All the beautiful people at Paper Magazine's Absolut-sponsored Beautiful People party at NYC's Good Units on Wednesday night were hungry like the wolf for Duran Duran. The glam pop band took the stage at 10 PM with a set that relied on big '80s hits like "Notorious" and "Rio" along with an ample helping of songs off their current 13th studio album, All You Need Is Now. Fortunately, band members Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor had time to chat with UsMagazine.com at the event about it and lead singer Simon Le Bon recently throwing his back out.
UsMagazine.com: So your album just came out on the 22nd, can you tell me about it a little bit?
Nick Rhodes: It's 14 new pieces of music. It was produced by Mark Ronson and we're actually very excited about it because I think its undoubtedly the strongest Duran Duran album in more than a decade. We spent a long time writing the songs, and we really paid attention to the lyrics and details with the music and I think it really paid off this time.
Us: What were some of your inspirations for the album?
Roger Taylor: I think we were kind of our own inspiration because Mark's whole ethos was to go back to our own sound. We've been chasing contemporary music for awhile and Mark just said, 'you need to turn around, look at yourselves, and do what you do best.' And I think Duran Duran is all about individual members expressing themselves, and Mark really gave us the blank canvas to do that. And it turned out really well for us.
Us: You say it's a throwback to some of your '80s music, but how is it unique or different?
NR: Well I think the thing we try to do is always use all the elements from our own sound, and take them into a contemporary soundscape. So, for example, I used a lot of analog synthesizers that I did use on the early albums, which are a lot warmer and bigger sounding than digital synthesizers that most people use now. Simon layered his voice up a lot more, used a lot more harmonies than we have done in the previous few albums. And then Roger and John really moved back to a solid, funky rhythm section on all the songs and made sure that everything really grooved along. And I think generally we were more experimental than we have been for awhile.
Us: Simon threw his back out at a Sirius event, how's he doing now?
RT: Oh he's ok, he's ok. He threw out his back a couple of days ago but he's good now. He's in good shape.
Us: What can fans expect from your upcoming tour?
RT: It's a great live show! We're very proud of having great production, great lighting, and great visuals. We've got thirty years of catalog plus the new material to play so it's an amazing show!
By Ian Drew for UsMagazine.com. To read more of Ian's blog, click here, and don't forget to follow him on Twitter.
