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Duran Duran: first-ever video interview?
Eunice_t-story
2014. 2. 3. 10:20
Video: Is this Duran Duran's first ever video interview?
A simple pop song – released 33 years ago today – launched Duran Duran on the path to fame and fortune
Feb 2, 2014
Perhaps it was the squidgy synthesiser; maybe it was the throbbing bass, and the electropop beats. More likely it was the bop bop bop-bop and the fluffily flamboyant pin-up looks that appealed to both sexes. Whatever, a simple pop song – released 33 years ago today – launched Duran Duran on the path to fame and fortune. They became big-selling Brummie champions of Planet Earth.
The band’s debut hit, released on February 2, 1981, met with mixed reviews. You either loved it or loathed it. Even the group’s hometown Birmingham Mail dismissed them as one-hit wonders. I know, because I was the reviewer who reckoned they’d not have a big future. Cue egg on face. An entire omelette, in fact.Bassist John Taylor, guitarist Andy Taylor, drummer Roger Taylor (“No, we’re not related,” they’d have to repeat countless times) were joined by colourful keyboards player Nick Rhodes and chubby cherubic frontman Simon Le Bon.
John’s first name was actually Nigel and he came from down the road in posh Solihull; Roger hailed from Nechells; Rhodes was really Nicholas Bates from Moseley, and Geordie Andy’s middle name was Arthur. If any of them was rock star material it was Birmingham University student Simon, from Bushey, Hertfordshire, who’d been the grubby child star from the Persil commercial. And he was second choice, brought in to replace Stephen Duffy, the band’s original singer. But back then they were still down to earth. The jetset lifestyle was but a dream.The advent of the pop video, which they championed, would soon change all that.
John’s first name was actually Nigel and he came from down the road in posh Solihull; Roger hailed from Nechells; Rhodes was really Nicholas Bates from Moseley, and Geordie Andy’s middle name was Arthur. If any of them was rock star material it was Birmingham University student Simon, from Bushey, Hertfordshire, who’d been the grubby child star from the Persil commercial. And he was second choice, brought in to replace Stephen Duffy, the band’s original singer. But back then they were still down to earth. The jetset lifestyle was but a dream.The advent of the pop video, which they championed, would soon change all that.
For now, though, it was an initially unprepossessing Planet Earth, surely not a single to set the world alight. "I call it funky punk,” said John back in the day.
“I was really a punk rocker then I discovered disco. When I discovered disco, I didn’t want to be a guitar player in a punk band. I wanted to be a postman in a funk band. But I was a punk and I never was going to be able to play like Chic. So Planet Earth for me, as a bass player, was an ｅxpression of my punky aspiration to be danceable, to have that disco thing going on."
"Everybody layered on top of that and everybody expressed themselves. The guitar player did his thing and Nick did his thing and Simon did his thing. It was like ‘Planet Earth, meet Duran Duran’".
In later years he admitted: “It was the first single. I suppose it was the manifesto, in a way. It was quite simplistic, quite naïve, but sort of fresh at the same time. Very much of its time.We were very proud, I remember, once we’d first finished recording it. For a while, everywhere we went, we’d play that song twice because we just loved being able to say ‘This is our new single!’ It was the first song to acknowledge the fledgling New Romantic movement in its lyrics – a line which, John admitted, was rather opportune."
"A journalist had written an article about a band in London called Spandau Ballet, and the headline of the article was ‘Here Come The New Romantics’ or something along those lines,” he explained.
“I remember reading it and thinking ‘Wow, it sounds like they’re doing exactly what we’re doing’. I called the journalist, saying “Hey, if you like them, you’re gonna love us!’ Then I thought ‘Let’s put that ‘New Romantic’ phrase into one of our songs!’ It was in Australia that the big breakthrough began in earnest. Pop fans down under couldn’t get enough of the song. “The song was getting a lot of support in Australia,” recalled John.
“And the feeling was that if we could get some television presence down there, the song might go to number one. Well, there was no way we were all going to fly down to Australia just to do some promotional work, so it was suggested that we make a video. That was the primary motivation for doing that video. And, yeah, it did get the song to number one in Australia."
