Duran Duran Loves Bringing Their New Music to Fans Live — Except at Festivals

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Duran Duran‘s new album, Paper Gods, has just debuted at #10 on the Billboard album chart, making it the band’s highest-ranking full-length record in 22 years. The iconic ’80s group is currently out on the road promoting it’s new music, but here’s a tip: If you’re the type of fan who only want to see them play their old stuff, go see them at a festival.

“We don’t really go at festivals with a view to selling the new album,” bass player John Taylor explains. “It’s very much a retrospective show. You know, you’re reminding half the audience who you are. So, we’re not going to make work for ourselves there. It’s a lot of effort to go to a festival; you want to have fun. You just want to have fun, you’re not there to be educated.”

Duran Duran’s next festival date is at the Life Is Beautiful Festival this Saturday in Las Vegas, where they’ll be the only veteran act among a sea of up-and-comers. For the next couple of weeks, they’ll mostly do headlining shows, including the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. That’s where they’ll be playing a good chunk of the new album, but that creates some problems for a band that’s had so many hits over the years.

“Obviously it’s a fine balance,” keyboardist Nick Rhodes tells ABC Radio. “Because every time we add a new song it’s, ‘OK, so what goes? Is it “The Reflex” or “A View to a Kill?”‘”

Still, Rhodes thinks that the upbeat new songs on Paper Gods, like the current single “Pressure Off,” will fit in nicely with their catalog of classics.

“There’s a lot of quite uplifting songs on the album, and those are always easier to put into a set than slower, moody pieces,” he explains. “You all want to hear songs that you know, and songs that make you smile [and] make you want to dance, and then you’re ready for something a bit more esoteric. So we’ve got to balance all of that.”

As for giving up on new material in favor of just cranking out the classics, as so many of their peers do these days, Nick says that’s just not an option for Duran Duran, and their fans don’t want them to either. In fact, that’s one reason why they’ve kept going all these years.

“If we were trapped into just doing all the older songs, I think we would tire of that,” he says.

Paper Gods features guest appearances and production by — among others — Mark “Uptown Funk” Ronson, super-producer and Chic founder Nile Rodgers and Lindsay Lohan.

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