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But what about the musical direction you were moving in? "It was fine, fine," he begins. John felt you weren't very comfortable with it. "There was certain areas where John was going like Sly and the Family Stone, where I could just about get my head around Michael Jackson. Not, not get my head around, but my vocal ability. "I wasn't going to do a bad impersonation of a funk singer, so I had to just bend it to myself, which I think I did very well on "Skin trade" and "Notorious", and not so well on other songs on that album. But I think those are two where it really, really worked." So John was kind of right? "I think he recognized it, and didn't push it with the next album. Notorious did push it's way to Number 16 in the U.K. and four places higher in the U.S. But that was a far cry from their previous album chart standings, and in that respect, the band saw it as a failure, although the title track placed high in the singles chart. Its follow up, "Skin Trade," did not, landing just inside the Top 40 in the U.S. At the same time, the confusion within the Duran Duran camp saw rumors fly that the band were soon to call it a day, which peaked at their London Palladium appearance at the Secret Policeman's Third Ball that April. Obviously the tales were false, as Duran Duran continued their U.K. tour, which ended the following month with a three night extravaganza at Wembley Arena. The final show of their world tour took place on May 16, in N.YC, where the group staged a benefit for homeless children, and were joined onstage by Lou Reed. Duran Duran had proved they could continue as a trio, and if the start was a bit shaky that was only to be expected. With Notorious behind them, the group were now to begin solidifying their new sound.

Rhodes described Notorious as the band's "dance record," comparing it to what Bowie had attempted on Let's Dance. In which case, according to Le Bon, their next album, Big Thing was "like Duran Duran and rave music, there's acid house in that. That funky piano thing, it's house music, we were really, really into that, we were into the whole house scene, a lot of that came out on that album. I think it had better songs on it; it had 'Land' and 'Too Late Marlene' which I think were fantastic, and 'All She Wants,' I love that." Your vocals definitely seem much more relaxed, you seem much more comfortable working in this direction. "It did work for me better, but also it was a much less stressful album to make, because the band had settled down, and Warren was really kind of working out. We got over the fact that Andy and Roger had left, Steve Ferrone was really part of the group as well at that time. And it was much more fun working in Paris, than in studios in London." Now it was John that was unhappy "I nearly left the band when Big Thing was finished, because we'd had an argument over the song 'Drug.' The original version of the song is one of the b-sides of the limited edition triplepack 7" versions of 'Do You Believe In Shame.' That original version of "Drug" is about seven minutes long, but when we went with that crappy remix version of the song that appears on the album, I couldn't believe it! "We got into this very in~nse argument, that to me, if ever I had the opportunity to reissue the album, digitally remastered and remixed, I would find that version of 'Drug.' To me, the album is incomplete without it, it's totally incongruous the version of the song that's on the album." Be that as it may, Big Thing did slightly better than Notorious, at least in the U.K., but in the States, it barely scraped into the Top 25. Unfortunately,.Duran Duran were only the first of many bands to discover that rave doesn't sell in America... at least back then. They were a mere nine years ahead of their time.

Regardless, the first single, "I Don't Want Your Love," did well, putting the band back into the Top Five in the U.S., although "All She Wants Is" would only reach Number 22. Back home, their chart placement was more faltering, with "Love" just making the Top 15, and "Do You Believe in Shame?" a rather rueful Number 30. In the U.S., even though it featured in the Tequila Sunrise film, "Shame" blushed at its Number 72 charting. For the moment, it seemed like Duran Duran's grip on America was slipping. As 1990 dawned, the band released the greatest hits collection Decade. At home, it gave the band their highest album chart place (Number Five) since Seven And The Ragged Tiger snarled its way to Number One. To accompany the album, their label suggested that Duran Duran release a remix of one of the old songs, an idea that Rhodes hated. "It just seemed a alittle drab to me. So ' I said, 'Why don't we do something better other than that? Why don't we go and create something totally new using elements of a lot of the different songs that we had. And so we went into the studio, and I sampled about every bit of everything I could think of, and then we built the song." "Burning The Ground" was strewn with Duran Duran's legacy, from the drum sounds from "The Wild Boys," through bits of "Reflex" and most intriguingly backward lyrics courtesy of "Planet Earth" a true pot pourri of their past. But for all its innovation, the British buying public preferred their old in its purist form, and the single crashed and burnt at #31. In the States, apparently Americans were no longer keen on Duran Duran old or new. As poorly (by the band's standards) as Big Thing had done, it positively bulged as compared to Decade, which turkeyed, landing at a miserable Number 67.

