In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran

by John Taylor

  Robert nailed the vocal part in minutes. Bernard and Tony were impressed.

  “What about that T.Rex cover? Are you still doing that?” asked Robert.

  Bernard motioned to engineer Jason to unreel the multitrack tape that had the recording of “Get It On.”

  Robert tore into it. A man possessed by a spirit of Yorkshire juju, he took Marc Bolan’s song out of the London suburbs, whisked it across the Atlantic, and deposited it somewhere in the Louisiana swamplands. As Robert was gathering up his cigarettes and whisky to leave, Bernard turned to Andy, Tony, and me and said, “Stop looking. You’ve got your singer.”

  A few days later, I flew down to Nassau in the Bahamas, where Robert lived, taking with me the tape that Andy and I had worked on in Paris. Robert met me at the airport.

  Twenty years later, at a hotel restaurant in Tokyo, Robert told Annette, his longtime girlfriend, his favorite anecdote about me. On our drive from Nassau airport to his house, I had screamed at the driver to pull over, jumped out of the car, and fallen to my knees, praying. In front of me was a tire outlet called “The Wheel World.”

  “Here it is,” I shouted. “All anyone seems to say to me is, ‘You don’t live in the real world,’ and I don’t know what that is! So this is it!”

  He was still chuckling about that.

  Robert had been living on the beach at Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point studio compound. After lunch, I played him the track I had on cassette, and when I told him the working title was “Some Like It Hot,” Robert gave me his inscrutable look and fired back without missing a beat, “And some sweat when the heat is on.”

  I liked that too.

  The Power Station project was intended, as much as anything, as a way for Andy and me to pay homage to Tony Thompson and, hopefully, put him in the spotlight we felt he deserved.

  Tony was one of the greatest instrumentalists of the eighties, and his parts on “I’m Coming Out,” “Good Times,” and “Let’s Dance” were among our favorite musical moments of all time. Andy and I arranged “Some Like It Hot,” to allow for Tony to deliver his ultimate performance.

  Playing with Tony was an entirely different proposition to playing with Roger. They were both funky, groove-oriented rock drummers, but their energies were very different. Roger was consistency personified; he never wavered, and I always knew what to expect from him. Tony was the opposite. He had the heaviest foot in the business, and the power and volume that came off him when he was playing were immense. It was a widely held truth that only Bernard could keep him steady. When Bernard was producing or playing bass with Tony, there was no better drummer. But on the road as a rhythm section, with me, neither of us were able to achieve quite the same chemistry as we had with our older playing partners.

  The other sonic component that would be significant in this new entity would be the sound of the studio itself. The Power Station was famous for its massive reverb, created by harnessing the sounds that would be generated by playing music down the building’s disused elevator shaft. No one knew how to capture that effect better than Jason Corsaro.

  So, we had another team of amazingly talented individuals around us. Before Andy and I even played a note on “Some Like It Hot,” the combination of Tony’s drumming and Jason’s reverb wizardry would announce to the world the arrival of something pretty fucking cool.

  The record label couldn’t believe it when we invited them to the studio to hear what we had been spending their money on. They couldn’t believe their luck. They had been thinking, “We’re not going to get anything from Duran this year,” and instead, they get a funk rock supergroup who had written a hit album.

  In a significant act of sedition, Andy and I chose not to involve the Berrows in the Power Station. We were just too dissatisfied with the direction they had been taking with Duran. Paul’s desire to become a Hollywood player cost an outrageous fortune, as far as I was concerned, and now their sponsorship of and involvement with Simon in the Whitbread Round the World yacht race seemed to be where they were focusing. Duran Duran as an entity was still linked to the Berrows, but Andy and I had been feeling for a while that Mike and Paul no longer had our best interests at heart. The relationship was too far gone, too many conflicts of interest. It was irreparable. We voted with our feet. What to do when Duran went back to work? We would deal with that when the time came.

