by Andy Taylor
Thankfully things calmed down after that, but I knew that there would be very little chance of Nick and me ever seeing eye to eye about anything from that point onward.
IT took nearly three years to get most of our material together for a new album, during which time there was no money coming from our activities in the band. We spent most of the summer of 2001 in France. Simon then needed a month off due to a death in his family, while the rest of us used the time to reorganize our management structure by bringing in some new faces. I’d put all my other business commitments on hold for Duran Duran, committed all my time and energy, even though I’d just shelled out for a load of new studio equipment for the move to Ibiza, which was now redundant. Despite our pledge to do things economically, our lavish spending on the reunion had left all of us with a bit of a cash flow problem by 2003.
I was with Simon in London one afternoon when we went to the bank, where he put his card into the ATM only to discover it didn’t work. I tried mine and it also didn’t work.
“Oh fuck. Well I better just transfer some money from another account into this one and it will be okay,” said Simon.
Unfortunately, he discovered there was no money in his other account either.
Join the club, I thought.
So here we were, two members of the world’s most successful pop band of the eighties, and neither of us had enough ready cash in the bank for our cards to work. To add to our problems, EMI had turned us down for a new record deal. The record industry itself was teetering on the edge, due to falling sales and revenue lost through illegal downloads. In total, we had spent around £600,000 over the last three years, and our funds had dwindled. Something needed to be done.
Soon afterward we attended a publicity shoot for the Red Bar at Sketch, a trendy new restaurant in London. Luckily the restaurant gave us complimentary memberships or it could have set us back a further £500 a head for lunch! Over lunch, at the most expensive restaurant in the world, I raised the prospect with our management of doing some live shows very, very soon.
“We have no option but to get this band out on the road,” I said. “We’ve got to do some gigs because guess what? We’ve run out of money, so unless you have a brighter idea, that needs to be the next call.”
The stark reality was that we no longer had a choice about holding off from touring until we had an album deal. We needed to go back on the road out of financial necessity. It became a magical turning point. We announced that to mark our twenty-fifth anniversary we’d be playing a series of gigs in Japan, including two shows at the Budokan auditorium in Tokyo.
I was at home in Ibiza on the Saturday that the tickets went on sale and I awoke to find an e-mail on my computer which was short and sweet.
MESSAGE: SOLD OUT IN 20 MINUTES.
CALL US—THE OFFICE.
“Do you want to do some more dates?” they asked when I called.
Stupid question. Of course we did! We announced some shows in the States and discovered that the demand for tickets was so great that we sold 4,000 in about six seconds, and the whole lot were gone within two minutes. At one point it swamped Ticketmaster’s servers. The reaction from our fans was truly astonishing, and we soon arranged a fully fledged Twenty-fifth Anniversary Tour. Between the Japanese dates and the early American shows we managed to pull in around $1.1 million in ticket advances in the space of a week. We shared some of it between us and the rest went toward paying back some of what we all owed to Simon, who’d pumped around £300,000 of his own money into the band’s reunion. In effect, he’d been lending us money to keep us afloat, which was something that I had felt uncomfortable about as matters unfolded. John’s new wife, Gela Nash, co-owner of the Juicy Couture fashion line, had also been giving sponsorship money. We’d basically been robbing Peter to pay Paul, but as soon as we went on the road it was obvious that our financial fortunes were turning.
The warmth that we were greeted with at every show was amazing. Our audience were there for us when we needed them most. We owe them a very big thank-you, because without them the new album might never have materialized. Without the incredible turnout for the live shows we were scuppered. However, I was happy that our ability to be a real band had pulled us from the brink once again. We now had some money to put back into the system, and we had lots and lots of new material that we could put into shows alongside all the old favorite numbers from the eighties. It felt as if we were doing a proper rock-and-roll job again instead of just being in the studio arguing with each other’s alter ego. We still needed to rehearse a bit more in order to tighten up, but we had all the components in place for a proper comeback—we just needed a record label to partner with.
It felt great to be back on the road, and this time around I noted with approval that Nick and Simon insisted on taking a huge wine chest packed with the finest vintages everywhere we went. (It must have contained about two hundred bottles, and on a later tour I estimated that at one point, between us and our families and crew we were glugging our way through around £25,000 of wine a week.) I also noticed that this time around all the road crew seemed to refer to Simon as Charlie, the nickname I gave him way back in the eighties.
After the comeback shows in America, I went back to Ibiza and Simon joined me there for a holiday. We were sitting around enjoying the sunshine, when I got a call from a girl named Julie in our office in London.
“I know you and Simon have just got back there, but MTV have been in contact and they want you to go to the States to present an award to someone,” she said.
Mmm, I mused. Overexposure before we even get a foothold, presenting an award without a current record to promote. You don’t want to create the perception that somebody has done you a favor just for the exposure. At first, both Simon and I were reluctant to go. We were with all our families and children enjoying the break. I recall we were in a fish restaurant and about to get into a huge plate of oysters when my mobile phone rang again.
“They want all five of you to present it. You really should go,” insisted Julie from our office.