It must have been with much trepidation that Duran Duran began work on their new album, Liberty. And with a new drummer to boot, Ferrone departed, and in his place came Sterling Campbell. "With Sterling in the band," John begins "we thought we could be that band again, be that five piece, it was very hard not to look backwards at that point, because we'd failed. Because Big Thing was a commercial failure, and those were the only criteria we were judging on, so really with that album, we were looking backwards I think. "Oh, I don't know.. .when we were in rehearsal, it seemed like we had a great album, but we weren't able to parlay it into a great album in the studio, whatever. I can just remember smoking hash oil, that's all I can really remember about making that album." "I don't think we ever got it right personally," Le Bon agrees. "Liberty didn't quite do it, and it didn't quite do it on many different levels I think. We went into a barn in Sussex and started jamming away, and before we got finished, it was like, 'Right we've got the album, let's go and record it now.' And I don't think we got it right; I don't think we were paying enough attention. We were quite self-conscious at the time as well, the way things had been going, and it kind of made us stand outside of ourselves to do the album.

"But out of that came two of the best songs Duran's ever come up with, 'Serious' and 'My Antarctica,' they're really, really beautiful songs. I don't think it's a bad album, but there's definitely weak spots on it, definitely. I mean, something like 'Violence Of Summer,' it just didn't have a proper chorus, great verse though. Just not paying enough attention, we just lost our concentration." Once again, the Atlantic divide loomed. The first single off Liberty, "Violence Of Summer," battered its way into the Top 20 in the U.K., but in he U.S. it didn't even break the Top 50. The album did, barely, coming to rest at #46, but in Britain, unfettered, it sailed to Number 8. But it was on U.S. sales alone that Duran Duran judged their success. 1991 came and went without a word, as the band desperately regrouped. For a time, John even considered resurrecting The Power Station. By then, Andy had left his solo career far behind, and was now producing bands out of his own Trident Studios. "I'd done the big fame bit," the guitarist explains, "but there's a lot more I want to learn about making records, and the only way to do that was work, work, work." And work he did, first with Rod Stewart, co-producing, alongside Bernard Edwards, the sexy one's Out Of Order comeback album. Since then, Andy had produced, on average, four to five records a year. Most of the albums were with British hardrock and metal bands, but he'd also produced Scottish New Wavers Big Country, as well as having worked with Paul Rogers. Andy and John hadn't spoken since the guitarist had left Duran Duran, so the call from the bassist came as a bit' of a shock. However, the pair had dinner, put the past behind them, and a Power Station reunion seemed on the cards. That is until EMI , decided the band was a great way to further Robert Palmer's career. "I assumed that was where they were at," Andy explains, "and I spoke to Bernard about it, and he said, 'At the moment, EMI are too wrapped up in Robert Palmer to do this.' So we left it. Andy returned to his seat behind the recording boards, and John and Duran Duran began work on their new eponymous album, better known from its cover art as The Wedding Album. Here's Rhodes' recollections of the time. "Sterling left, went off to some big band Soul Asylum, and got himself on the cover of Rolling Stone; we couldn't, but Sterling can!" He chuckles at the absurdity of it all. "We started doing the Wedding Album, which we were doing really low budget, because the Liberty album hadn't done well. "However good it was, there was no way it was going to get heard, because radio was all hip-hop or grunge. And we were neither of those, and didn't want to pretend to be I either of them, even though there were elements of things we liked within them. We just knew there was no space for Duran Duran at the end of the '80s. Somebody wanted to shut us in and throw away the key We just knew, and got on making the next album I suppose.