The video was directed by future film director Russell Mulcahy, who would go on to direct a dozen more for the Durans. Fairly primitive by the band’s later standards, the video features the guys, dressed in frilly, floppy New Romantic fashion, playing the song on a white stage tricked out with special effects to look like a platform made of ice or crystal. The instrumental middle section, by the way, features friends of the band from the Rum Runner nightclub dancing in their outlandish outfits.
Various facts cross the screen including: “The area of the surface of the earth is 196,937,600 miles”; “247,860 people are born every day”; “The oldest known song is the Shaduf Chant”; and then it ends with a warning of “Doomsday.”
At the end, Simon Le Bon leaps from the stage, caught in freeze frame above an apparently bottomless abyss. For most countries, the B-side was fan favourite Late Bar, one of the earliest from the classic Duran Duran line-up. In North America, where an extended 12-inch pressing became a collectable, it was To The Shore. Significantly, Planet Earth made Duran Duran the poster boys of a generation.
“We started out as an experimental band,” recalled John. “But we had teeny-pop stardom foisted upon us. It was always quite incongruous to us, really. I’m not saying we ever discouraged teen press – when you’ve made an album, you want people to hear the album, and you’ll do any kind of press. “When I was a kid in school and the girls in my class had their teen magazines, Marc Bolan was in there, and Bowie, and Roxy Music were in there. For me, it was like: what’s wrong with that? That’s what teen press was in the early 70s. Every three months we had to come up with a new look. And it wasn’t just videos. There were album covers and picture discs and posters. We had to come up with a new identity, a new band persona, for every photo shoot. “There were four years in particular, from Planet Earth to A View To a Kill where we had to completely re-invent the look of the band at least four times a year – and sometimes you’re not going to get it right. “We didn’t have stylists. We didn’t have anyone shopping for us. We figured it out for ourselves, and I think we did a pretty good job.” The conquest of Planet Earth had begun.
“I was really a punk rocker then I discovered disco. When I discovered disco, I didn’t want to be a guitar player in a punk band. I wanted to be a postman in a funk band. But I was a punk and I never was going to be able to play like Chic. So Planet Earth for me, as a bass player, was an ｅxpression of my punky aspiration to be danceable, to have that disco thing going on."
"Everybody layered on top of that and everybody expressed themselves. The guitar player did his thing and Nick did his thing and Simon did his thing. It was like ‘Planet Earth, meet Duran Duran’".
In later years he admitted: “It was the first single. I suppose it was the manifesto, in a way. It was quite simplistic, quite naïve, but sort of fresh at the same time. Very much of its time.We were very proud, I remember, once we’d first finished recording it. For a while, everywhere we went, we’d play that song twice because we just loved being able to say ‘This is our new single!’ It was the first song to acknowledge the fledgling New Romantic movement in its lyrics – a line which, John admitted, was rather opportune."
"A journalist had written an article about a band in London called Spandau Ballet, and the headline of the article was ‘Here Come The New Romantics’ or something along those lines,” he explained.
“I remember reading it and thinking ‘Wow, it sounds like they’re doing exactly what we’re doing’. I called the journalist, saying “Hey, if you like them, you’re gonna love us!’ Then I thought ‘Let’s put that ‘New Romantic’ phrase into one of our songs!’ It was in Australia that the big breakthrough began in earnest. Pop fans down under couldn’t get enough of the song. “The song was getting a lot of support in Australia,” recalled John.
“And the feeling was that if we could get some television presence down there, the song might go to number one. Well, there was no way we were all going to fly down to Australia just to do some promotional work, so it was suggested that we make a video. That was the primary motivation for doing that video. And, yeah, it did get the song to number one in Australia."
The video was directed by future film director Russell Mulcahy, who would go on to direct a dozen more for the Durans. Fairly primitive by the band’s later standards, the video features the guys, dressed in frilly, floppy New Romantic fashion, playing the song on a white stage tricked out with special effects to look like a platform made of ice or crystal. The instrumental middle section, by the way, features friends of the band from the Rum Runner nightclub dancing in their outlandish outfits.
Various facts cross the screen including: “The area of the surface of the earth is 196,937,600 miles”; “247,860 people are born every day”; “The oldest known song is the Shaduf Chant”; and then it ends with a warning of “Doomsday.”
