'For those more narrow-minded people, they missed a lot about Duran Duran'
“We had to really fucking work hard to stay in the game.” Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo by Randy Bachman/Getty Images Wider, baby, smile. You’re finally getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Best song Rhodes: That’s always a difficult question. I could say “Ordinary World” because, musically, the atmosphere of the song and the melodies match the lyrics perfectly. It’s a song of hope that seems to touch a nerve and means different things to different people. It’s a complete success as a song for us. But also “Planet Earth,” our first single, was a big success, because it meant that we’d actually written a song together and it became a hit.
Rhodes: Absolutely. Inventiveness is at the core of what we try to do. Sometimes as a musician, you hit the jackpot. Other times, you’re trying to find your way toward it. But with us, we’re excited by things that sound more unusual and unique. I feel blessed, because I have the best rhythm section in the world, so I try to live up to my bit, which is to provide a different direction that excites every band member. That’s where the challenge is. That’s what keeps it fresh and exciting.
Taylor: The songs that I’m not satisfied with I don’t even think about. They’re persona non grata in my life. They don’t hang around me going, “You could have done me so much better.” It may sound pretentious, but I understand why we did everything we did. You can only use the tools you’ve got at the time — both intellectually and emotionally. For the most part, Nick and I are very sincere in our endeavors. We never dial it in. That’s not what this band is about.
Taylor: I would say Future Past, because it’s defiant. In the last ten years, we’ve tried a few different outfits on. We worked with Timbaland, and we worked with Justin Timberlake. But I feel that Future Past is the most true to our original ethos. It’s a very romantic album in the same way as the first few albums. It has the same spirit of experimentation. It’s funky. We rarely set out with any kind of master plan.
Taylor: The word that comes to mind is ambiguity. In the early years, the songs on the first three albums in particular with their lyrics and titles — “Union of the Snake,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” and “The Reflex” — were easy to interpret in an impressionistic way. It wasn’t easy, but it was possible to make great adventures out of them, to explore sexuality, geography, and all sorts of things that are going on in so many of those videos. By the third album, it was like the die was cast.
We managed to do Rio by scrambling quickly to get the album finished, because the first one had been quite successful and we wanted to capitalize on some of the momentum. Fortunately, we’d written half the songs already before we went into the studio. That’s why we never suffered from second-album syndrome. A lot of bands panic after they become a hit. Now what do we do? How are we going to follow it? What are we going to write? They freeze. We didn’t.
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