"That turned out to be very fruitful, because we locked in with Warren properly, and actually developed our sound. We produced a lot of pieces of music, not all of which ended coming out. Things like 'Time For Temptation' was written then, and there were a fair few that never got completed. There was a song called 'Firefly' which we never completed, that was written about the Gulf War, I regret not putting that out actually, John was very instrumental on that one, perhaps we'll find that one day." "Bringing Warren in and just giving full rein to his talents is really what that was about," John adds. "Rather than us trying to control it, just acknowledging what Warren had to offer is what made that album work." The first taster for the record, "Ordinary World," which appeared in early '93, amply proved that point, and soared into the Top 10 on both sides of the pond. And interestingly enough, it did it without the help of MTV. By the time Duran D~ran actually finished the video and delivered it to the station, the single was already in the Top 5! The full length did equally well, hitting Number Four in the U.K. and a resounding Number Seven in the U.S. "That really relaunched things," Rhodes enthuses, "and we then went on to do a pretty extensive tour, which went down really well. We were thrilled to find that a lot of the audience had come back to us, there were people that had stuck there, and I think there was a very warm feeling towards Duran Duran." Indeed there was, and a massive number of still loyal fans out there to boot. The tour lasted 16 months, and took the band from acoustic evenings at Birmingham's Symphony Hall and London's Dominion Theatre, to the Tonight Show, and as far afield as South Africa. In May, Duran Duran even performed at a Tower Records in L.A., and broadcast the show across the world to London, Sydney and Tokyo. In July, they returned to the States for the first leg of the U.S. tour. The day before it finished, on August 28, Duran Duran received their crowning glory, a Hollywood star. However, the band had to cancel the second leg of their tour after Le Bon tore a vocal chord in October, in the midst of their U.K. outing. With Duran Duran off the road, John once again turned his attention to the Power Station. Just before Christmas, '93, Andy received another call. "He said, 'Everybody's cool about doing this in the way we should be doing it: get together, come up with our material, then when we're ready to make a Power Station album, then we'll record it, and do it only on our terms." "I said, "That's how I want to do it, not to serve some other purpose for some individual or for EMI, but to get together and have a blow the same way we had before." And on that basis, everybody called each other that same night, and there seemed to be a complete positive attitude towards it, and that's when we decided to get together."

As everybody involved had other commitments, progress was slow, especially as Duran Duran returned to the stage in January, 1994. They kicked off with three nights at the Radio City Music Hall in N.YC., and then completed their delayed U.K. dates. In May, "Ordinary World" won the Most Performed Work at the Ivor Novello Awards. Meanwhile, work continued on the Power Station album, and just as they were nearing completion, John announced he was leaving. "He was going through a divorce," Andy explains, "he was in rehab and all that, the complete mess. His wife was kicking the shit out of him, and he wasn't dealing with it very well at all. I knew what was going on, you're not blind. It doesn't matter a hoot about the band, you've got your baby there, you've got to take care of things. "When he said, 'I can't go on,' he didn't go into a full explanation, but I knew why He's a dear, sweet gu~y and no-one should end up like that. I know it was a difficult thing for him to do, to phone me up and say he can't continue, but it was the right thing for him to do. I'd rather see him happy and healthy, than see him doing this and not be happy, and just a huge fucking mess. "You make all these plans, and life just takes over. You have to be sympathetic... if a guy quits a band and you lose a million dollar record deal, he usually gets sued until he starts bleeding, everybody sues, the band, management, but that never even entered anybody's head." Although a record deal for the rest of the world was already in place, the U.S. was not. "We were literally a day or two away from signing with Polydor, and he wasn't there to sign it, so what do people do? They don't do the deal, because you've got to have four signatures. As mad as I was, because we'd put a lot of work in, perhaps he knew he wasn't as in good as shape as he claimed to be... you don't kick someone when they're down. Anyway, we had a solution, his name was Bernard Edwards, so what's everyone worried about?" It took 18 months to rekindle interest in America, and a deal was finally put in place. At which point, all of John's bass parts were re-recorded by Edwards. The album was virtually finished when the bassist flew off to Japan to perform with Nile Rodgers. There, Edwards came down with a particularly virulent flu, and tragically died in Tokyo, on April 18, 1996. It was a crippling blow for Power Station, but within days, the remaining members knew they had to complete the record that Edwards had contributed so much to (he'd produced it as well). And in late 1996, with the release of Living In Fear in Europe and and Japan, the great bassist and producer's legacy lives on. The album was released nearly a year later in the States. In the summer of '97, American audiences were finally treated to performances hat European and Japanese crowds were rowing over. Power Station's line-up was leashed out by the Uptown Rorns (from the Zonan O'Brien Show), bassist Manny Yates, second guitarist Luke Bally (from the Irish deathmetal band Thunder).