  53 The Model

  On Valentine’s night, February 14, I was at the Limelight nightclub in New York at a birthday party Billy Idol was throwing for his girlfriend, Perri. The Limelight was a desanctified church on Sixth Avenue and had become one of my favorite hangouts. They had a very efficient velvet rope system in place that allowed me to behave in much the same way as I had back at the Rum Runner. In other words, I had the run of the place. I could take what I wanted, where I wanted, and with whomever I wanted.

  Andy and I had been rehearsing with Steve Stevens, Billy’s guitarist, and Mick Ronson. We had one extraordinary jam session, but Mick could only complain that Andy and Steve were both playing too loud. Mick stepped away from any future collaboration but Steve, Andy, and I agreed to back up Billy for a few songs that night at the Limelight. We played “Dancing with Myself,” “White Wedding” and “Mony Mony.”

  I was seeing a Swedish model named Chris, whom I had met on New Year’s Eve. I took Chris and her friend BJ with me to the Limelight.

  After the performance, I was sitting on the floor of the VIP lounge with Chris and some other friends when another girl came over to me. She had a schoolgirl look about her, something that was really young and sweet—too sweet for the Limelight—and she was wearing a tweed blazer and jeans. She asked me if I would go with her to meet her roommate who was “in love” with me. Would I please come and say hello?

  I had been getting quite a lot of that kind of attention, and it had become a bit of a drag. Besides, I was comfortable sitting on the carpet with Chris.

  Rather rudely, I said, “Oh please, not now. Can’t you see I’m with someone?” Something unpleasant like that.

  The girl was like, “Asshole!” She turned her nose up at me, spun on her heel, and stomped off.

  I didn’t think any more about it until a few hours later, back in my suite at the Carlyle hotel, where Andy and I were staying, when BJ turned to Chris and said, “Wow, John must really be into you! Did you see what he said to Renée Simonsen?”

  I said, “What are you talking about?”

  She said, “You know, that girl that came over to you. The one that wanted you to meet her friend? That was Renée Simonsen.”

  “Was it?”

  I made an excuse and went into the bedroom. I had to check something out. I had a feeling that Renée Simonsen was on the cover of Vogue that very month, and there she was, on my bedside table.

  Wow! She looked incredible. The most beautiful girl in the world? Possibly.

  I was perplexed. How could I have missed her? Renée Simonsen, from Denmark, was the face of Ford Models. She had won an international contest to become Ford’s “Face of the 80s.”

  Stunned, I sat on the bed with the magazine weighing heavily in my hands, two thoughts going through my head simultaneously:

  1. Was that the same girl?

  2. Did I really just blow that opportunity?

  I went to bed discomforted that night. I liked Chris, she was great, a good girl, she was lovely but . . . well, she wasn’t Renée Simonsen.

  The next day, Robert Palmer and I were doing a photo session with Eric Boman, and I asked Robert’s hairdresser, Harry, a well-connected member of the New York fashion elite, if he knew Renée, and could he get me her number?

  He said, “Let me see what I can do.”

  I had to leave New York for a few days, but the moment I got back, I called Harry from a public telephone at JFK and asked eagerly, “Any luck?”

  He said, “You didn’t get it from me, but here it is.”

  I scribbled the number down on my cigarette packet and called her rig
ht away. When I announced myself, I could hear the sneer.

  She said, “Oh you! The asshole!”

  I did some pretty fast dance moves. “I am so, so sorry, I don’t know what was the matter with me. Someone must have put something in one of my drinks. I was just . . . you need to let me apologize. In person.”

  Reluctantly, she agreed to meet that Saturday night. I wrote down her address and said I would pick her up around 8:00.

  This time, I was not going to be so stupid. I left nothing to chance. I rented a limousine and picked her up from her apartment on Fifth Avenue. Took her roses and out to dinner. And on to the Limelight.

  Without a hint of irony.

  Turns out Renée is not just beautiful, she’s a smart girl, funny, sweet. We had a great night. It seemed no effort for either of us. We talked about New York living, the amount of travel we both did, photographers we had worked with, books.

