This is a good time for Duran Duran. How do you feel?
So good, so positive. Mark did a great job on the album and the fans responded right away when we put it on iTunes just before Christmas. It created a bit of a fuss. That started the ball rolling.
What has changed since the 1980s?
Well, really the only place we can get airplay is Radio 2. It didn’t play Girl Panic! but hopefully it will play Leave A Light On.
Is it true Take That asked you to support them on tour?
They did ask us. S***, you can’t blame them for asking but we didn’t feel it was the right thing for us.
Do you subscribe to the healthy LA lifestyle?
I’m very connected and extremely healthy. LA’s been really, really good for me. I like being sober [he battled drink and drug addictions
in the 1990s]. I like looking after my body. I had a good run. In many ways, I’m lucky to be alive. I could have checked out a number of times.
You really feel that?
Well, I do in a way and a lot better people have gone before me who didn’t get sober, they didn’t get that gift.
Are you really your own ‘lord of the manor’ in the West Country?
Yes. I didn’t grow up there but now I have that experience of being in
the English countryside. I commute to London to work with the band. I just don’t know how the hell this happened. Sometimes, I think the reason we’re still in business is we just didn’t quit. We didn’t tell each other to f*** off.
How have you managed?
I don’t have brothers or sisters. These are my brothers and it’s bloody difficult. We all know how difficult relations are and the more intimate the
relations are, the more difficult they are. I’ve done a lot of work on myself
as a workmate.
Don’t you feel a bit silly singing a song such as Girl Panic! at your age?
Nick [Rhodes] wrote the lyrics to that. He’s still single and out there experiencing the passions of early love, so he was able to bring that to
the album. But we’re actors too. You have to act the material, that’s part of
the profession.
Speaking of age, how are you handling being 50?
Fifteen years ago, I felt like a very tired, old, young man and hadn’t made that transition in my mind to being middle-aged. Now I like being middle-aged but it’s hard sometimes.
Do you worry about how you look?
When I see photos of myself, I’m almost always judgmental: ‘Look, your hair’s so thin.’ It’s hard when you’ve had this ‘image’. But you have to put the neuroses away, even though they’re waiting round every corner to trip you up and paralyse you.
Did you have a blow-out 50th birthday party last year?
I had the most amazing one built around this extraordinary film Nick made using friends, family and people from all over the world. Spandau Ballet were in there, Kiss, Iggy Pop, Cilla Black. It began with the guy who introduced Nick and I in 1975, now an art teacher living in Cornwall, and ended with a letter of congratulations from Barack and Michelle Obama.
Who arranged that?
Well, you know, we’ve got friends.
Film-maker David Lynch directed you in a live streaming concert from Los Angeles in March. How come?
Unsolicited, he did a remix of Girl Panic! which we heard and loved. It was a career high.
Any other highs?
Playing Coachella – western America’s Glastonbury – last month was one.
When we got the gig, we thought: ‘Oh s***, what are we going to do
now?’ But we got the most extraordinary spot on the bill – sunset on the final night. It couldn’t have been more beautiful.
For tour info see www.duranduran.com
Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/music/863140-john-taylor-im-very-lucky-to-be-alive#ixzz1MHpnn2Xl
