In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran

by John Taylor

  On July 2, we played the Peppermint Lounge in Manhattan, and Robert Palmer came backstage to meet us. We clicked right away. I was a fan of Robert’s music, and he was known for his great style. Nick and I had seen him in concert at the Odeon in Birmingham and loved his most recent album, Clues, which was proving to be a big success for him, particularly the single “Johnny and Mary.”

  Robert and I were opposites in many ways. We had very different ways of tackling similar problems, sartorially and sonically. In him I saw a mentor; in me, I think he saw a fountain of youth.

  I also became friends with Blondie’s bassist, Nigel Harrison, after meeting him at an after-hours club. Blondie were preparing for their first tour in several years, and I floated the idea to him of having us as their opening act.

  After a show in Boston, the Duran tour made its way westward across the continent, taking in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. By the time we reached the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles for the final performance, we had gotten the official offer to join Blondie in Kansas for nine dates, taking us back east.

  This would give us an opportunity to play larger stages in front of bigger crowds in America, as their tour venues were averaging around the 10,000 capacity mark.

  In Los Angeles, Nick and I both met new girlfriends. After the Greek Theatre show, I went to Club Lingerie on Sunset, where I met a girl named Bebe Buell. She was the inspiration for Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs to write “Pretty in Pink,” and she had a daughter, Liv. At the time, she had said Liv’s dad was Todd Rundgren, but it was later revealed Liv’s dad was actually Steven Tyler. She was a model, singer, and muse.

  Sunday, while I was sleeping in, Nick went on a boat trip, floating lazily along the Santa Monica coastline. On board, he met Julie Anne Friedman, also a model, from Des Moines, Iowa—and his future wife.

  Love must have been in the air.

  Two days later, at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, Andy got married to Tracey Wilson, who had been his sweetheart since she gave him his first haircut. I was an extremely hungover best man. Andy had to rouse me, after not a lot of sleep, reminding me that the tuxedos had to be rented and the preparations made. He actually trusted me with the ring. For a few hours.

  Andy’s wedding was further evidence of Duran Duran’s rapidly expanding movable feast, with many of our friends flying in from England for the occasion. There was not to be a honeymoon for the Taylors, however. Tracey went back to England and Andy flew on to Kansas with the rest of us to join the Blondie tour.

  As we had on the Hazel O’Connor tour, we gathered around the mixing desk every night to watch Blondie begin their show, Debbie descending onto the stage in a glass elevator before singing one of our favorites, “Rapture.”

  It was interesting to watch and learn, up close, the level of stagecraft and theatrics needed to play to the bigger open-plan American venues.

  We bonded with Blondie’s drummer, Clem Burke; Nigel; and guitarist Eddie Martinez. Debbie Harry and her partner, Chris Stein, were elusive, and it was hard to make a connection with them.

  On Saturday, August 14, the tour arrived at New Jersey’s Meadowlands Arena, with former New York Dolls front man David Johansen added to the lineup, which had to make it one of the coolest bills we were ever on. The most significant thing that happened that night was meeting two guys who showed up backstage, friends of Debbie’s who would become great friends and mentors of ours—Nile Rodgers and Tony Thompson of Chic. We bonded in the backstage bathrooms over white powder and mutual admiration; Brummie man-love meets Manhattan man-love.

  “You guys are awesome!” says Nile.

  “Man, we fucking love you!” say I.

  “Hear, hear,” says Tony, offering me a bump.

  I take it.

  “You’re the reason we’re here,” I enthuse, the words getting a little strangled as the line bites.

  “Why, thank you, my good man,” says Tony.

  The debonair shtick that Chic had always put on was for real.

  “You guys are the reason I started playing bass.”

  Exaggeration was assumed as part of any coke rap, although what I was feeling for Tony and Nile was genuine.

  Nile turns to Tony. “Where are we going now, Theodore?”

  TONY: “You keep calling me Theodore and I ain’t going anywhere with you, man.”

  Wherever these guys were going, I was going with them.

