raised families or, in the case of John Taylors ex-fiance Rene Simonsen, left him to take a diploma in psychology, and the band themselves have kept all of their hair. In fact, always aware of their image, the first thing Duran Duran did when they met up again in 2001 to discuss the reunion was to take a Polaroid of themselves together. Le Bon: We stand for the fans youth and if you start to look a little ropey, theyre going to start feeling ropey themselves. In Nick Rhodes, they also possess one of the most cartoonishly uncompromising figures in pop music, a man who unlike Kiss has never taken off his makeup. This recently prompted the Anti-Christ superstar Marilyn Manson to comment approvingly, Duran Duran confused a lot of boys into thinking they were gay, although the forty-three-year-olds teenage daughter Tatjana feels very differently and shrivels in embarrassment at the sight of her fathers kohl. When my daughter sees me putting on eyeliner, shell say, Oh Dad, laughed Rhodes in 2004. So speaks the middle-aged man whose face was recently immortalised by a line of T-shirts sold in Topman with the caption still a fashion legend.

It is Duran Durans durability that is so fascinating, proving that disposable pop often lasts longer than music that is self-consciously designed to be timeless. Recently theyve been name-checked as an influence by The Killers, Dandy Warhols, Gwen Stefani, The Bravery, Scissor Sisters and The Faint, although in truth even during their darkest moments in the 1990s they had fans who included Smashing Pumpkins, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Hole and Puff Daddy. And who knows what was going through Kurt Cobains mind in 1993 when Nirvana played a version of Rio at a concert in Brazil? While many artists have struggled to convert re-discovered interest into a fully fledged, revitalised career, Duran Duran are now operating at a level thats as high as their 1980s peak, at least in terms of their live shows. Back in 1997, Nick Rhodes declared history will be very kind to us, but surely even he didnt expect their reinvention to include sold-out arenas and awards from MTV, Q Magazine and the Brits. They played to 250,000 people on their 2004 UK tour and in spring 2005 they grossed between $700,000 and $800,000 a night during their forty-venue tour in North America.

I hope this book captures some of the bullet-train speed of Duran Durans moment-to-moment existence and gives some insights into the characters themselves. Ive conducted over fifty interviews in the last few months, as well as setting out to uncover every feature written about the band in the last twenty-five years. Although Im sure I didnt achieve that, I did have access to some prime sources, especially Smash Hits and Sounds in the UK. I owe a debt to all the other writers and journalists who have interviewed Duran Duran, in addition to various books and articles on related subjects.

Most of all thanks to Duran Duran, who are becoming an iconic act in a way that few would have dreamed possible twenty-five years ago. Their tale is all the more engaging because it begins in Hollywood, Birmingham, not California and its refreshing that even the bands ber-fop Rhodes sometimes shows the Brummie within. His arty veneer dropped when he told one journalist about a proper disgusting porn video he used to own as a fourteen-year-old. Apparently now its in Wolverhampton, he said dreamily. Meanwhile, LA resident John Taylor recently confessed that he often finds himself reminiscing about the beautiful countryside around Redditch.

Steve Malins, London

John Taylor: We wouldnt buy records by ugly groups.

Andy Warhol: Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called art or whatever its called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.

John Taylor: I think we know more about music than people who write about it we were filling in the NME crossword when we were eleven.

Nick Rhodes: I saw the Pistols a few times and Ive never witnessed a band with energy like that ever.

John Taylor: When we were starting, Nick and I actually envisaged what stage we should be at each year, worldwide. It wasnt just sitting and dreaming, it was Hammersmith in 82, Wembley by 83, Madison Square Garden by 84

N igel John Taylor was born on 20 June 1960 at Sorrento Hospital, Birmingham and grew up in Hollywood, south Birmingham. Seven miles from the city centre, in the 1970s it was an area surrounded by beautiful countryside and a rural, slow-paced atmosphere that was culturally light-years away from Birminghams high-rise flats, Bull Ring shopping-mall nightmare and the ring-road horror of the infamous Spaghetti Junction. Taylor lived on a 1960s housing estate built for baby boomers, many of whom worked at the local car plants such as British Leyland and Lucas. According to his childhood friend, David Twist, Every house had a young family in it. Hollywood was a nice area just outside the Birmingham boundary but it was by no means posh. Johns dad Jack worked at Lucas cars and his mum, my Auntie Jean, was a dinner lady. My mum and Jean were in the next beds in the maternity wards having John and me, so everyone knew each other very well. Known as Nigel by everyone until his late teens, from a young age this only child was strangely drawn towards his grandmothers out-of-tune piano and if he wasnt imitating a concert pianist on the breakfast table, he was doing an impression of a drummer in the back seat of the family car. The Beatles also formed a significant part of his early memories. Taylor was fascinated by the flickering, black-and-white images of the Fab Four on television, arriving at airports, giving concerts, everywhere they went pandemonium, screaming girls throwing themselves at them, it sure looked fun. I dont know if I ever set out to mirror that experience but what appealed to me was the brotherhood of the Beatles. They were never alone, always together, like a gang of princes.