![]() ![]() The key to the group transcending the back rooms of Birmingham pubs came with their installation as house band at the Rum Runner, the city’s portal for emerging music trends. ![]() Now fully staffed, and having named themselves after a character in Jane Fonda’s campy, sci-fi sex romp Barbarella, the newly-christened Duran Duran were intent on putting Birmingham on the musical map, bridging the gap between the scintillating synth-pop that was defining London’s club scene and the punky new wave of Manchester. Realising their four-man line-up placed limitations on the kind of music they could make, they recruited drummer Roger Taylor (a previous acquaintance from the Birmingham music scene) and guitarist Andy Taylor via an advert in the Melody Maker. In this format, the group began cultivating a unique sound which com prised elements of all the artists they loved. Roles within the group would change sporadically as new members joined and quit, but the original line-up revolved around Stephen Duffy as singer and lyricist (plus occasional bass and drums), Simon Colley on bass, John Taylor on guitar (he moved on to bass after Colley left), and Nick Rhodes playing the synthesiser. “But we knew that was just something we would have to learn, an obstacle that was getting in the way of what we really wanted to do – which was being in a band somehow.” Read more: Top 40 Duran Duran tracks – year by year Duran Duran: Making The Wedding Album “None of us even knew how to play an instrument at that time,” Nick Rhodes later recalled to the BBC. Inspired by their idols’ own escape from the mundane and the everyday by transforming themselves into otherworldly beings, the trio decided that forming a band would be their passport to superstardom. The brainchild of Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Stephen Duffy, three friends who shared an obsession with David Bowie, Roxy Music and the Sex Pistols, the group was born of a fervent desire to eschew the monotony of a life mapped out in the grey, grim setting of industry and manual labour, choosing instead to embark on the infinitely riskier yet glamorously glitter-strewn trail blazed by their musical heroes. However, becoming the biggest band in the world came with a hefty price tag…Īs the dying embers of punk gave birth to a new wave of flamboyantly-dressed club kids who pouted, preened and posed a trail across London’s West End in the late 70s, 100 miles away, a Birmingham five-piece with killer hooks to match their looks were honing a sound that would not only make them one of the defining acts of that stylish subculture but would also give the New Romantics their name. From dingy pub back rooms to tropical climes, the glamour and excess of the Duran Duran success story defined the 80s. ![]()
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