What Simon and I didn’t know at the time was that MTV weren’t actually interested in Duran Duran doing the presenting—they were secretly planning to give us the award, which explains why the $50,000 costs were covered without a quip.
“Can’t the others go?” I asked. “We’re on holiday, it’s not like we have a record to promote, and it is going to be full of rappers—not our natural domain if you think about it.”
“No they want all five of you, very seriously.”
Grudgingly Simon and I agreed. We arranged to fly from Ibiza to Madrid and then go on to New York from there. We also agreed to play a gig at Webster Hall in New York the night before the MTV Awards, which again turned out to be a good move as we weren’t just going to be present in New York as the “token eighties presenters.”
The gig was excellent and we got a great review in the New York Post the next day.
“Welcome to the home of the second British invasion,” Simon shouted to the crowd during the concert, and the Post loved every minute of it. The newspaper columnist praised our whole set, which included all our classic numbers along with some new material, and a cover version we did of Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines.”
“Le Bon sounded a little more Justin Timberlake than Grandmaster, and Andy Taylor added a guitar solo worthy of any rock band,” said the Post’s reviewer.
I was expecting that most of the MTV show would be geared toward a young rap audience. The date was August 28, 2003: Will anyone even know who we are? I wondered. When we arrived at the hotel there wasn’t an awful lot to do because MTV kept putting our call time for the rehearsal back. I was worried we’d run out of time so I rang the control room to ask why.
“Oh, it’s all right. You guys have done this sort of thing so many times that we know you can pull it off live from the script. We don’t need a rehearsal.”
Then they asked the five of us to pop down to the MTV stylist
s’ room so they could check out our outfits. When we got there we were greeted by a small army of stylists who fussed over every aspect of our appearance. That’s strange, I thought, why are they so worried about what we look like if all we are doing is presenting an award? Surely, all we’ve got to do is say a few lines and then get off? They kept us busy there for ages, which meant we didn’t arrive at the venue until the last minute. We were shown into seats at the very front of the audience. The entire young urban music community seemed to be seated all around us. Eventually we were called backstage to go and present and, as is usual at these events, it seemed like chaos behind the scenes.
“Ah, Duran Duran. You are copresenting with Avril Lavigne and Kelly Osbourne,” someone from MTV told us.
Eh? That’s seven presenters for one award. They gave us a script that involved Kelly saying a few words, followed by John and Simon. While we waited to go onstage, I chatted to Kelly about her father’s Brummie roots, any excuse to don a flat Brummie accent. When we finally arrived onstage Kelly grabbed the microphone and began to read the opening part of the script from a teleprompter in front of us. Suddenly the script stopped and the teleprompter went blank. That’s when the penny finally dropped.
Kelly explained to the audience that the real reason we were on-stage was because Duran Duran were being given a Lifetime Achievement Award. I turned around and saw a man walk onstage with an armful of MTV gongs. There were five of them: one for each of us. The crowd went wild, and it was a feeling none of us had experienced for well over a decade. It was a young hip-hop audience yet they all got up to applaud us—Brits meet Bling.
Afterward we had a few huge celebrations and we were treated to the full delights of New York. As we did a tour of the media tents outside, we could hear the crowds of people at the barriers, who were all cheering and whooping. Twenty-three years after we had first met, it was almost like a movie scene. On the way in we’d been greeted by a few claps, but the reception we were getting now after we had received the award was ecstatic. An MTV Award is probably the hippest thing you can achieve in the eyes of youth culture, and to have the American public cheering you is a wonderful feeling, particularly for a UK band.
We buggered off to the Bungalow 8 nightclub for a huge party, and stuck our awards on show behind the bar.
How come the hip-hop crowd got us? I wondered.
“Because they’re just the same as you guys; they love the lifestyle—yachts, jets, and jewels and unlimited hedonism,” explained someone. “It’s still just rock and roll, Andy.”
The club became a frequent haunt for Duran Duran while in New York. As we were beginning our sold-out US tour, we were getting merrily smashed on vodka when my attention was drawn to a very sanguine-looking Victoria Beckham sitting in the corner with her producer, Damon Dash. She didn’t look very happy at all. She was polite and approachable this time, even said hello. No snub tonight. You would have needed very big golden balls to interrupt our posse that night, because we were completely unapproachable and lit up like Xmas trees.
Yeah baby, I thought, we’re called Duran Duran and we’re back in the USA!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kings of the Brits
AT the end of the summer of 2000, my father had told me he had cancer. This was on the day that we had agreed to re-form Duran Duran. It’s strange how fate can deal you such enormous blows just when you think you are about to fly so high. I hadn’t long put the phone down from speaking to John in LA when my dad called me at the studio in the UK. My mind was still soaring from the initial news that Simon and Nick were seriously up for a full Duran Duran reunion, but something about my father’s tone of voice immediately brought me down to earth.
“Sit down, son. I’ve got some news,” he said.
Whenever he referred to me as “son,” it was time for a serious chat. As soon as he opened his mouth, I knew something was badly wrong. He’d been diagnosed with cancer of the gullet, and it was very, very advanced. He said that he had a huge tumor, so large that they had to operate as soon as possible.