Obviously during this time, Duran Duran were also extremely active. Raving come off tour, back in '94, they returned to work on their next album, Thank You. "After the tour," Rhodes recalls, "I think we became a little more dissipated. We tried to complete the covers' album that we recorded during the summer of the tour, and again I think it was one that got overlooked. Some of the songs on there, certainly 'Perfect Day' and 'White Lines,' we made them sound like we'd written them. That's what we sort of set out to do, and we were very pleased with the album when we completed it. But obviously, it didn't receive commercial fit "only" brushed the bottom of the Top 20 in the U.S. or critical acclaim." It also saw the brief return of Roger Taylor, after nearly a decade's absence. "We'd actually invited Roger to come and play on every single album that we did," Rhodes explains, "but he declined until the Thank You album. We asked him, and I was surprised when he said yes, but very happy "He played on I think three tracks, 'Perfect Day;' 'Ball Of Confusion', but I don't think we ended up using him on it, because we changed the whole song around and his drums didn't work anymore; and something else as well. It was just great having him around, when we were in the studio, and I'd turn around and saw him there, it was just as if I was in a time warp. When he came down to record, he forgot his sticks!" But even with Roger's temporary return, Le Bon still had some doubts about the album. "You know what we were saying earlier? A perfect example of me being pushed to do something I wasn't comfortable with was on Thank You, and that was 'Ball Of Confusion.' That is the best example of me succumbing to the pressure of the band to attempt something I really couldn't do, and I really couldn't do that. It only worked in the chorus, when I was singing like Simon Le Bon from Duran Duran. "'I Want To Take It Higher' was difficult for me, as well. John and Warren were very into that one, it's that Sly and the Family Stone thing again, The Temptations, I mean I love everything else on that album." Well, those were their choices, which one's did you suggest? "I don't think I actually suggested any of them, they John and Cuccurullo came up with the ideas, and I basically said, 'I do think I can handle it, I don't think I can handle it.' We had been talking about Lou Reed 'Perfect Day' for years though." What would have been your choices? "Uuuummmm not going to tell you, there may be other songs by the same artist." Then the singer starts laughing, and adds, "'These Boots Are Made For Walking."' I'd like to hear you do THAT! At which point, Le Bon breaks into a rather threatening rendition of the Nancy Sinatra classic. Have Trent Reznor produce it, and it would be a definite winner.

