John Taylor Discusses Duran Duran’s Longevity In New Apple Music Interview
Duran Duran’s John Taylor recently joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to discuss the longevity and versatility of the group, how shared values kept them together, Simon Le Bon’s power as a vocalist, working with Giorgio Moroder, Timbaland, Mark Ronson, and Nile Rodgers, being influenced by Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’, and much more.
“I mean, our friendships, our relationships, are paramount”, Taylor said in response to Lowe’s question about the group’s enhanced longevity and how they look after their inter-band relationships.
“It’s like what the four of us or how we relate to each other. People ask us all the time, “Do you guys hang out? Do you do this?” No, no. What we do is we preserve the time when we have to be together. When we walk out on stage or we walk into a studio that those are the three most important people in my life at that time. We’ll go to an art gallery or maybe a football match or whatever, but for the most part, we preserve the spirit of our relationship for when it counts, which is when we walk out in front of an audience or show up to the studio to write a song. But relationships are everything and they’re challenging. And if you’re in a creative relationship with somebody, the only way you can work through it is really by not having an alternative.
In the same interview, Taylor revealed how punk influenced the sound of Duran Duran’s new album, Future Past.
“We were thinking a lot about punk rock actually”, he said. “I mean, none of us would be here without punk rock in that moment, 1976, ’77, where it was all about youth. It was all about the less experience you had, the better you were for that moment, to meet that moment. The recklessness of it but also the sense of it was all about you. I think we brought a lot of that to this album.”
Listen to the John Taylor interview with Apple Music in full here.