Duran Duran - No Ordinary World
By Troy Schmidt
An interview with Nick Rhodes, Warren Cuccurullo
& Simon LeBon at Hard Rock Cafe, Manchester for their opening
celebration
HARDROCK.COM: We are in Manchester but you
guys are not from Manchester.
Warren: No, no.
Simon: Good guess. How could you tell?
HARDROCK.COM: I don't know. How does one tell? What do people from
Manchester look like?
Simon: Well, there's quite a few. (looking around) There's one.
Nick: There's a young chap over there. A beautiful young lady over
there.
Simon: It's not so much the look, it's more the sound.
Warren: That's it. You have to tune in.
HARDROCK.COM: You've been spotted in a few
documentary films, but have you thought about doing anything feature
length?
Simon: We've made a feature length documentary.
Warren: We just haven't edited it yet.
Simon: We've made two and there's another in the can getting edited.
HARDROCK.COM: What's it about?
Simon: Us…our favorite subject.
Warren: It's about 68 hours at the moment.
Nick: It's about our tour this summer in America. It's just a fly
in the wall sort of thing.
Simon: More like a fly in the ointment sort of thing.
HARDROCK.COM: You have a song Hallucinating
Elvis…
Simon: Still got it. We're going to play it tonight.
HARDROCK.COM: What Elvis song do you like to cover?
Simon: Suspicious Minds. Jailhouse Rock. King Creole.
Nick: In the Ghetto, how about that one?
Warren: Hounddog.
Simon: One Night with You.
Nick: Teddy Bear, that's my favorite. Definitely.
HARDROCK.COM: You guys really pioneered videos.
Do you see them as important today as they were back then?
Simon: They are as important but they are important in a different
way. They were important then because they were new and everyone
was fascinated, riveted. They're important now because they are
a staple in promotion and marketing.
Warren: They are so prevalent. People now won't even listen to the
radio. They'll listen for new music on video and television.
HARDROCK.COM: It seems you can't even see a whole video on television.
Simon: That's because there are too many rude words printed on their
T-shirts and hats.
Nick: And coming out of their mouths.
Warren: We like that though.
Simon: You can only pixilate so far.
Nick: We should come out with the first fully pixilated video. (Laughs)
Warren: Electric Barbarella was kind of like that.
HARDROCK.COM: You had your near-fatal windmill
accident on the "Wild Boys" set…
Simon: Can I just clarify that? There really wasn't a near fatal
accident.
Nick: We did get a parking ticket.
HARDROCK.COM: Any other things that have occurred on the sets of
your videos?
Simon: Yes, but we're not allowed to talk about them. For legal
reasons.
HARDROCK.COM: How have videos changed since
the 80s?
Simon: They got more expensive. As the medium developed, all the
good simple ideas got used up very quickly. People had to throw
more money at them.
Warren: Yeah, but you couldn't make a video for $5,000, if the idea
is right.
Nick: You know what I will happen. It will all start coming around
full circle. We started making our first videos on video. We moved
on to 16mm film, then 35mm film. Now, I think with digital video
technology, it's so easy to make videos on video again. And they're
great quality. So hopefully it'll get back towards great ideas,
instead of flinging a load of money at big productions.
Warren: There was this thing with Moby, he was auditioning guys
for a video, to dance. When they found the guy they liked…they
used the audition video and the video cost $800 bucks.
HARDROCK.COM: What did videos cost when you were doing them? They
were very low-tech.
Nick: No, our videos were very low-tech. I think our "Planet
Earth" video was done for less than 10,000 pounds.
Simon: Then we went to Sri Lanka and did three videos…Hungry
Like the Wolf, Save a Prayer, and (something) Nightmayer. We made
them for about 30 grand.
Warren: Yeah, but the private jet cost 2 million. (Laughs)
Nick: We flew economy Air India.
Simon: That's right. Economy Air India.
HARDROCK.COM: In your song "Too Much
Information", do you think people are getting bombarded by
too much information?
Nick: Yeah, without a doubt. There's so many cable channels, so
many radio stations, so many Internet sites, newspapers, new magazines
coming out, there's too much to take. It's hard to make your selections…people
have to decide what it is they are really interested in.
HARDROCK.COM: Maybe the answer you stop making videos and albums?
Nick: That's true. Make room for us.
Simon: That's not the answer for us. If someone else wants to stop,
they can.
Warren: We didn't say there's too much information. We said there's
too much entertainment.
Simon: Too much info-tainment. Advertorial.
HARDROCK.COM: Maybe too much of the wrong information?
Nick: It's all subjective, isn't it.
Simon: I don't think that's the point…it becomes a point of
perspective.
