Wild Boy

by Andy Taylor

  “Oh God,” I groaned, realizing that there was more to come.

  “And somebody has scribbled crude drawings all over the mixing desk in indelible ink, and then for good measure they have carved things on it.”

  Oh, no, Rod’s been drawing pictures of cocks on things again, I thought. Then it all came flooding back: I’d been drinking Bacardi 151 (which gets its name from the fact it is 151 proof), then I’d thrown up in the wastepaper bin before relieving myself in it. After that, Rod and I had defaced the studio with marker pens. We fully deserved to get banned, which was a bit of a problem for Rod because he used to do all his best work there. I don’t think it bothered him too much, though, because he later gave me a credit on the album sleeve, billing me as his best drinking partner this side of the Pennines.

  In hindsight, it may have been very troubling for the management, and they used to work overtime to stop me getting him pissed and out on the raz, but what a bloody laugh we had. Sorry, Randy and Arnold, it wasn’t all so bad!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Life Forces: Idols & Influences

  IT always amazes me that nobody in Duran Duran ended up dead. It’s not just the drink and drugs that can be your downfall. There are so many things that you do at such an incredible pace that you never really stop to take account of the damage it might cause to you or your loved ones. The history of rock and roll is littered with too many names of great and talented people who weren’t as lucky at surviving as we were. John Bonham, the Led Zeppelin drummer who started the day with sixteen shots of vodka for breakfast, tragically drank himself to death at the age of thirty-two. Keith Moon of the Who died from an overdose at thirty-one. John Lennon was only forty when an assassin’s bullet claimed his life in 1980. Kurt Cobain killed himself at just twenty-seven . . . the list goes on and on. Some of these were people who greatly influenced me, but I never wanted to pay for my success with my life. When I spoke to John in that car in LA back in 1986, I genuinely feared that sooner or later one of us would die unless we changed our ways. When I think of how many dangerous incidents we survived between us, I still think we really were blessed with having nine lives.

  Sadly, not everyone who worked with Duran Duran was as fortunate. When I look back over the years at all the great times we had, it’s with mixed emotions because there are so many absent friends who are no longer with us today. Among them are Colin Thurston and Alex Sadkin, the two producers who helped Duran Duran to achieve our greatest successes. It also seems unbelievable that John Taylor and I are now the only surviving members from the original lineup of the Power Station. Bernard Edwards, Robert Palmer, and Tony Thompson all died long before they deserved to.

  Bernard was the first to leave us, passing away on April 18, 1996, at the age of just forty-three. He died in Japan shortly after coming offstage from doing the thing he loved most, playing rock and roll. Nile Rodgers was with him when he was taken ill shortly before the show that evening, and he begged him to postpone the gig. Bernard insisted on playing, even though he had to be helped while onstage during the performance. Nile found him dead in his hotel room a few hours later. The cause of death was pneumonia: he’d given everything he could to the job he loved.

  Robert Palmer died from a heart attack in Paris in 2003 at the age of fifty-four. The last time I saw him alive was at the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Roppongi Hills in Tokyo about three weeks before his death. Duran Duran had just re-formed (which is a whole story in itself that I’ll tell you in the next chapter) and Robert and I celebrated by sharing a wild weekend together when we met up by chance while we were both performing in Japan.

  It wasn’t the first time we’d spent a lost weekend together. Robert was a connoisseur of everything liquid. His partying was very enjoyable and used to happen in spurts lasting days—it was the going home afterward that was always the difficult bit! He once invited me on the spur of the moment to join him and his girlfriend, Mary, for a weekend at his château in the mountains above Lausanne in Switzerland.

  We’d been working together in 1997 to promote our ill-fated second Power Station album, which was a project that began full of hope but became beset by tragedy when Bernard died and John went into rehab. This left just Robert, Tony Thompson, and me as the only ones involved, but Robert didn’t allow our depleted numbers to dampen his enthusiasm for life.

