Flashback: November 1982
Duran Duran release the single 'Rio' and shoot a video for it on a sail boat in Antigua - while the recession continues to bite back home. Keyboard player Nick Rhodes reminisces

Nick Rhodes:

We were on holiday in Antigua, staying next to each other, like the Monkees. We were rung up and told, 'Stay there, we're bringing a film crew.' I only like boats when they're tied up, and you can have a cocktail without spilling it. We were initially going to shoot the video for 'Rio' indoors and we'd had Antony Price make these beautiful suits for us. I remember thinking: 'Oh my God, that sea water, it's going to ruin all this silk.'

With a sail boat, you're off into the distance and it takes a while to turn round. I was glad to get off. Simon Le Bon loved it, climbing as far as he possibly could along the prow. He always had an action man side.

John Taylor threw Andy Taylor off the side - a bit of a premonition, that, because Andy would leave the band in 1985 - and there was a real moment of horror later when the director Russell Mulcahy was filming with Reema, the girl in the video, and a gust of wind shattered a giant mirror next to her. She only had a couple of scratches.

We were just a bunch of guys from post-industrial Birmingham. Of course we noticed the recession. You couldn't ignore the political climate at the time. When we played the Birmingham Odeon in either 1981 or '82 there were riots on New Street. But I was 19 when the Rio album came out. You're trying to make something good for yourself. Of course you're aware of other things, but the party was definitely more on everybody's mind.

• Classic Albums: Rio is out on DVD on Eagle

Courtesy Guardian UK