| Kicking off their U.S. tour on the West Coast, Duran Duran held a
fabulously informative press conference that you should all remember. Here is the fourth
in a series of articles that brings you most of this memorable event.
Q: Is there anyone in particular you would like to produce a Duran
Duran album?
(John) We just spent a lot of time thinking about that for the last album and now it's Ian
with someone we'd met. And we've known Ian from before, he did "Something I Should
Know and Alex was like the only name that we could come up with we liked on Grace Jones''
albums that we could agree on. I don't think there's anybody off-hand that we'd say we'd
like to work with. Nile Rogers is doing a mix of the next single.
(Simon) But in the period of time that it's taken to make these three albums we've found
we're actually getting more involved ourselves.
Q: Do you think maybe you'll do a self produced Duran Duran album?
(Nick) Eventually, one day, yes.
Q: How much control do you have of what goes onto your album or
where you tour?
(Nick) We do it all … yes. We're totally self-controlled. Nobody tells us.
Q: How are you gonna handle trends and fashion? Are you gonna make
your own or do you continue to move with what's hip?
(Simon) I think … we think it's really bad news to get stuck in the fashion if you're
a band, because people will pick you up and drop you just like that. You've got to be
parallel to it or somewhere else, and if people are gonna associate you with fashion it's
your own fashion they're getting into not another one.
(Nick) I think we all believe in individualism really, I mean, in the beginning certainly
we probably had more of a corporate image, where we'd all where the same clothes, it was
sort of similar, but everybody just dresses exactly how they want to.
Q: Were you pleased with the decision to re-release the first album?
(Andy) Yes, because no one had ever heard it over here. It would be nice for people to
hear our first album.
Q: Did you expect such a big reaction when you went to Seattle (at
the start of the tour)?
(Roger) No, we were actually dreading going to Seattle, because…
(John) …last time we played Seattle we sang and played for 500 people. The same day
was Seattle's biggest outdoor gig with Foreigner and Joan Jett!
(Roger) But actually it's the best reaction we've ever had.
(Andy) I checked that day and we played to 660 people the last time and then we played to
12 and a half thousand which was sort of weird in a way - from 660 to 12 thousand!
Q: Compare your '82 performance at the Greek Theatre and last
night's performance (in L.A.)?
(John) Well, Los Angeles is always ahead of everywhere else in America for us. We've
actually sold a lot more albums in L.A. than any other city and when we first came over we
were playing very small clubs. We were actually doing four shows at the Roxy and we were
doing the Greek Theatre on the last tour, it was the only theatre date that we did. So
L.A.'s always been a little bit ahead for us in this country, which is funny actually,
because L.A. never had MTV at the time, and we were more popular here in this city than
anywhere else.
Q: Can you explain the significance of the art work on the back of
your album? What does the map represent?
(Simon) It's a … It's a map isn't it?! It' s just a board game and you get the
pieces. It's just like we said about the adventure story, most adventure stories have an
element of travel in them, we thought we'd put some magical, mystical looking sort of map
on the back to confuse people even more.
(Andy) None of it makes sense, but it really looks good.
(Simon) If you look at it from a long, long, long, long way away, then you might see some
backwards messages and Satanism! (Laughter)
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