  He’d been working with EMI for many years, so he had a very good relationship with them. This was at a time when money was still no object for a record company, and spending was something that Robert had down to a fine art. He wasn’t exactly selling boatloads of records at this particular stage, but he was determined to make sure the record company continued to look after him as if he was, and you had to admire his attitude. He was very gentlemanly about it all, but he would insist on staying at the very best hotels at EMI’s expense while we promoted the album.

  I agreed to let Robert make all the bookings because I knew EMI would be happy to do things on his terms, which suited me fine. We enjoyed a fabulous few days in Paris before moving to London, where we played a gig in a club and stayed at the sumptuous Landmark Hotel in Marylebone.

  “Why don’t you jump on the plane and join me in Switzerland for a few days?” Robert said to me as the week drew to a close. “We can write some songs together.”

  What the hell, I thought, why not? I rang Tracey and explained that I wouldn’t be home for a couple more days, and before I knew it I was on a plane (with her blessing, I hasten to add). We took a commercial flight out of the UK, then changed at Geneva before catching a private plane for the short hop to a landing strip at Lausanne, which is a beautiful little French-speaking town on the northern shores of Lake Geneva. Lausanne is famous for its medieval cathedral, which is regarded as Switzerland’s finest gothic building because of its elegant turrets and spires. It’s very impressive, although at night I would imagine it must look just a tiny bit like a classic version of Frankenstein’s castle.

  We traveled by car for the rest of the journey up into the mountains to Robert’s home, which could be reached only by a single road that crossed a gushing Alpine river. Robert, as you can imagine, was a fabulous host. We were joined by some friends of his who owned a restaurant nearby, and they’d arranged for a banquet of Michelin-quality dishes to be delivered—and, of course, Robert’s wine cellar contained nothing but the finest vintages. His château was decorated in classic style with lots of dark oak, but the grand old bedrooms felt slightly austere when you pulled down the shutters to lock out the howling night. Never mind Frankenstein, I thought. “Welcome to Dr. Palmer’s Château: you can come on in for the weekend, but don’t expect to get back your liver in one piece!”

  It was just as well Robert had laid on plenty of food, because shortly after we arrived the heavens opened and torrential rain flooded the river, which meant we were now cut off from the rest of the world. We needn’t have worried. It turned out to be a wonderful weekend that consisted mainly of Robert and me discussing music and jamming together while slowly working our way through the contents of his wine cellar. Robert would have these intense periods when he would sit down and look at music, then play me what he’d recently written. Before I knew it he was blasting loads of material at me and then making notes as we went through things together and swapped ideas.

  He had the most incredible record collection I have ever seen, which he kept down in the basement where he had a little studio where he loved to hang out. Every single one of his records was on vinyl and alphabetically ordered, and he always kept them in pristine condition (just like his suits). We spent a lot of time down in that studio, and we ended up jamming the blues together. He had a couple of old Fender guitars, which are great for making that sort of sound, although it surprised me because he’d always sworn to me that he’d never record a blues album. I think he must have enjoyed the weekend as much as I did, because later on he changed his mind and did in fact record a blues album—so maybe I helped turn his head a bit!

 
After Switzerland, our paths didn’t cross again until six years later in Japan, where we had a great time boozing and laughing. We didn’t know it then, but it was the last time we would be together before his death. I guess it was fate’s way of allowing us to say good-bye to each other. Duran Duran were in Japan because we were due to perform our comeback shows at a grand old auditorium in Tokyo called the Budokan. Our reunion had caused a lot of excitement, so our concerts were all sold out. Everywhere we went we were followed by hundreds of Japanese fans; they trailed us from the bullet train station to our hotel, and as ever, they always seemed to know in advance where we were traveling to.

  When we arrived in town we were delighted to discover that Robert was due to play a midnight show at a nightclub on the same evening as us. I hadn’t seen him for years, so I arranged to go and meet him after our sound check. Robert was as well groomed and as dapper as ever, impeccably dressed in his suit, and it wasn’t long before he invited me to perform onstage with him that evening.

