Let’s Get Serious
1990: Interview With Nick & Warren

September 22^nd 1990, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Amanda remembers: "The last interview was another double interview: with Nick and Warren. To be honest, I was so tired after the first two interviews that I left most of the questioning to Mona. I also don’t remember most of it; it’s mostly a blur of disjointed images. I do remember that they were joking a lot, and were very friendly."



What is in your opinion the best song on the album Liberty?

Nick: My personal favourite is My Antarctica because I think it’s the best slow song we’ve written since Save a Prayer. It is the most unique of all the songs on the record.

Warren: I’m in between Antarctica and Serious. They’re both very emotional songs and I think it’s a great thing that music can bring out the emotional side of a person.

What would you change on the album if it were still possible to change anything?

Warren: We should change the title to Listen Without Prejudice and call George Michael’s album Liberty.

Nick: I don’t think I want to change anything really, because it was what we wanted to do at the time. I can find many things wrong with it now but we’ll just put them right with the next one.

Warren: I don’t think the things you find wrong with it would be found by the normal average listener. It’s personal.

During the recording sessions, which band member is the most stubborn one?

Nick: I think you and I, Warren, probably take that. We’ve had our arguments about Can You Deal With It.

Warren: Yes, but we have the biggest sounds in the band. We add all the colours and all the textures. Besides the background vocals, which add a lot of stuff too. Nick will lead the chords or I’ll lead the chords; he’ll lead the melody lines or I’ll lead the melody lines. We have to decide what’s more important there. I might be really set in what I did and he might be really set in what he’s done, so we say, ‘okay, which is more important in this song?’

Warren, what did you think of Duran’s music before getting involved with it?

Warren: I was impressed. The quality of production and the structure of the songs were always right up there with the rest as far as hit singles were concerned, and great videos. At the time, when I was in another group, Missing Persons, they were our competition. We were on the same record label and we wanted to sell as many records as them. All bands look at other bands to gage how successful they are. Now we’re a better band and a lot of people should start listening to what we’re doing now. I think we’re an important group for this new decade.

In an article it was said that playing with Frank Zappa gave you instant professional credibility. Do you think this credibility will reflect on Duran’s image?

Warren: I hope it does, but I think when they see the name Duran Duran they just don’t pay attention to anything that’s going on. Until we make a song that is going to completely suck these people in that are anti-Duran Duran, I don’t think they will even notice who is in the band. I don’t know what puts people off about the band, because I think the records have been consistently good. There has been nothing that deserves that kind of treatment, nothing musically done that deserves that kind of negativity. It all has nothing to do with the music and we’re in the music business, so explain it to me. I don’t understand it. I hope there’s at least ten people in each city that we go to that say, ‘oh yea, Warren played with Frank Zappa. Great, he’s with Duran Duran now’. Or I hope from the people reading these interviews that they start paying attention to our music. If it’s because of me or something Nick said or something Sterling said. I just want people to start taking notice of what we do and listen to it seriously.

Despite the negative attitudes of the press, a lot of people remain loyal followers of Duran Duran. How do you feel about that?

Nick: Very good. It’s a good job they do. It enables us to keep making the records and it is important for us to know that we’re making somebody happy out there. We make records that we’re happy with first of all, but we obviously want to communicate with other people and give people entertainment. I love listening to other people’s records.

Warren: We’ve all grown up with music that maybe the masses didn’t listen to but us… If Nick had this Bowie album or I had this Frank Zappa album that maybe only sold minimal amounts of records in comparison to the other records that were out at the time – a Frank Zappa album compared to Saturday Night Fever is completely dwarfed. Or a Bowie album compared to the Bay City Rollers. Bowie could have put out Heroes in the same year the Bay City Rollers could have put out an album that sold millions and the Bowie album only sold a couple of hundred thousand copies, but it is probably one of the best albums of the seventies. But to us those records were really important. They might even have changed our lives. So it’s great to have people who stick by you and care about and listen to the music. It doesn’t matter how many people there are. It almost outweighs the negativity, just knowing that you can reach someone with the music. Since we’ve always been music fans ourselves. That’s why we’re in a band.

You all behave differently towards the fans. Do you ever talk about them amongst yourselves?

Warren: Only the ones we’ve slept with…

We could have expected such an answer...

Warren: I suppose we do. Everybody has got their own little fan stories.

Nick: There’s a couple that made it onto the album. There’s Claudia, she’s on the album and an Italian fan, Sylvia. She’s on the album too. That was fun.

How important are the fans in your lives?

Nick: How important? Oh it’s very important to us that they continue to support us, of course. That’s what keeps the whole thing going. The one thing I would say about our fans is that, more than any other band that I know, once we seem to get hold of somebody’s interest, they seem to be very loyal, very loyal. There are examples, Elvis Presley. You think of Elvis Presley fans being there forever. It’s great; of course it means a lot.

Don’t you ever get tired of fans following you around everywhere?

Warren: If they stop following us around, I don’t think things would be too good at that point. No, not really. No one is very… people know when to stop. Most fans respect it if you say, ‘please, I want to be alone’. We’re all human and everybody knows that when you’re not feeling good you want to be alone and should have your space.

Duran Duran have played the large stadiums, but also the small clubs. Which do you prefer?

Nick: It depends. It’s good to play small clubs because it’s much more intimate and people get to see you closer and feel the atmosphere more. But then playing bigger arenas and stadiums can be really good if you make the show right for that kind of thing. I mean, the Big Thing show that we had for arenas was a lot more interesting than the club show, but musically the club show was more intense.

What would you like to achieve with Duran Duran in the future?

Nick: I think we’ve just go to continue achieving what we are already, which is making great modern records and continue to do some live shows. It would be nice if more people start realizing how good the records are, that’s something we ought to try to achieve during the nineties. We should put out more records, that’s very important.

Warren: That’s why we’re going to do another album.

Nick: I don’t think we put out enough recorded work in the eighties. We spent too much time touring. When we go on tour it won’t necessarily mean that we’re going on a world tour. Maybe we just do Europe. Or just do America, then make another record and then do the next bit. I don’t see the tours being as extensive and worldwide as they were before. Maybe once in the nineties.