Original travellers: Duran Duran

Words: Kevin EG Perry  
Photographs: Austin Hargrave  
Styling: Marjan Malakpour

Simon Le Bon has a mischievous twinkle in his eye. We’re in the penthouse suite at The London West Hollywood, with the Sunset Strip laid out below us like a roadmap of debauchery. Just a few doors down is The Roxy, where Duran Duran made their Los Angeles debut in 1981. Our bird’s-eye view takes the dandyish 67-year-old frontman back to that tour, and the first time the new wave pioneers found themselves on a hotel rooftop in this city. “We got kicked out of the Riot House,” he smirks. “Have you heard that story?”

As Le Bon tells it, he was innocently taking a swim on the roof of the infamous rock star haunt when the band’s then-guitarist, Andy Taylor, decided for a jape to fill a cleaner’s bucket with pool water and tip it over the edge towards unsuspecting diners many floors below. 

The band’s keyboard wizard Nick Rhodes, 64, picks up the tale. “We got unceremoniously removed from the hotel by seven armed police officers,” he says, raising his eyebrows beneath his shock of platinum blond hair. Le Bon makes it clear the incident didn’t cramp their style. “We moved to this little place which looked like a spaceship from The Jetsons,” recalls the singer. “And it was so much fun it was ridiculous.” 

Duran Duran have carried on having ridiculous amounts of fun pretty much ever since. The band – Le Bon, Rhodes, bassist John Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor – have sold more than 100 million records since forming in Birmingham almost five decades ago, and are still dreaming up fresh hits. Their latest single, the disco-fuelled ‘Free to Love’, features legendary Chic guitarist (and longtime Duran Duran collaborator) Nile Rodgers and is a fan favourite at the residency in Las Vegas they’re in town for. 

“We always play to a packed house in Vegas,” says Le Bon approvingly. “People go there for fun, and we fit into that very well. Our manager told me off for calling us a party band, so I’m not going to call us a party band…” He glances around theatrically before adding in a stage whisper: “But we are!”

It’s no surprise that Vegas has embraced Duran Duran: the band have had a long and very much reciprocated romance with America. It began on that first visit at the start of the 1980s, from which they returned to England inspired to write some of their best-known music. 

“The Rio album is really based on that trip, the excitement and the energy,” says Rhodes. Le Bon agrees: “Lyrically it gave me so much to write about. I knew we were going to have a massive love affair with America. That’s really what the song ‘Rio’ is about. I just invented a girl and gave her the name Rio, and that was it.”

When they came back to the States in 1982 songs such as ‘Rio’ and ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ were in heavy rotation on MTV, catapulting them into much bigger venues. Roger Taylor remembers the band’s management hiring them drop-top Cadillacs to take them to their sold-out show at the Greek Theater in LA. “I’ve got this memory of driving there from Chateau Marmont on a beautiful sunny evening,” says the 66-year-old drummer. “At that moment it felt like we’d cracked America.”

Among the many Americans who fell in love with the band was the artist Andy Warhol, who invited them to visit his Factory in New York after seeing their music video for ‘Girls on Film’. John Taylor, his spiky hair dyed a similar platinum hue to Rhodes’, remembers a warm welcome. “He loved us!” says the elegant bassist, who is also 66. “The playlist at The Factory in the early 1980s was all either classical music, ‘music concrete’ sound effects, or Duran Duran. So it was a friendly space!”

Back here in Hollywood, Twin Peaks director David Lynch was another avowed Duran Duran fanatic, remixing their songs and directing a concert film for the band. Le Bon says the feeling was mutual. “Things like Eraserhead and Blue Velvet were the most outrageous things on the screen at the time,” he says. “He was a subversive punk, and that appeals to people like us.”

The band’s own most famous cinematic moment arrived when they provided the title track for 1985’s A View to a Kill, a song that remains the only James Bond theme to top the US charts. It came about thanks to what John Taylor calls “sheer cockiness” after he was introduced to 007 producer Cubby Broccoli at a party Michael Caine threw in London. 