Tracey and I packed, numbed by the news, and the next day we drove from the Midlands up to Newcastle to be with him and the family. All I was concerned about was getting the necessary scans done as soon as possible. How could we speed up the treatment? What would the National Health Service lottery be like? I went to see a cancer specialist with my father, and the doctor explained to me that they would need him in very quickly to get the operation done. The odds were not good, but to their credit, the doctors didn’t mess about. I can truly say that my father’s NHS trust functioned in a very compassionate way for its patients, and I was very grateful to the staff for their unwavering care. I was feeling devastated and filled with dread, but my father was ever the optimist, and all he seemed to be concerned about was making sure that my stepmother, brother, and I were all mentally okay. We chatted together about the band while we were waiting in the hospital.
“You’ll never guess who phoned me, Dad . . . John bloody Taylor.”
“Oh, JT,” he said. “I always liked John . . .”
I told him all about our plans to re-form Duran Duran, and I could see that even amid all the pain he was going through, he was extremely pleased for me. It was his brave way of telling me that life goes on and you have to focus on what’s ahead of you, even if it’s going to be somewhat of a rough ride. I knew that there were going to be a lot of difficult hurdles.
When the time came for the operation, we signed all the medical paperwork together in order to give the surgeons permission to do whatever was needed.
All I could do now was to wait and pray. He was only sixty-one years old at the time—surely still too young to say good-bye? The surgical procedure placed his body under enormous strain, on a similar scale to that of a heart bypass, but despite everything being stacked against him, my father pulled through. I was so relieved and grateful. The doctors had got the tumor out, and within six months they told us he was clear. It seemed like a miracle. The cancer was gone and surely lightning couldn’t strike twice, could it?
AFTER the high of the MTV Awards, the rest of 2003 had flown by in spectacular fashion. Initially, there was no great master plan, but the phone didn’t stop ringing and every show we booked sold out, often within hours or even minutes. Many of the concerts were large arena shows which were cosponsored by American radio stations, and the demand was still enormous. On September 20 we played in front of 57,000 people at the Hyundai Pavilion in San Bernardino, California. The Cure and several other eighties bands were on the same bill. We later spoke to the Cure about the possibility of touring with them, because the potential seemed astronomical.
A couple of weeks later we were sitting in the lobby of the Mercer Hotel in New York, when somebody pointed out that despite all the intense interest we’d created in America and Japan, we still hadn’t played a single comeback gig in the UK. We really ought to organize something back home, we collectively reasoned, so let’s put on a one-off show there—but without overegging it into a grandiose event. We decided to phone our old friend Rob Hallett in London, basically to ask his advice as we felt he was the only one who’d understand where we were coming from. At first we wanted to do the show in Birmingham, and we toyed with the idea of performing at the Hyatt Hotel, standing on our old roots where the Rum Runner used to be. But Rob, never one to mince his words, advised us to do it in London.
“At the end of the day most of your fans are going to be in the South, even if you are from Birmingham. Do it in the place where the most people are,” he reasoned.
Rob suggested the Forum at Kentish Town in north London. It’s an intimate venue with a perfect stage and a standing audience, ideal for our homecoming.
“When do you want to do it?” he asked.
“Within a week or so,” we said.
Believe it or not, we organized it from New York in the space of about five days from start to finish.
The Forum was packed to the rafters with
about 2,500 people on the floor and a further 500 on the guest list, which read like a Who’s Who of the London showbiz world. For me, it was also a special gig because it was the first time any of my children came to see Duran Duran live—and they couldn’t believe it. Most of the younger members of the cast of EastEnders, a popular British TV soap drama, were there, which impressed my family no end!
“Dad! They all came here to see you,” was their initial reaction. I think it was all a little odd to them, and they were certainly not used to so much attention being directed at them.
When we went onstage we tore the place apart. The intensity of the reaction from our fans gave us a tumultuous high and it was without doubt the very best Duran Duran gig ever. I’ve performed at two Live Aid concerts, played live at Madison Square Garden, and performed at hundreds of arena concerts packed with tens of thousands of people. But nothing compared to this for sheer energy and straight-up fun. In hindsight, it’s a shame we didn’t film it for a DVD. We started our set with an album track, “Friends of Mine,” which worked amazingly well as an opener. This was an audience of our most ardent fans and they greeted every number with enormous enthusiasm. A lot of our following were now grown-up women in their thirties, but they were acting like they were fifteen again, and it was amazing to see this new phenomenon. We closed the show with “Wild Boys” and then performed “Rio” as an encore . . . I guess some things will never change!
The reviews in the press the following morning were ecstatic, and word was starting to spread that we had finally got our act back together—all five of us. We got a similar, ecstatic reaction from fans in Philadelphia, where our tour bus was almost overturned by five hundred rampant mothers! It was nuts. There were crowds of mature women all behaving like teenagers, and they were rocking the vehicle. These were women, not girls, and the police had to clear the area with horses. (Don’t get me wrong, ladies, we were secretly very, very flattered by the attention!)
