![]() ![]() There was a huge difference between being into Roxy Music in 1975 and being into Roxy Music in 1980. You know how quickly things change when you’re a teenager. For me those records were Avalon and Grace Jones’s Island Life and Nightclubbing, which I could never let go of and still haven’t. It was just one of the records that was constantly on. But, well, when Avalon came out … yeah, that was a massive influence. He kind of sang like this, Lala la la dada da.I only realized later how influenced he was by Bob Dylan and his singing style, which is almost like the recitative style. Although I was a big fan, but very much more of their ’74 and ’75 kind of sound. They were much more an influence on John and Nick than on me. Can you tell me more about how they helped shape your musical sensibility? If I can nerd out about one of your influences for a moment, one of my favorite parts from the 2019 Rock Hall ceremony was when you and John inducted Roxy Music and praised their “pulp science-fiction” sound. ” That ends up with you just listening to the music you’re working on, and listening to the music that got you into a band in the first place. ” And I realized that it started with me coming out of the studio, getting into a taxi and saying to the driver, “Turn the radio off, I’d rather not have any music on. She said, “You call yourself a musician, you don’t listen to any new music. My daughter suggested that I start listening to music again. I’ve immersed myself very much in new music over the last year when lockdown happened. Or quantum mechanics.īut to your initial point, we’ve been working on new stuff, which tends to make you want to not look back too much. Well, I thank God I picked a simple and easy job, like writing songs, because I probably wouldn’t have enough brain cells for physics. Or is it everything except for your brain? That just dies off little bit by little bit. You kind of wonder, Am I the same person who did all that? Well, physically, probably not. We’ve done a lot, and sometimes it seems like such a long time ago. I relate to them.ĭuran Duran has plenty of beautiful words, too, you know. And also, “Look what the cat dragged in, he’s got the same dress, but the color’s gone, that I once gave my true love on.” Oh, beautiful words. He sings, “Don’t call me Highness because it’s a long way down.” I love that song. ![]() He had a song from the early ’90s called “Long Way Down.” With a wonderful video made by the Brothers Quay. Would it help you open up if I gave you some compliments? I tend to want somebody else to do all that stuff and then tell me how great I am. I kind of shied away from it, to be honest with you.īecause there’s so much more there’s so much stuff to do now. What’s been your biggest revelation revisiting the album all these years later? I’ve been listening to Duran Duran frequently over the past month when I realized it hit the 40-year mark. ![]() “This was very nice,” he tells me at the end. Our chat turned out to be equal parts thoughtful of the past and future, with the singer-songwriter offering a warm cocktail of memories that often made him pause mid-sentence and smile. ![]() All it takes is a little coaxing and encouragement to get him to humor me and look at his band’s history. Within minutes of meeting Le Bon earlier this month in Manhattan - a pleasant surprise, given variant this and variant that - he admits he doesn’t tend to have a “retrospective mind,” the recent 40th anniversary of Duran Duran, an objectively excellent debut, be damned. Fifteen albums and one less Taylor later, Duran Duran is returning on October 22 with their newest album FUTURE PAST, led by the mischievous “ INVISIBLE,” complete with a music video created by an artificial-intelligence artist, and “ MORE JOY.” It’s a testament to decades of thinking like clever auteurs. But unlike most of their peers, these New Romantics never stopped making us dance. Along with John Taylor, Nick Rhodes, Roger Taylor, and Andy Taylor, Le Bon, front and center, was one part of the classic-era quintet that grew to define the MTV generation from “Girls on Film” to “Rio” to “The Reflex,” their roaring synths were inescapable just as much as their polished music videos were on loop. Simon Le Bon is one of New Wave’s beautifully coiffed magic men, serving as the erotic bard of sorts throughout Duran Duran’s celestial ascent in the ’80s, beaming down into Tiger Beat by way of the cosmos, if you will. I tend to want somebody else to do all that stuff and then tell me how great I am.” ![]()
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