And so was Thank You, although, not quite as big a hit as The Wedding Album. It did respectably on both sides of the Atlantic, breaking into the U.K. Top 15, and the U.S. Top 20. And just to prove that Le Bon was a vocal great, in September, 1995, he performed with opera star Pavarotti at the War Child benefit concert held in Italy. Other festivals and tours took up the rest of the year, but in between, John ako found time for the Neurotic Outsiders. Earlier that summer, in June, a benefit was held at the Viper Room in L.A., for a friend of the club owner who needed cancer treatment. Out of an onstage jam, the Outsiders gelled into an actual band. The quartet comprised John, Steve Jones, and Guns N' Roses' Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum. The group began a Monday night residency at the Viper Room, and were oft-times joined onstage by friends. "It was just becoming a bit of a cabaret really," John recalls. "We'd have guests come on and sing with us, then Steve would sing a song, I would sing a song, Duff would sing, then we'd ask Simon Le Bon to join us or Billy Idol. It was very exciting, very different from what I'd done before. "We just kept it going, we went to Vegas, played N.Y., and then we were asked to make an album. Great, okay, sure, we can make an album, Jerry Harrison [producing], you betcha, and then it was about video directors and front covers, and for me at least things started getting... ummm... losing the freshness of what made it exciting. "Having said that, look, we'd be playing this summer ['97] if Guns'n'Roses weren't ensconced making a new album, and that's what really keeping us from working. I don't know if it'll ever happen again, but it was terrific fun. Not everything you do can become your career." The Neurotic Outsiders released an eponymous album in 1996 on Maverick Records, on which John contributes two of his own songs, as well as a track co-written with Jones. As 1996 drew to a close, Andy bumped into Le Bon in Tokyo, and talk of a reunion began. It was a subject that John had previously broached with the guitarist, but Andy had mixed feelings. "It's been talked about a while, bits and pieces, they said that they wanted to do It with two guitars. Simon said that 'John really wants to do it,' yeah but I'd heard that he wanted to quit anyway Me and Simon talked about it, but what would we do? Would there be a market for it? You wouldn't rekindle 20,000 people just like that in every city in the world. It's impossible, unless you make a record or something substantial, but that's about as likely to~happen as me running the Vatican. If was a nice thought." But he was wrong, because Duran Duran were about to make something very substantial indeed Medazzaland. And just as it was nearing completion, John announced he was quitting the band. "John left almost at the fucking end," states a still stunned Le Bon. "I mean how ridiculous! I mean honestly! I do kind of understand it now but it was just really, really sad, I really miss him a lot, and I kind of wish he was back." "It was a long time you know," John attempts to explain, "and I just wanted to tell my own story I want to make the most of myself, and I think in order to do that, I needed to give myself another context. I don't think you can do it really within a band, well, I can't. I've tried, I've tried, but I don't have the stamina to do that. No... no, it was impossible."

While Duran Duran was left to pick up the pieces, John went into the studio and recorded his solo album, Feelings Are Good And Other Lies. Included within are new versions of his two songs from Neurotic Outsiders. "What can I tell you about this album now? It's anathema to Duran Duran, I needed to do something that was completely at odds to where we were at. I didn't feel that I should be making music like 'Ordinary World,' the sum total of my knowledge just took me to a very different place. I don't know, it's very difficult to judge, I'm kind of happy. Look, I needed to do it, to be perfectly honest with you, I had to do it because I had to know that I could do it. "I love my life right now I've got my own studio and I'm living in Los Angeles. It's great being in a pop band, but don't ever think you can have a life. It's 24/7. If I had a hit record, what would that mean? Would I have to go on the road for six months? I don't want to do that. I'm very happily making a new album, I'm trying to create a new identity for myself as an artist." Interestingly, the album was done with Steve Jones, who apparently is making a career out of working with Duran Duran solo projects. Drummer David Palmer also had a previous connection to Duran Duran, having pefformed in the "I Don't Want Your Love" video, and was actually asked to join the band at that time. However it didn't work out, and Sterling Campbell came in instead. John's album is far removed not just from Duran Duran, but interestingly enough, from the Power Station as well. There's not a lick of funk or pop within. Instead, the bassist moves from gentle ballads to rockers. It is indeed the antithesis of his past. Cuccurullo, too, had been stepping outside the band to pursue a totally different musical direction.

He's released two solo ambient albums - Thanks To Frank and Machine Language - the former on Imago, the second sadly is only available on import, from the Japanese label Bandai. However, unlike John, Cuccurullo saw the new Duran Duran album as a challenge, not a burden. The group, now reduced to only two original members, were left to finish Medazzaland. And Andy half jokingly raises the question nlany fans must now be asking themselves, "I mean, how can you have Duran Duran without a Taylor in it? Just call it Duran now!" But even without a Taylor in sight, the group not only completed the album, but created a true masterpiece. With John's departure, most of the basslines ended up being programmed, but surprisingly Cuccurullo supplied the rest, "He's turned out to be rather a good bass player, Le Bon declares. "'Burled In The Sand,' is that a phenomenal bass line or what? And it's Warren playing it, he also does 'Electric Barbarella.' It's very reminiscent of really great John Taylor bass lines. Warren has played some really excellent bass on this album, and I think those two are really good examples of his ability." "He wouldn't have been able to play this when he first joined the group in 1986, but he's learned so much about rhythms since he joined Duran Duran. We were much more a rhythmic than Missing Persons, much more funky, we've got much more black influence than Missing Persons had, and the precision of his rhythmic sensibilities, that's what's been excellent."

