Duran Duran is riding high in 2022 with a high profile summer tour on the books and their November 5th induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Los Angeles. Co-founding bassist John Taylor spoke to Spin and discussed where Duran Duran fits into the rock universe, explaining, “I’ve spent 40 years sort of figuring out where we stand in the continuum of 20th century electric music. And I’m okay. I’m good with it. The thing about accolades is that, Duran Duran. . . we’ve always been a people’s band. We were never overlauded by the institutions, and so we don’t live or die by awards. I mean, it’s nice. It’s going to be great to perform. It’s a great opportunity to perform with our peers. I had a fantastic time a couple of years ago, when Simon (LeBon) and I inducted Roxy Music. I really, really had a great time. Yeah. And that’s what it is — and life goes on.”
Taylor went on to say, “We’ve been going a long time. I mean, 40 years is four times the Beatles. If you do anything — if you’re a writer, whatever it is that you do when you’ve been doing for that long — you’ve really had to dig deep. I have to dig deep as a musician, as a bassist, to pick up that bass and practice. I’ve got to have a pretty deep philosophy about what it is I’m doing and what it’s all about.”
He added that keeping a group together for decades is perhaps the ultimate achievement: “We’ve got four out of our five original members (in Duran Duran). And to keep people together like that, and to keep us interweaving — and it not be like, just passive aggression — and just dialing it in to keep it fresh, we all have to dig deep.”
John Taylor admitted that any time the band hits the road or releases new music, they've got a lot to live up to: “You can't take anything for granted. Y'know, and until the tickets go on sale, the record's in the stores, you just can't, y'know, you just can't. But, historically, we know, it can have a big effect on an audience, y'know, if the lights are right. We're hoping that when we take it to the people, they're gonna get it. They're gonna feed off our energy.” (16 OC: . . . off our energy)