“I said: ‘When are you going to have a decent theme song?’” he recalls. “He went: ‘You wanna do it?’ We were under a lot of pressure. It had to be massive. The studio was under siege, and there was a lot of alcohol involved, but somehow we managed.”

The band remain beloved by filmmakers, with director Nia DaCosta using no fewer than three of their songs in this year’s post-apocalyptic thriller 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Le Bon says it’s “appropriate” that their music provides a psychic anchor for Ralph Fiennes as he attempts to survive the wasteland. “One of our biggest quotes when we first started was: ‘We want to be the band to dance to when they drop the bomb,’” says the singer. “I had a little email session with Ralph to get him into the swing of singing Duran Duran songs.”

Long after the demise of the MTV era, the band remain relevant on social media. On TikTok, their 2021 single ‘Invisible’ became a viral hit when fans attached it to clips of the video game Metal Gear Solid. “We’ve broken through to different generations,” says Rhodes happily. “Kids online aren’t afraid to go digging.”

Since Andy Taylor left the band in 2006, they’ve remained innovative, working with a revolving cast of top guitarists including John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Blur’s Graham Coxon. “There was a long time where we were trying to replace Andy,” says John Taylor. “It didn’t happen, but now that empty chair has become a bit of a gift.”

Andy Taylor, who has since been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer, returned to play with the band on their Halloween-themed 2023 album Danse Macabre, but most recently it has been Rodgers on guitar. The Chic star, who has called Duran Duran his “second band”, has worked with them on and off since 1983 and famously produced their 1986 funk rock album Notorious. “There’s something about working with Nile that brings out the best in us,” says Roger Taylor. Might there be another album together? “It’s unlikely this song will be our last,” demurs John Taylor coyly.

As much fun as they’ve been having back in America, there’s a frisson that goes around the penthouse when I mention their upcoming return to London to headline American Express presents BST Festival in London. Le Bon and John Taylor appeared at the event last year, guesting with Sabrina Carpenter on a surprise version of ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’, but the last time the full band played there was in 2022, a show that was twice delayed by pandemic-era lockdowns. “That was really the first en masse thing after Covid and it was a religious experience,” recalls John Taylor. Le Bon nods: “It was extraordinary.”

When they go back this summer, they’ll be doing so as a band who’ve conquered the world and are still hungry for more. There’s also a UK arena tour happening this autumn. “The thing is, we’re never satisfied,” says John Taylor, flashing a lupine grin. “We’re not big on laurels in this band. We’re always pushing to do bigger and better, and there’s still a belief that we have it in us.” 

Duran Duran headline American Express presents BST Festival on 5 July, and start a UK & Europe tour on 15 October. 

Duran Duran on tour

How do you beat jet lag?
Roger: “Surrender to it, and give yourself enough recovery time.”

What’s one item you never travel without?
Simon: “I used to have a little rock I carried around with me everywhere, but I don’t even know where that is now. The one thing you must never travel without is your sense of humour. You never know what’s going to happen so, rather than get frustrated and upset, it’s better to be able to laugh it off.”

What makes the best holiday souvenir?
Simon: “A suntan’s not bad, or a new playlist of music. When we went to Brazil, I came back with just bossa nova in my head. It was beautiful.”
John: “A healthier body than you had when you arrived.”
Nick: “And the likelihood of that is…?” 

What would you ask a pilot?
Roger: “How do you handle all that responsibility?”
Simon: “Have you ever done this before?”

What’s your favourite way to immerse yourself in culture?
Nick: “John and I have spent an inordinate amount of time together in museums around the world, for which we are enormously grateful. I love MoMA in New York and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.”

What’s been your favourite travel experience through your work?
John: “Our first time in Japan. In the early 1980s, technology was being driven by Japan. We all came back with Walkmans and were the first kids on the block with them. You always come back with something special and different.”