Warren: I like having a choice of four different news channels,
five Discovery channels…
HARDROCK.COM: Having been the first band
to use live video feeds projected at concerts and the first group
to digitally download a song, what's the next first?
Warren: We were also the first band to do a flash video for broadcast.
The song, Somebody Else Not Me. We had an Internet design company,
the people who design Duranduran.com, make our video.
Nick: Technology is always something we've kept an eye on and I
think if you utilize it properly and make something really great
out of it, it can very rewarding. We're looking at the stuff called
Augmented Reality technology on tour. Basically it means we can
interact with cyber-people and cyber-objects, live time, on a screen
during the show. It's incredible.
HARDROCK.COM: You have about 50,000 websites
dedicated to you guys…
Simon: We have more than that.
HARDROCK.COM: 60?
Warren: We were the first band to have more than 50,000 websites.
(laughs)
HARDROCK.COM: What is a piece of information they don't have on
their websites?
Warren: They've got it all.
Simon: That's a valuable piece of information. You're going to have
to pay for it. Handsomely.
Nick: Obviously, our website, what we're trying to provide information
they can't get elsewhere or at least we give it to them first. Even
though our website has been there for three years, we still view
it as if it is in its early stages. We're going to add a lot more
to it. Be a lot more active on the site in the coming months and
years.
HARDROCK.COM: Your Bond song, A View to a
Kill is one of the best. Who's your favorite Bond?
Nick: Sean Connery. There is only one James Bond.
Simon: Yeah, I agree with that.
Warren: Roger did a great job.
Nick: He's the Saint. Roger Moore's the Saint.
Warren: Pierce was good. But, Sean…he's the one.
HARDROCK.COM: Besides your own, which Bond
song do you think is the best?
Simon: The Shirley Bassey's ones are both great.
Nick: Goldfinger was great. The Nancy Sinatra one…You Only
Live Twice.
Simon: The Carly Simon one, The Spy Who Loved Me.
Warren: McCartney did a good one.
Simon: I like McCartney's. There have been many bad ones.
Nick: There's been a few. (All cough suspiciously).
A Hard Rock hamburger arrives for Simon.
Simon: Oh, yeeeeesss! Does this count as
an endorsement?
HARDROCK.COM: You're going to Russia. What
special trinket are you going to pick up while you're there?
Simon: Nick's recently a single man. I think he's going to get one
of those Natashas. (Nick laughs)
HARDROCK.COM: Have you guys ever contacted
Milo O'Shea (the actor who played Duran Duran in the film "Barbarella")?
Simon: Yeah, we worked with him.
Nick: We did a live movie…and Milo O'Shea came back and played
Duran Duran for us.
HARDROCK.COM: You made him famous.
Warren: He's been in lots of films.
Nick: And he's done some great theater work.
Simon: Absolutely a brilliant actor.
HARDROCK.COM: How has music changed since
the 80s?
Nick: One could say it progressively got worse, but that wouldn't
entirely be true. I think there's been a lot of great things out
there. It's developed. Dance music has developed tremendously. I
think from the mid-80s that really started to blossom into something
that nobody saw coming. Diversified so much. A lot of great new
R&B singers. And some good alternative things. Some good things
coming out a America.
Simon: What about Nelly? I love that. It's so catchy.
HARDROCK.COM: Do you think it's gotten meaner?
Simon: What do you mean meaner?
Warren: Music is always a statement of what people are feeling.
If the people making the music come from deprived areas…the
ghetto…they're going to speak what they're living. It's freedom
of expression.
Nick: I think with the urban music, they've always been a strong
voice.
Simon: Music always got to have an edge. It's really based in reality.
What the gangsta rappers are doing in New York is really a natural
progression from what the Ragamuffins were doing in Jamaica in the
1960s. Jimmy Cliff, Harder They Come, the Harder They Fall. Perfect
example.
HARDROCK.COM: What are you reading?
Nick: Usually I spent most of my time reading magazines, but I recently
picked up a book on the human geno. Which is fascinating, but rather
hard going.
Simon: The what?
Nick: The human geno. It's about how they discovered it all and
how they're unraveling it. It's now all done, they just have to
figure out what it all is.
Warren: The genetic makeup of the human being.
HARDROCK.COM: Are you going to create a human being?
Nick: You never know.
Warren: Maybe the perfect mate.
Nick. You never know.
Warren: I'm finishing up Freedomlands by Richard Price, the guy
who wrote Clockers.
Simon: I'm reading a book called Charlotte Grace by a fellow called
Sebastian Folks (Howard, please check!!!!). It's a love story set
in the econd World War. It's about living and dying and trying to
find love in that time.
Hard Rock Café Manchester, England
12/1/00