Hungry like the wolf! Tough lesson Duran Duran learnt in Australia

Australia gave Duran Duran its first taste of celebrity. Now, on the band’s 40th anniversary, the members reflect on their highs and lows.

UK band Duran Duran have reflected on their past tours of Australia.

Australia gave Duran Duran’s John Taylor a lesson in finding – and losing – pop fame.

It started 40 years ago, when Australia was the first country to give Duran Duran a Top 10 hit with their debut single Planet Earth.

Before arriving for their first Australian tour in April 1982 they’d taken a slight detour – to Sri Lanka – to film a video for their global hit Hungry Like the Wolf.

“It was a long journey to get to Australia,” Taylor says, “and when we arrived the fans were off the charts. We felt very welcome.”

The band would return in 1983 to finish the recording of third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger in Sydney before starting another national tour. At a party at Molly Meldrum’s house they heard INXS’ Original Sin, and discovered it was produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers, who’d go on to remix their No. 1 hit The Reflex and work on hits Wild Boys and Notorious, as well as their most recent album Paper Gods.

British band Duran Duran will release their 15th album this year. Picture: Nefer Suvio

However, when Duran returned in 1990 to promote their Liberty album they were in a career slump (it’d take until 1993’s Ordinary World to reverse their fortunes) and Taylor got a reality check.

“The first few times we’d been there we’d been superstars, there wasn’t a single moment I’d been in Australia where we weren’t mobbed. Then we went there around the time of Liberty and it was kind of depressing for a minute, there was no one waiting outside the hotels. And then I realised, ‘No, this is freedom, you don’t need a bodyguard to go to that record store on the corner’.”

The band has lost and found members over the decades, including a brief reunion with the original five from 2000 to 2004 and now operate with four originals – bassist Taylor, singer Simon LeBon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and drummer Roger Taylor.

“Andy Taylor (original guitarist) coming back didn’t last, so we’ve had this empty chair,” Taylor says.

“I’ve given up trying to fill it permanently, now I see that it serves us all having this empty chair, which is like an X-factor. We know enough about ourselves that there’s still life in the relationships but we also need fresh energy to bring it to the boil.”

For 15th album Future Past, Blur’s guitarist Graham Coxon is the new brain to pick – he played with the band during their performance at the recent Billboard Music Awards.

Duran and Coxon filmed their medley of Notorious, Invisible and Hungry Like the Wolf in London the week before the Covid-safe event took place in the US.

“We had a bit more control about the sound and the look than we would have done if we’d done it in LA,” Taylor says. “We’re old guys, it’s all right for these young’uns going out on stages with all natural light! We need a little bit more contrast!”

Nick Rhodes had met Coxon at a David Bowie-related event and asked him if he’d be interested in working with Duran; when indie producer Erol Alkan (the Killers) got on board for the new Duran album he recommended bringing his neighbour in – Graham Coxon.

“We’ve all got man-crushes on Graham,” Taylor says. “The original members of Duran, we’ve been around the block a few times, we’ve written so many songs together, that for us, when we embark on a new project it’s really important to have some fresh legs. We defer to them, they become the most important people in the room for us. Graham is one of the greatest living guitar players, he’s amazing.”

Coxon worked on Duran’s new single Invisible, made with Alkan while Future Past will feature collaborations with Mark Ronson, singer Lykke Li and 81-year-old disco icon Giorgio Moroder (Donna Summer, Blondie). Other collaborations will be announced as the year goes by.

Last year, as well as working on Future Past, Taylor used lockdown in LA to launch a series of bass tutorials on Instagram. He showed fans how hits such as Rio, Girls on Film and A View To a Kill were created, but admits studying the songs gave him a new appreciation for his bandmates.

Duran Duran at the peak of their early 80s fame.

Duran Duran in 2021. Picture: Nefer Suvio

“I need to refresh my gratitude a lot. To consider the whole story; count my blessings. It’s a very extraordinary thing to partner up with a bunch of guys like this. We all learned together, which was really amazing and unusual. I’m always telling young family members, ‘You really need a partner, it’ll help your creative endeavours’. It gives dimension to something. I know, I tried to do things by myself, it just doesn’t work.”

Taylor admits he was playing Dua Lipa and The Weeknd songs in the studio while Duran Duran were recording their new album.

“I love the way the bass sounds on Dua Lipa’s album,” Taylor says.

He’s enjoying seeing the 80s now being mined as a musical reference for today’s pop stars.

“It had to happen, God knows the 70s was an extraordinary decade for music, and I think it took so long to tap into the 80s because the 70s was so good. But the 80s was when programming really started to kick off, it had that transition from punk to new wave, it was party music, music that crossed a lot of barriers. I always get excited when I hear a reference to the music I was referencing.”

Duran Duran will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut album this year.

While the 40th anniversary of Duran’s self-titled first album is next month, Taylor has his theories on the milestone.

“About two years ago our manager was thinking of things we could do to celebrate the 40th anniversary but as it got closer everyone started to lose interest. The best thing we can do is put out this new song and new album. That speaks a million words about why we still care about each other, why we choose to work with each other and why we’re still together.”

While the band’s tour for Paper Gods missed Australia, Taylor is confident that the band will return to touring in the UK in October and potentially down under in 2022.

“We’re always talking about how we get to Australia and (how it will) be an event, so I’ve got a good feeling we’ll be there this time around with this album.”

Invisible (BMG) out now. Future Past out October 22