“We had to behave ourselves!” Le Bon says. Moroder’s approach was much calmer – and much quieter. “We were throwing things across the studio, it was so loud.” “It was like National Lampoon‘s fucking recording session ,” Taylor says. But Moroder’s studio arrival provided quite a culture shock for the band, who had previously been working with British DJ-producer Erol Alkan. The legendary Father of Disco co-produced two tracks on ‘Future Past’: the buoyant ‘Beautiful Lies’ and electro anthem ‘Tonight United’. “You know, it was a long time before the ’80s kind of got its dues, culturally.” “I remember hearing that song for the first time, and thinking there was some kind of a sea change ,” Taylor says. Lately, they’ve even been playing their classic banger ‘Girls On Film’ as a mash-up with Calvin Harris‘s ‘Acceptable In The 80s’. “The rest has got to be songs that are really going to get people up – bangers,” Le Bon says when NME meets him and John Taylor at The Lower Third, a new grassroots music venue in central London. “We’re entertainers first and foremost, I think, and artistes second,” Taylor adds playfully. That’s because the band abide by the guiding principle that a third of their setlist “at most” should be given over to new music and more “esoteric” tracks. The four-piece – singer Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor – have a deep discography to draw from when it comes to assembling their 2023 setlist, but Duran Duran fans are guaranteed to hear era-defining hits like ‘The Reflex’, ‘Save A Prayer’ and ‘Ordinary World’. Featuring sparkling electro bops co-written with Giorgio Moroder, Mark Ronson and Blur’s Graham Coxon, it entered the UK charts at number three, the band’s highest entry in 17 years. The new wave legends are now set to head out on the road again, with a UK and Ireland arena tour primed in support of their 15th studio album ‘Future Past’, which came out in 2021. “It’s really helped me to live with the pessimism of an incurable disease,” he notes, “but the optimism of creating music.Duran Duran have been an unstoppable force in British music since they formed in Birmingham in 1978. Playing guitar has had an unexpected benefit. Taylor has recorded three albums since learning of his illness, and continues to perform when possible. He’d reunite with DD for 2004’s Astronaut album, and for tour dates in support. Taylor contributed to sessions for the 1986 album Notorious, then went his own way with a solo career. When the group split in two in 1985, following the release of the James Bond theme “A View to A Kill,” Taylor and bassist John Taylor formed The Power Station with the late Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson, while the others created Arcadia. Without Andy Taylor’s contribution, many fans and critics argue, Duran Duran wouldn’t be the Hall of Famers they are today. With his rock ‘n’ roll attitude and playing style, Taylor was something of an outlier in the band, contributing a rawness to Duran Duran’s sound during those golden years. All those numbers came with slick music videos which either looked like shorts from blockbuster movies, or, in the case of “Girls On Film” and “The Chauffeur,” were too risqué for mainstream TV. With a string of hits, including “Girls On Film,” “Rio,” “Hungry Like The Wolf,” “Is There Something I Should Know,” “The Reflex,” “Wild Boys,” Duran Duran was arguably the most popular band on the planet in the first half of the 1980s. Taylor has lived the dream like few others. I’ve had so much in terms of living the dream.” “You really want to get the most out of life. “Every minute is like an hour, every day is like a week,” he explains. In a fight with cancer, time is precious. “Give him a nudge, go get a test,” he tells 5 News. Now that the word is out, Taylor, 61, uses his platform to tell others to get checked, and urges female fans to apply gentle pressure on the men in their lives. On hearing the extent of his illness, “no one can be prepared for that.”ĭue to his poor health, Taylor missed the ceremony in Los Angeles, for which he’d planned to break out a new guitar. The biopsy results confirmed the worst, an illness he describes as “a death sentence.”
The diagnosis came when Andy was 56 years old, and presented when he went jogging and felt what he describes as “arthritic sort of pain.” He began to “have these symptoms, and didn’t recognize them for what they could be.” Lumps would appear on his neck, a troubling sign that the cancer had metastasized. TV, and explains how music and creativity has lifted his spirits. A post shared by Andy Taylor returns to his health battles for a new interview for U.K.
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