  “There’s a spare amp so get up and play if you want,” he said.

  I didn’t need to think about it for long.

  “Cool, what time is your set?” I inquired.

  “Midnight.”

  “Midnight it is, then,” I confirmed.

  Later that evening Duran Duran performed in front of an ecstatic audience of 13,000 people. Then I rushed back to my hotel room for a steaming hot bath before going off to meet Robert. When I got there the place was heaving, and the crowds had been swelled by Duran fans who’d heard we’d be arriving. Robert explained that he had a young Japanese band who were backing him and that they’d perform three or four numbers before inviting me on. He also had four girls who were to join him onstage during “Addicted to Love”—nice work if you can get it!!! Robert had a tiny little dressing room, and when I joined him there I saw (for the first time) an unopened bottle of whiskey on the table. I knew that in the past Robert often liked a tipple before going onstage, and I was in the mood for a drink as I had done my “official duties” earlier in the evening.

  “Right, let’s be having one, then,” I said, eyeing up the bottle.

  “Nope—I don’t anymore because I have got to watch the throat and I don’t want to push it beforehand,” replied Robert in his deep Mid-Atlantic/Yorkshire drawl.

  “What, no schnifters before you sing?”

  “No,” he reaffirmed.

  “What—not even one little livener, with your old Geordie mate . . . ?”

  “Just can’t anymore.”

  Bugger me, even Robert’s slowed down now! Never mind, I thought, there’ll be plenty of time later. But does he mean his voice is getting shot? I needn’t have worried, because when we got onstage his voice was as deep and powerful as ever (Old Leather Throat was my nickname for him). In fact it was so loud at times that it was almost scary. He had a full rock tenor voice, and even without a microphone he had the ability to sound like a booming sergeant major. We played a tremendous gig and when we came off it was time for the whiskey, which we then consumed, with honor. After that we went from one set of bars and clubs to the next, drinking merrily to make up for lost time. Before I knew it, it was ten thirty in the morning and I was standing in Robert’s hotel room. We’d been drinking all night without a break.

  “Bloody hell, it’s ten thirty—I’ve got to be onstage in six hours,” I slurred, as the sun blazed down through the hotel room window.

  I was due to be back at the Budokan for a televised show that afternoon and I needed to get it together. I always wear dark glasses during the day, and at times like this they are worth their weight in gold! It was a boiling hot day and the show was very early at four thirty, so it would take a real effort that afternoon. The air-conditioning in old buildings like the Budokan isn’t always as effective as it is in some of the modern venues. Consequently, I was sweating like a pig onstage, feverishly gulping pint after pint of water to stay hydrated. It was so fucking hot . . . eventually it got to a point where a roadie told me I’d had eight pints of fluid and therefore couldn’t drink anymore for risk of water poisoning. Bloody hell, I thought, I better not have another late night with Robert Palmer, as the temperature in the venue exceeded 105 degrees. Ironically, in Japan sweating is considered honorable, and drinking excessive amounts of whiskey is also socially acceptable. After the gig I met Robert in the greenroom (where artists and their guests relax after a show) and he seemed completely unruffled.

  “Fucking hell, chap. That was a long night,” I complained.

  “What the fook are you moanin’ about?” he said. “You never dropped a beat.”

  That was Robert all over: no fuss, just get on with it. But he didn’t stand on ceremony; if I had messed up the show he would have been the first to tell me in the bluntest of terms. That evening we all went back to the Hyatt in Roppongi, which is one of the most modern and high-tech hotels in the world. It’s also got one of the most fabulous wine cellars in the world, which suited Robert’s palate perfectly, and around thirty of us had dinner together there. After a wonderful meal we all went off to a hip-hop club, where Le Bon got up in the middle of the dance floor for most of the evening while Robert and I and his girlfriend, Mary, chatted together. (Simon loves to get up on the dance floor at every opportunity, and God bless him for it, because he’ll always be a front man at heart.) I finished the evening chatting with Robert over a gin and tonic in his hotel room at 3 a.m. It had been another long night, but this time both of us were still relatively sober and we spent the evening reminiscing about all the good times we’d shared. That was the last time I saw him—at 3 a.m. with a gin and tonic in his hand and a twinkle in his eye.