  Maybe I got a little high, but I wasn’t out of control. And by the time I dropped her off back on Fifth Avenue, the morning light was up. In the background, Gershwin could be heard. Maybe this could be the real thing? It was one of those first dates—we’ve all had them—where you get home to your single bed and think to yourself, “Maybe this could be the one.”

  Despite the rather cynical way in which I had gone about setting up the date, we were actually a good fit.

  It would certainly be worth investing some honesty in Renée.

  54 Burnout

  The bills at the Carlyle were killing my accountant, so I bought an apartment in the Park Belvedere, a new building on the Upper West Side.

  I saw the architect’s drawings in the Sunday edition of The New York Times. The location was perfect for the studio—ten minutes by cab—and it was less than a five-minute walk to Central Park.

  There were three apartments on each floor. I chose a two-bedroom north-facing space with panoramic views across the park. When my parents came out to visit me in early spring, I took them to the construction site. It was the highest they ever got with me.

  We all put on hard hats, rode the site elevator to the twenty-seventh floor, and walked out onto the skeleton floorboards; no windows yet in place, the wind whistling around us, shades of Scarface or The Last Tycoon.

  My parents were jet-lagged, bemused, and filled with wonder. Was this the same boy who three months ago had been tearing up sacks full of Christmas fan mail, now leading them out onto the concrete beams above the abyss?

  At dinner that night, I introduced them to Renée, who could not have been more charming. She gave them some comfort that their son now had a little normality in his daily diet of madness. They must have spent a lot of time around about then reassuring each other that I was OK, or that I was going to be OK, that whatever trip I was on, I would be safe.

  In March, Capitol in the US and EMI in London released “Some Like It Hot” as the Power Station’s first single. Smash Hits gave it a cover story, announcing it as “The New Duran Duran.” In the article, Andy is quoted as saying, “It’s healthy that we’re doing these solo things at the moment, it’s getting back to basics and hopefully will result in us making better Duran records. . . . I’m going to get old one day and I won’t be able to do this anymore so now I’ve got the chance I might as well milk it and burn myself out.”

  We celebrated the release of the Power Station album with an appearance on Saturday Night Live. Pamela Sue Martin, Fallon on TV’s Dynasty, hosted along with Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel (aka Christopher Guest). Andy and I loved that. The appearance on SNL was the only time Robert would sing with us live, choosing to finish his next solo album, now with Bernard producing, instead of continuing his walk-on part with the John and Andy show. That album was to be the natural follow-up to the Power Station, and the single “Addicted to Love” put Robert in the superstar bracket.

  Nick, Simon, and Roger had moved to Paris, where they set up their own alternative project, to be named Arcadia, with Alex Sadkin producing.

  I could hardly complain. It would be some time before I got to hear what they were cooking up, so for now I could only imagine. I knew they had a string of guest artists making appearances on the record; it sounded big. Whereas Andy and I were managing ourselves, Nick and Simon stayed with Paul and Michael, who would be thinking that Arcadia was their ticket to the future. That’s where their energy would be going, but I could hardly complain about that either.

  The rift was everything by now, to such an extent that flying to Paris to film the “View to a Kill” video felt like making a sortie into enemy territory.

  This was my first trip away from Renée, and I was determined not to cheat on her, so I made plans to have dinner with Barbara Broccoli, Cubby’s daughter, with whom I had developed a friendship. I hoped a quiet dinner with the producer’s daughter would make sure I got into bed on time, because it was an early call the following day at the Eiffel Tower.

  I got back to the hotel and made my first mistake. I thought I would look up Andy. Where’s my man Andy? He’s gone to EMI studios to see the Rolling Stones! That’s my boy! Right, let’s go!

  Knocking on the glass door of EMI’s Pathé Marconi Studios, I see Keith Richards at the reception desk.

  I call through the glass, “Is Andy in there?”

  He gestures to the security guard to let me in.

  I knew Mick from the Power Station, and I had met Ronnie Wood a couple of times, but I had not met Keith before.