  “Let’s go the Studio,” says Nile.

  Recording studio?

  Studio 54.

  Nile likes to tell the story of how “Le Freak” was written after the night that he and Bernard Edwards (the bass player in Chic) got turned away from Studio 54. The song was originally entitled “Fuck Off.” But by August ’82, Nile was a king of the Manhattan night. The DJ played a Duran song when we came in the door with him. It was the crowning achievement for a band born out of the Rum Runner club scene.

  • • •

  MTV was beginning to appear in a few states, and they were playing us a lot. Our records were being feted in a big way on the channel, and we were selling well in MTV territories.

  What we weren’t getting was any mainstream radio play. “Hungry like the Wolf” had been serviced to the powerful FM stations a second time but still to no avail. However, EMI in London were determined that we get a hit in the United States, because London could see that if Capitol could not get the band going commercially, the company could lose us worldwide, as our contracts would soon be up for renegotiation. EMI insisted Capitol pull out all the stops.

  Paul and Michael were desperate to have a hit in the United States too. They got their hands on a market research document called “the Abrahams Report.” It was an analysis of all the sounds that were most appealing to FM radio programmers. It literally spoke of the “John Bonham drum sound” and the “stereo guitar sound typified by AC/DC and Van Halen.” If you were trying to sell refrigerators to Middle America, this report claimed, the people most likely to buy your products liked these sounds.

  “We need to take notice of this, chaps. This is how we are going to get on radio here,” said Paul.

  I was appalled at the idea that we should remix our perfect album to cater to these philistines, but Andy and Nick listened, and I am glad they did. They went into the studio with producer David Kershenbaum and remixed side one of the Rio album with the intention of making the songs more FM friendly. The guitar levels were raised, the overall sound made punchier, but the integrity of the tracks was not compromised.

  Rather than replacing the album tracks with the new mixes, Capitol released them as a stand-alone extended-play 12-inch single entitled “Carnival.” With it, they launched a third and what would prove to be entirely successful attack on the American rock radio establishment.

  Our first US hit was the remixed “Hungry like the Wolf.”

  Back in London, Nick went straight into the studio to finish up the Kajagoogoo project. Which made me jealous. I wanted a side project too. I told Dave Ambrose I wanted to make a record with Bebe, a version of the T.Rex song “Get It On.”

  “Really, John, can she sing?” said quiet Dave.

  “I think so.”

  The recording with Bebe got put on ice after the English tabloid press pointed out quite how many other musicians she had dated before me. We broke up, and the idea of covering “Get It On” was filed away.

  39 Coffin Sex

  What is it about Munich?

  On October 5, 1982, our tour bus was rolling down the A9 autobahn from Berlin. This was our second trip to Germany but the first time Munich was on the date sheet. The tour had started in the North, in Hanover, then gone to Bochum and Hamburg before playing the Berlin Sektor on October 4.

  We had a bus, which was unusual for us, and were sleeping half on it, half in hotels. Three-star hotels. Duran never really took to the bus life. Not that anyone ever said, “I don’t like sleeping on a bus, let’s not do it anymore”; it was just another example of o
ur collective consciousness. We tried it in Europe in ’82 and never did it again.

  In truth, I wasn’t getting much sleep.

  I was squeezed into one of the bus’s eye-level bunks, mid-fuselage, with Paul and Mike Berrow’s younger sister, Amanda.

  Is there any form of fornication less pleasant, less comfortable, than at mid-afternoon on a rumbling old tour bus?

  Coffin sex. Capsule sex. The smells of sweaty socks and diesel. No air. I should have been over this; this was high school stuff. Trying to get her bra unhooked, fingers down the panties—you know the drill. Fumbling and ridiculous.

  To be fair, we both knew that this wasn’t love, and neither of us had a great deal of enthusiasm for what was taking place, but in the moment, she was a girl and I was a boy.

  When we arrived in Munich, we checked into the Hilton. There was no Duran show that night, so the local promoter suggested we go see Kool and the Gang perform at the Circus Krone.