At the end, Simon Le Bon leaps from the stage, caught in freeze frame above an apparently bottomless abyss. For most countries, the B-side was fan favourite Late Bar, one of the earliest from the classic Duran Duran line-up. In North America, where an extended 12-inch pressing became a collectable, it was To The Shore. Significantly, Planet Earth made Duran Duran the poster boys of a generation.
“We started out as an experimental band,” recalled John. “But we had teeny-pop stardom foisted upon us. It was always quite incongruous to us, really. I’m not saying we ever discouraged teen press – when you’ve made an album, you want people to hear the album, and you’ll do any kind of press. “When I was a kid in school and the girls in my class had their teen magazines, Marc Bolan was in there, and Bowie, and Roxy Music were in there. For me, it was like: what’s wrong with that? That’s what teen press was in the early 70s. Every three months we had to come up with a new look. And it wasn’t just videos. There were album covers and picture discs and posters. We had to come up with a new identity, a new band persona, for every photo shoot. “There were four years in particular, from Planet Earth to A View To a Kill where we had to completely re-invent the look of the band at least four times a year – and sometimes you’re not going to get it right. “We didn’t have stylists. We didn’t have anyone shopping for us. We figured it out for ourselves, and I think we did a pretty good job.” The conquest of Planet Earth had begun.
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81년 듀란 최초의 비디오 인터뷰! 정말 아름다운 사람들 *_*
오우마이갓!! 존! *_* 원조 만찢남은 바로 이 분입니다, 여러분 *_*
오우마이갓!! 존! *_* 원조 만찢남은 바로 이 분입니다, 여러분 *_*
중딩 시절부터 듀란듀란을 들었다. 근데 사실 난 듀란은 음악보다 외모를 더 좋아했고
음악은 디페쉬 모드 음악을 더 좋아했었다 ㅋㅋㅋ
어린 시절 그 당시엔 솔직히 사이먼의 보컬을 그닥 좋아하지 않았었다.
음악은 디페쉬 모드 음악을 더 좋아했었다 ㅋㅋㅋ
어린 시절 그 당시엔 솔직히 사이먼의 보컬을 그닥 좋아하지 않았었다.
지금이야 그 보컬 음색이 정말 독특하다는 걸 알겠지만 그 때 나는 디페쉬 모드의 Dave Gahan씨 보컬에 푹 빠졌었다.
물론 음악도 디페쉬 모드 음악을 정말 좋아했었고...
나이 들어 다시 듣게 된 듀란 음악은 어릴 때 듣던 것과는 역시 좀 다르게 느껴진다.
이제서야 좀 그 진가를 인정할만한 나이가 됐나보다.
Japan의 경우도 그렇다. 재팬이 활동하던 때는 70년대말 80년대초인데
당시 초딩이었던 내가 재팬을 그 때 알았더라면 과연 그들의 음악을 지금처럼 좋아할 수 있었을까??
내 나이 사십대에 처음 접하게 된 재팬의 음악은 정말 참신했고 70년대에 벌써 그런 음악을 했다는 게 놀라웠다.
초딩 시절 들었다면 아마 안 좋아했을 거다. 초딩이 뭘 알겄어...ㅋㅋㅋ
나이 들어 다시 듣게 된 듀란 음악은 어릴 때 듣던 것과는 역시 좀 다르게 느껴진다.
이제서야 좀 그 진가를 인정할만한 나이가 됐나보다.
Japan의 경우도 그렇다. 재팬이 활동하던 때는 70년대말 80년대초인데
당시 초딩이었던 내가 재팬을 그 때 알았더라면 과연 그들의 음악을 지금처럼 좋아할 수 있었을까??
내 나이 사십대에 처음 접하게 된 재팬의 음악은 정말 참신했고 70년대에 벌써 그런 음악을 했다는 게 놀라웠다.
초딩 시절 들었다면 아마 안 좋아했을 거다. 초딩이 뭘 알겄어...ㅋㅋㅋ
그나저나 존의 자서전은 사놓은 지가 언젠데 아직도 안 읽게 되넴...-_- 실비안 전기는 오면 바로 읽을 거 같은데...지송...☞☜
실비안 전기 도착하기 전에 JT님 자서전부터 좀 읽어야겠다.