WHAT'S UNDER THOSE HAIRCUTS? DURAN DURAN LOOKS FOR CRITICAL RESPECT
Published: Friday, July 31, 1987

By ANN KOLSON, Knight-Ridder News Service

WORCESTER, Mass.

HERE, the young girls dance. They shriek. They wriggle, they writhe. Tears run down their cheeks. The cause of this orgiastic, earsplitting display is three British pop stars, known as Duran Duran, now on a six-month world tour (which comes to Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheater tonight).

Amid all the screaming, is anybody listening? ''We've never not had wildly enthusiastic audiences," says bassist John Taylor backstage after the show. The dark-haired Duran, he is charming, voluble, funny, intense. "It would be nice if they listened to what we're doing."

A bunch of musical hairdos. Glamour boys: It seems as if Duran Duran has been better known for its exotic videos and its lifestyles of the rich and famous -- sailing ships, country houses, designer duds, long-legged female companions -- than its musical virtuosity. And there's the rub.

What the Durans are looking for is a little respect. "We're going through a crisis of preconceptions," Taylor, 27, says.

Their first four danceable albums ("Duran Duran," "Rio," "Seven & The Ragged Tiger," "Arena") were rudely dismissed by the critics. "The very definition of pop-music froth," is how one reviewed the band. But their fifth LP, "Notorious," released late last year, has received some grudging, near-favorable notices. "Notorious," which has sold more than one million copies in the United States, was produced by Nile Rogers, formerly of Chic, who lent it its urban funk edge. Now, after a three-year absence, Duran Duran, with members Taylor, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, 24, and lead singer Simon Le Bon, 28, are back on the road campaigning hard, trying to sway the naysayers.

''We try to meet every one of them, because then they have to take us seriously," says Taylor, rail-thin, dressed all in black. ''We have a concept that, if a person hasn't seen our show . . . they don't know us . . . It's very difficult, because that means you've got to meet all these people, like a politician."

Rhodes enters the arena dressing room with its bare cinder- block walls, glaring lights and mirrors, and he sinks into the old plaid sofa. A bottle blond, this Duran wears baby-blue eyeshadow and pancake makeup. He is the prince of pout, the sultan of sulk, appearing indolent, almost sleepy. But he is no less intense -- or serious about being understood -- than is Taylor, his bandmate and boyhood friend. (So in tune are these two, they often, by coincidence, end up buying the same clothes.)

''We know what we're doing is good," says Rhodes, "and we know that the three of us together have something special. And we also know that we have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of people who don't understand yet, but are going to. ''Over our dead bodies, they're going to," he says, chortling.

These two met when Rhodes was 10 and Taylor 11, in their hometown of Birmingham, a grim industrial city in the middle of Britain. As boys, they knew what they wanted to be. They dropped out of school at 16.

''We used to watch films of the Beatles and see people screaming at them," Taylor says. "Then we started going to concerts and just seeing the stars on stage and saying, 'Yeah, that's what we should do, that's the job we should have!' ''And then, we kind of figured we'd better learn to play an instrument."

In 1978 they formed a prototype of the group, later adding two Taylors (none related), drummer Roger and guitarist Andy, both now gone. Last they met Le Bon, a Londoner and half- hearted drama student, with not much of a voice, but a certain something. Maybe it was the pink leopard-skin pants.

In the beginning, "Simon was as much of a singer as we were musicians," says Rhodes sardonically. The two founding Durans still like to call their frontman a "drama queen."

They became Duran Duran (named after a character in the film "Barbarella") sometime at the start of the '80s, very much invented by themselves. Unlike some young bands, whose record companies transform them, these dandies, who favored ruffles and heavy makeup at the start, already had an image, thank you.

Their first three forays to America went almost unnoticed, but frequent play of their eye-catching videos on MTV, beginning in 1982, helped boost their recognition. (However, they have said that they made MTV popular and not vice versa.) Three videos were shot in Sri Lanka, followed by two in Antigua. Filled with sleek women, sleek cars and colorful sights, they were inspired fantasies, part Playboy magazine, part James Bond.

The publicity machines cranked; flight-arrival times were announced on the air. Quotes from band members could be counted on to be outrageous and provocative. They were rock stars for sale, Taylor later said. It's enough to make a rock star gone respectable cringe, no?

Once it was reported that a band member balked at shooting the Sri Lanka videos because of the effect the heat there might have on his lip gloss. When reminded of this, Taylor begins laughing quietly. Rhodes curls his lip in contempt.

Rhodes: "That's what somebody makes up."

Taylor: "People want bull from you, you feed 'em it."

Rhodes: "I'm a lot smarter than I know all them are, so it doesn't really matter. I can really take myself above them."

Taylor: "And besides, you have that heat-resistant lip gloss!"

Rhodes: "Yeah. I go to Chanel, and they don't."

Duran Duran

When: Tonight at 8

Where: Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View

Tickets: $17.50 reserved; $15.50 lawn

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