  I must have scored some blow before the concert, because all I can remember of it is a blur with a beat. We stood at the back and left before the end. We went on to a nightclub, the Sugar Shack, and who should be there but Roxy Music.

  This was the first time I had met my childhood heroes since waiting to get their autographs under the awning of the Holiday Inn in Birmingham, a long seven years ago, in 1975. Bryan knew we were fans and invited us to join them at their table in the VIP section for champagne.

  It should have been a moment to savor—a schmooze with the band we had loved for so long, an opportunity to exchange numbers, maybe put down a tent peg for a future collaboration—but my drug craving was keeping me restless. I could not keep still. From the bar to the restroom, back to the lounge and the VIP table, then off again. A moving target, I couldn’t relax. My constant thirst needed slaking.

  Then the night turns black. I am back at the hotel in Roger’s room, and he is sitting on the bed, covered in blood, and someone is telling me that he has been involved in a fight at the club. He’s just back from the hospital.

  What happened? How did I miss it? Is Amanda wearing white? And why, more importantly, is she nursing his wounds?

  I am suddenly consumed with jealousy over the attention that Roger is getting from Amanda. So jealous that when I leave the room to go back to my own room, I punch my right fist through a glass light fixture mounted on the wall. There is blood everywhere. My right hand. Fuck. I may be drunk, but I am conscious enough to know I am in big trouble.

  I go to Andy’s room and wake him up.

  I can’t remember going to the hospital but I did go, and I had several stitches. I wouldn’t be able to play again for some time. The rest of the German dates had to be canceled and everyone flew home the next day.

  Almost thirty years later, the scar on my right index finger—my very necessary, playing, pulsing lead finger—still pains me when the weather is damp and cold. It’s like one of those old war wounds that veterans talk about.

  How did I feel about this obvious meltdown, and causing such disruption to the band? Embarrassment. Shame.

  I was getting as much attention as any twenty-two-year-old ever deserved to get, and certainly as much as any of the other band members. I didn’t need to sabotage myself to get more.

  So why did I?

  Fear? Fear that it was all going to be gone in a matter of moments? That deep down I was not deserving of all the success and attention I was getting?

  I am trying to live away from home, live on the road, live out of suitcases and tour buses and hotel rooms and not die of loneliness.

  I missed home.

  I missed Mom and Dad.

  I didn’t know that then. It’s taken me years and many therapist-dollars to figure it out. In my self-centered fear and loneliness, I just cracked. I never gave one thought to the consequences.

  The organization did, however. The next scene played out a few days later in the Rum Runner office, with all band members and Paul and Michael present.

  I was the naughty boy in the principal’s office.

  They expressed sympathy and concern—poor me, with my right hand bandaged and in a sling—and they were all in agreement that losing the remaining German dates was not the end of the world, that we could overcome this slight setback in our scheme of things. However, there were three sold-out shows in Portugal, where the band was top of the charts, that could not be canceled so easily.

  They told me that I would still be going along to do all the peripheral stuff—the press conferences, TV interviews, etc.—but another bass player would be coming in to play my parts for the shows.

  I accepted the news with grace. What else could I do? And they were quite clear that this must not happen again. What would happen if it did went unspoken and was left hanging in the October air.

  Five days later, we arrived in Lisbon. At the airport, we had the latest of our many encounters with the local press, in which we would imitate the Beatles and they would imitate the press that interviewed the Beatles.

  And I was back in my role as swinger-in-chief, not going to let any of that get me down. My shit-eating grin was back, laughing off any problems I or we may have been having. Only at that evening’s concert, standing alone on the side of the stage, watching my band perform without me, did I pause for any introspection. My stand-in was a thoroughbred pro and had no difficulties in learning my parts.

  The conclusion was gut-wrenching. I was not an irreplaceable component to the machine anymore, and that seed of self-doubt would fuck with me for years.

  Was Munich to blame? I pretended so.

  40 Jacobean

  A December British tour brought us back to Birmingham after a year away, living in hotels.