  I was in Ibiza three weeks later, sitting on a rooftop terrace with some friends, when I got a phone call from someone in our office.

  “Sit down, it’s bad news. Robert has been found dead in Paris.”

  It was a terrible blow, but in a strange sort of way I was grateful for the time we had enjoyed in Tokyo. Is this what they mean when they say something is spiritual? I thought. At least we said good-bye. Soon after I received the news of his death I started to deal with media calls. It was no secret that Robert liked to drink a lot, and he had died of a heart attack, so his lifestyle was an obvious angle for the news networks to take. But he deserved to be remembered for so much more than that, so I went live on ITN and Sky TV and I spoke of how fundamentally important he had been to British rock music, one of the few UK singers to ever achieve that level of success in the United States. He was a singer’s singer and a very competent musician with a huge amount of natural ability; he could noodle about on keyboards and guitars and create his own music without having to rely on a whole band to bring his work alive. Singer . . . writer . . . musician . . . he was one of the rare breed that could do all three.

  I can remember looking up at the night sky later that evening and thinking about all the good times we had shared over the years, all the work we had created and sold; and stupid shit like the time we got drunk and dared each other to walk through Central Park in New York at night just for the sheer hell of it (neither of us did it in the end). Or the first man to drink three martinis (one for each shoulder, then the third hits your head), or his Top Five Restaurants (that one was always changing as he globe-trotted). He was very much an alpha male, but he was also a gentleman and he was great with kids. I remember when my son Andy was about ten years old, Robert sat down and spoke to him for hours and hours about music and this and that—he was very engaging with children. Meeting people like Robert is one of the great perks of working in the music industry. You might have thought we wouldn’t have got on so naturally, as we both had a habit of being pretty blunt about things, but we were good friends. It was a pleasure to meet someone like Robert, not just because of who he was and what he achieved, but because underneath I always felt he was just a Northern boy like me who worked very hard.

  Most of all, Robert loved his work and would sleep with a Dictaphone next t
o his bed in case a new song popped into his head during the night. Yet he never let his work get in the way of his zest for life. I can still remember his words when Bernard died and I asked him if he was going to the funeral.

  “No, I don’t think so. He was just a workmate,” he said.

  Robert wasn’t being disrespectful. He was just trying to say that life was for the living and it was better to leave Bernard’s family to grieve in peace. He never liked to be around any fuss. Sadly, I never made it to Robert’s funeral due to work commitments. But I didn’t need to—we’d made our peace in Tokyo.

  TONY Thompson’s death was less sudden than Robert Palmer’s but it was every bit as tragic. Tony died a few months after Robert on November 12, 2003, from kidney cancer. He was age forty-eight, and his demise probably hit me harder than I realized at the time. We’d been out of touch for a few years when I received a phone call from his partner telling me about the cancer. There was a complication with his insurance, which meant he was unable to afford proper treatment in the States, so John and I phoned around to everyone we knew in the music industry and suggested that we all make a substantial donation to a treatment fund. But it was too late—a few days later his partner phoned back and told us he was dead. If only he had told us sooner. Why didn’t we know how far his condition had deteriorated? There are a thousand questions you ask yourself over and over again. But quite simply, that wonderful, gifted, funny man—who had kept our spirits so high during the Power Station—had been too damn proud to ask. One thing we did discover was that he had recently married and for the first time in his life had found true happiness, but I still miss him dearly.

  Another friend of Duran Duran’s who died at a young age was Michael Hutchence, who was found hanging in tragic circumstances on November 22, 1997. His death hit Simon particularly hard, and he later wrote a very moving song about it called “Michael, You’ve Got a Lot to Answer For.” Simon and Michael had been close friends ever since they’d met as young men during our first tour of Australia. Michael was thirty-seven.