Rhodes suggests that Medazzaland is almost a concept album something that Le Bon initially contradicts. "It isn't really. The piece of music 'Meddazaland' is kind of an overture in a way. It comes from a time when I had surgery; and I came back hke on a cloud. I'd been given this intravenous sedative called medazzaline as an alternative to a general anesthetic. It enables you to be awake and respond to your surgeon's instructions, while at the end of it you completely forget everything. "I came back and Warren went, 'You've been in Meddazaland,' and that's where the working title came from. And then Nick thought, 'Hmmm, it's kind of cool, this whole thing could work, describe the experience going under anesthetic, then you lose it, and really go into Meddazaland,' which is I guess a place of lost dreams. The songs are like the lost dreams, there's a kind of feeling of not being able to remember. You know how when you wake up from a dream, and suddenly two minutes later, you've forgotten everything? That's what I tried to do with 'Michael; You've Got A Lot To Answer For,' that little gem tar motif at the very end, it's supposed to be like a temple ball which they hit in Tibet, it just clears your mind of any aural memory. You're supposed to get to the end of that song, hear that bit and go, 'Fuck, I can't remember that song at all now, what was it about?' And put it on again. It sort of works, in my imagination, it does kind of wipe out the rest of the song from your memory. Before its completion, John had called the new album trance punk," an interesting way of summing up its sound. Some of the songs are indeed almost ambient pop, but Meddazaland also includes pop-rock, techno beats, and in the case of "Be My Icon" industrial. It's far removed from The Wedding Album, and seems to encompass a host of '90s musical threads. "We wanted to develop a newer sound," Rhodes confirms, "and for me really, I wanted to make this album what Rio was for the 1980s. I wanted it to be something that symbolized where we were at, reflected the times, and made certain statements about the atmosphere that we're all living in. Something that symbolized the decade really, certainly from our point of view; and that's what Medazzaland is about to me. As the millennium approaches, Duran Duran continue going strong, and in fact, at time of writing, the band have already completed five of the tracks for their next album. Once dismissed as an '80s band left floundering in the 90's, Duran Duran have remained relevant, innovative, and extremely popular.

Medazzaland may put the finishing flourishes on the 20th Century; but now the 21st beckons, and Duran Duran are ready for it. But we leave it the final word to Andy, even though the left the band a dozen years ago. "I watch them and what they do very closely obviously, because it has an effect on me, because I still own a huge piece of it via their back catalogue I. Anyway, if you've been involved in something you're always interested. "Simon is a pop writer and a pop singer, he's not a rock singer, he's not a chanteur, he's a pop singer; a very good pop singer and a great pop writer. That's how people see them, that's what he is, and that's what he's great at. He's a pure pop person, he's got great ears for pop, he may be limited musically, but pop music doesn't limit him. "When Duran Duran write pop, even though they're in mid-30s, they're still as good as anybody doing it. Simon can still write as good a pop melody as anybody out there, and he should fucking do that. It's that originality with what he does with pop and his melodies, you don't have to do anything else." On New Year's Eve, 1996, Andy visited his brother-in-law's trendy nightclub in the British Midlands. But it wasn't his presence alone that prompted the DJ to play, "Save A Prayer," a remix of that song was currently smashing its way through the club scene. "Fifteen years later and people are still digging it," Andy enthuses. "And it's a great version, it's a remix of the original master. It's really cool! There couldn't be a bigger complement to anyone, any guy in a band, any artist, that virtually a generation later people are dancing to your music in a different format. To me, that's the best. It's not forgotten, it's still alive in clubs." Duran Duran's songs live on, their legacy continuing to have a massive impact on today's musical scene. Be it techno remixes of their old hits, or cover versions by alternative groups, and more recently industrial bands, Duran Duran's glorious past remains instrumental to today's sounds. But that is not the band's epitaph, for it's too soon to write that now. The songs Duran Duran are composing today will inevitably influence the next generation as well, and thus the final words on the band are still to come.

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