86 Minutes With Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes
One half of Duran Duran trolls Bowery to flack the bandâs thirteenth album. And, yes, they feel a little vindicated about the eyeliner.
By Tim Murphy Published Jan 9, 2011
Thereâs something I want to ask Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes, the front man and keyboardist of the (perhaps surprisingly!) still-extant eighties Brit-pop supergroup Duran Duran. But right now, moments after introductions, doesnât seem like the time. Weâre roaming the New Museum on Bowery, where the duo, fiftyish and dapper in bespoke suits disappointingly free of flounces, have come to check out some art by Clunie Reid. The youngish British artist did the cover of their well-received new album, All You Need Is Now.
Reidâs worksâinkjet prints on silver foil with strange text scrawled on themâtake up a back wall. âI love the fact that she has a problem spelling vaginery,â notes Le Bon of a Reid work with that word, whatever it means, printed on it.
âAnd what does anussy mean?â asks Rhodes. The fop diplomat to Le Bonâs more freewheeling goofball, heâs petite where his bandmate is burly and bearded, and still wears eyeliner and does his bleached hair in a spiky, mussed style.
âIt means pertaining to your anus,â Le Bon says. âThatâs a planet, isnât it?â
We proceed to drinks at the Bowery Hotel. (The bandâs other members, John and Roger Taylor, are back in the U.K.; Andy Taylor left the group a few years ago. No, the Taylors are not related.) Le Bon orders a very large Japanese whiskey, Rhodes a glass of red wine, and they start in about the new album. All You Need contains many yummy hooks reminiscent of Duran Duranâs landmark 1982 album, Rio, whose huge hits, like the title track and âHungry Like the Wolf,â were as sexily glossy as the bandâs look.
âMark [Ronson, the star producer] came to us and said, âI want to make the imaginary follow-up to Rio because itâs one of my favorite albums, but I want to make it sound like now,âââ says Rhodes. One way Ronson recaptured the magic was to use only old analog synths. âThey have oscillators inside them,â says Le Bon, âwhich create a proper sound.â
Along with a lot of child-raisingâLe Bon has three kids with model Yasmin, his wife of 25 years; Rhodes has a grown daughter from a previous marriageâthe bandâs been busy all these years putting out new albums, even doing a brief stint on Broadway in 2007. But theyâve never reclaimed the white-hot appeal they enjoyed in those sequined, shoulder-padded, Reagan-Thatcher years, when they were objects of womanly lust and manly scorn. I finally dare to ask: Did they realize back then that a lot of American guys called them fags?
âDid we give a fuck?â says Le Bon, toasty-fun from the whiskey. âNo!â
âIâm not sure it was any worse here,â says Rhodes, meaning the U.S., âthan anywhere else.â
âYes, it was,â says Le Bon.
Certainly Duran Duranâs look was of their own choosing. The band picked their own clothes and did their own makeup, eyeliner and all. âGirlfriends taught us,â Le Bon says.
âI taught my girlfriends,â says Rhodes.
âYou were always the different one.â
The conversation turns to their favorite old stage outfits. âWe had a knife!â Le Bon booms. âWe cut off the tops of our T-shirts, the arms, we rolled the sleeves of our jackets up, we tucked the trousers into our boots. And next week they were doing it on Miami Vice. So we knew we had an impact.â
Then there were the headbands, accessories out of a tutti-frutti safari, one of which figured prominently in Rhodesâs favorite outfit. âIt was a gray-and-black leopard printâwait, no, not leopard.â
âTaaagah strahps?â Le Bon, now appearing fully drunk, asks in a strange southern accent. âSnakeskeen?â (Now a cockney accent.) âCracadaahl?â
What new music do they like? The (very truly gay) Scissor Sisters, they both say, and the Killers, whose lead singer, Brandon Flowers, has been a feathers-and-mascara dandy himselfâas have Fall Out Boyâs Pete Wentz and Jared Leto in 30 Seconds to Mars.
âWeâve been accused of creating metrosexuality,â says Rhodes, now texting friends to try to make dinner plans. âIf thatâs what you think, then fine. Weâre not that different from a lot of English guys who are perhaps a little more ⊠flexible about the way they are.â
âWhat youâre seeing now,â says Le Bon, quite grand through his drink, âis a result of people like us who pioneered it in the face of adversity.â
Courtesy New York Magazine
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/70436/