(He is still good looking.) He is dressed in a long coat and a winter scarf, his bangs falling into his face, and he appears embarrassed. That would be John Taylor, 34, the group's bassist and heartthrob, for whom teen-age girls were once known to fall down and weep. Garcia realizes that a reporter from a publication other than his own is furiously taking notes on these scoop-ettes and asks her to leave.Ī short limousine ride away is the "cute one" of the group, who is shooting an advertisement for Saks. Garcia just played is not among his favorites. LeBon discloses that he watches only the Discovery Channel, that he loves Island Sunset tea, that the INXS song that Mr. "I've got three kids, and those are mouths to feed," he said, giving the fib to the notion that Duran Duran is a walking symbol of protracted adolescence. They chat about why the band keeps going. "Do you by any chance have a cup of tea?" Dressed in tight jeans, lime green Adidas and a T-shirt with a bunny on the front, he still looks childlike. How long will it take? It will depend on how much musical critique Mr. LeBon will react to the songs, and then they will take a silly picture together. That's why Simon LeBon stretches out on a couch, sunglasses on, in a hallway at Vibe, the hip-hop magazine.Īfter some minutes, Bobbito Garcia, a columnist for the magazine, calls him into an office and describes the format for their interview. Life is hard for those who want to keep the flame burning. People want to remember icons from their youth with the moussed hair and flamboyant costumes, not pushing 40 and hauling three children around. And it has become socially acceptable to admit that you skipped a chemistry exam a decade ago to get tickets for Depeche Mode.īut none of this means that 80's band members are welcome sights, perhaps because their appeal is largely built on nostalgia. Gay discos around the nation pulsate with their electronic beats every weekend.
Radio stations have devoted themselves to musicians from that era like Duran Duran, INXS and Cyndi Lauper. In one sense, bands from the 80's, made and played for the masses on MTV, could not be hotter.
"In a way, it's much more work now because we know what our job at hand is." "The 80's were fabulous to us as a group, then it went down a bit," said Simon LeBon, 36, the lead singer of Duran Duran, in New York last week preparing for a short radio tour to promote "Thank You," an album that includes versions of songs by Led Zeppelin, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan and others. Or hang out in Le Croissant in midtown Manhattan, sipping Snapple and wondering aloud if the place serves steak tartare, while you wait for a limo that should have arrived an hour ago.īut the four members of Duran Duran do these things - rarely together, it seems - to promote their faces and their new album among those who have either forgotten them or dismissed them as the ultimate symbols of a musical culture that is no longer chic to embrace. Or go on the radio at midnight to give advice to the lovelorn after a hard week of shows. Like dress up in a silly overcoat you'd normally never wear, to pose for a Saks Fifth Avenue advertisement. WHEN you're Duran Duran and you've just released an album that all the critics hate and the money isn't what it used to be when you were MTV stars in the 1980's, you do things that you'd rather not.
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