  Andy had already left, but I stayed and hung out. Woody was the friendliest to me, not caught up in the weirdness between Keith and Mick. Charlie Watts was there too, but Bill Wyman wasn’t present, so I got to pick up his bass and jam a little Jamaican boogie with them.

  Anita Pallenberg was there. Whoa! She was obsessed, pointing her finger at me accusingly: “You stole my name! You stole my name!”

  I am thinking, “What is she talking about?”

  She has a supporting role in the film Barbarella but we hadn’t taken her character’s name.

  In an effort to placate her, I offered to teach her how to play bass. She softened to that and said she wanted lessons.

  I said, “Great. I promise. I’ll get you a bass and I’ll teach you how to play it. Just don’t be mean to me!”

  I have no idea what time I left, but shortly after daybreak Charlie Watts asked if I would like to have breakfast.

  “I’ve got to go and do a video, Charlie.”

  Should I have had that early night? Of course.

  But, I ask you, what would you have done?

  The filming was tough. It was the worst fucking day. Not surprising, given my complete lack of sleep. But in addition to that, all the band members were on different planets, in different universes. All the video filming was individual shots—Simon does this here, Nick does this there. The directors, Godley & Creme, who had directed Girls on Film so many years ago, had been smart enough to realize they were not about to get a band ensemble performance on this one. Not this time.

  We were too big to get in one frame.

  The on-set photographer, Cindy Palmano, managed to get us together for one group shot in the late afternoon.

  How many times had we lined up together for a band shot over the last five years? We were all naturals. We always had been. We instinctively knew how to ebb and flow with each other, give each other room, set each other off, accentuate the positive. We’d done it in Birmingham, in London, in New York, in Sri Lanka and Montserrat. Everywhere the sun shines.

  But today felt different. There was a distinct lack of ease. It was as if we couldn’t be friends anymore, as if the pressures of what we had achieved had set us against each other. As if the competition between us, which had fired us and inspired us, was about to bring us down.

  “I just need one band shot, guys, one shot. It’ll take five minutes.”

  The five minutes that we were standing together felt like an hour. It was painful. The moment it was over, we scattered to the four winds.

 
55 Is This the End, My Friend?

  Despite the tensions in Paris, we were all present and correct on June 12 when A View to a Kill opened with a charity premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square. The Prince and Princess of Wales were present, and we lined up in our tuxedos to greet them again. None of us were going to miss that.

  I look a mess. The booze is starting to show. I’m overweight and unkempt.

  But as we took our seats and the lights went down, the iconic James Bond title sequence, designed by Maurice Binder and set to our music, flooded the theater. It made all the difficulties in the recording studio and in Paris worthwhile.

  It was also a top night for Jack and Jean, who came away with Roger Moore’s autograph.

  Andy and I decided to tour the United States that summer with the Power Station but, after taking part in the on-air announcement of the tour on New York’s Z100 radio station, Robert did an about-face and bailed.

  Tickets were already on sale, and there was no way my summer plans were going to be spoiled by Robert pulling out. We put out an all-points bulletin for a replacement singer, and Michael Des Barres walked into my life.

  Michael was friends with Miami Vice star Don Johnson and was spending time with him on set in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was our US agent Wayne Forte’s idea to call him. MDB was on the next plane to New York, in time for a launch party at Area, which had superseded Limelight as the New York club de nuit. Renée made her own plans for the summer, believing she needed a break from the New York modeling world. In what I thought to be a rather strange decision, she decided to fly to Israel and sign up for a kibbutz all summer. She hennaed her hair and let her freak flag fly. It was going to be a long, hot, solo summer.

  The magnificent success of Bob Geldof’s Band Aid charity had inspired a team of like-minded American artists, led by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, to record their own fundraising anthem, “We Are the World.” That in turn inspired Bob and promoters Harvey Goldsmith in London and Bill Graham in San Francisco to mount the greatest concert event of the twentieth century: Live Aid.