  We booked into the Holiday Inn for the nights of the shows. After the last concert, and the traditional party at the club, it was time to go home.

  I had to think twice about that. Home? Mom and Dad’s? Simon Road? I was still living at my parents’! How could that be?

  I wasn’t still there because I couldn’t afford my own place; we were making real money now. I just hadn’t had the time to think about where I would live and to physically make the move.

  Or was it more than that? There was an undeniable comfort in being able to go home, however infrequently, after all the traveling and the madness, to Mom’s cooking and the familiar sounds and smells of the house I had grown up in.

  One of the innovations that I brought to Simon Road from my on-the-road experiences was a “Do Not Disturb” sign handmade out of cardboard. It even had “Please Clean Room” written on the other side. Mom got the message even if Dad didn’t.

  Dad was good, though, when it came to handling my first exposure to a sexually transmitted disease. I contracted crabs in the United States and thought I had gotten rid of it. But in the shower at Mom and Dad’s I scratched away at some scabby thing on my chest and the little fucker went scuttling away down my leg. Dammit!

  I knew this one was not for Mom.

  Dad rose to the occasion admirably. There was no judgment, simply, “You better not let your mother know about this.”

  He took off all my bedsheets and secretly put them into the washing machine, practically boiling them down to paper, then got me the necessary meds from the local pharmacy.

  It was a good, if unusual, father-son bonding experience.

  Almost proudly, he admitted, in an unusual show of candor, that “picking the lice off his pals’ skin and hair” was something he had learned in the prison camp.

  “We all stood in line, each of us going through the hairs of the man in front.”

  It was the first time that he had relayed to me any sense of the deprivations of prison-camp life.

  But it was too late. I was not in the mood to hear about it now.

  I just remember thinking, “How useful.”

  But the buddy movie moment did not last, and I knew I could take no more of living at home when Dad came stomping up the stairs the following day and banged
on my bedroom door, saying, “You’re not on bloody tour now, you know. Turn that music down!”

  I had to find my own place, and fast.

  I chose a two-bedroom first-floor flat on Jacoby Place, Edgbaston, ten minutes from the city center, and, in a mad flurry of credit card and checkbook purchases, filled it with European furnishings from the better local stores: Roche Bobois and Ligne Roset. Dad painted the flat and laid the carpet for me. The color scheme was pure 1982; gray sofa, black glass coffee table, and a single burgundy wall, with a Patrick Nagel portrait of Joan Collins to the right of the bookshelves. Nastassja Kinski by Richard Avedon hung above the bed.

  I spent no more than a dozen nights in that Jacoby place.

  Madness? I was just getting started.

  We flew back to New York for New Year’s Eve to take part in MTV’s coming-out ball at the Savoy.

  We had been introduced to Andy Warhol on our first visit to New York and had got to know him a little. Over the years to come, Nick would become great friends with him. After our performance, I was drinking at the bar when Andy wandered over, sipping his drink through a straw. He leaned into my ear and whispered conspiratorially, “You should be the singerrr.”

  “No thanks, Andy,” I said.

  41 The Year of the Geographic

  1983 was the year of the geographic. A “geographic” is a term used in addiction and recovery. When a person finds some fact of their life unacceptable, they try to escape dealing with it by changing location. Change the backdrop, change the geography; that way you don’t have to change yourself.

  January saw the assault on the American charts of the Rio album and the “Hungry like the Wolf” single. They would peak at number 5 and number 3, respectively, in March, just two of the many numbers in this year that would stagger us, as Duranmania began to grip the world.

  Capitol saw the chance to cash in and relaunched the first album. They updated the car photograph on the cover with something from a more recent shoot that represented the band’s democratic philosophy and popularity—i.e., we were all the same size—and changed the graphics so the album aesthetically matched the style of “Is There Something I Should Know?”—the latest single, which we had recorded in January but was bolted onto the older album for the US release. That album would be platinum by the summer. I guess we wouldn’t be leaving EMI after all.