Fans always want what they can't have 1994: interview with Simon

November 22nd 1994, "Privacy", London, UK
Mandy remembers: "I was 18 and doing a college course in journalism, which not only gave me plenty of time to see the band but the perfect excuse to ask Simon for an interview. I'd sent him a letter but hadn't got any further in my quest so I went back to the studio ("Privacy", Warren's home studio). Simon arrived and seemed in a good mood so I asked again. 'Oh yes, I've been meaning to phone you about it. You can have fifteen minutes, would you like to do it now?' came the reply. I followed Simon into Warren's house and into the kitchen, where I sat at the table while Simon made me a cup of tea. We sat talking in the kitchen for nearly an hour. Thankfully I had my tape recorder with me but as I hadn't expected to do the interview that day I was totally unprepared and just asked the first thing that came into my head…"


When is Thank You finally going to be released?
Next Spring.

Don't you think you've left it a bit late after the release of The Wedding Album?
No, not really.

You don't think people will have forgotten about you and you'll have to do another come-back?
No. No I don't think so because we definitely had presence in The States up until last Christmas. We played a New Year show so we had that, that was all part of that tour so I don't think it's going to be perceived as a gone-away. We left a really good vibe, so...

And how about Britain?
I don't think that the way Britain is, you don't have to kind of make come-backs at all. You've just got to make good records actually. You've got a situation where if a band's first record is good then it gets into the charts; it's not about building up a fan base. I don't think we've got a very large fan base at the moment. I don't think we would also try and compete with... Who's got a real fan base, so that all the people will just go out and buy their records as they come out? Well, a lot of people actually, but we're not one of those bands at the moment, so we just have to rely on the merit of our work, which, in a way, I think is quite a healthy thing for us anyway.

Are you trying to go about building up a fan base so that you've got a lot of fans in Britain who will just go out and buy your records?
I don't really think that at our stage being in a band is about building up a fan bases actually. You know, guaranteed sales is a very.... I'm sure that's how the record company must think but it's not really where our heads are at at all.

So when you write a record who do you think of; do you think of the fans, the critics?
I don't really know. We just write music that we like. We never write to please anybody apart from our own musical ear.

Is that what Thank You is all about then, pleasing yourselves?
Thank You is... Yeah. Well, it was also an exercise in a lot of fun! It really has been a lot of fun doing it.

It seems to have taken you quite a long time to do it though.
Well, all the tracks were recorded pretty much at the end of the summer. The fact is that we had problems getting the mixes back and we never seemed to get the right mixes so we had to send them off and send them off until we found the right person to mix them all.

There were rumours that it was going to come out last Easter time.
Yeah, it could have done but then we added more tracks and, you know...

Do you think it will do well in the charts?
I haven't got a clue. If it has a single of it that's a success then it will do well in the charts, if it has more than one then it'll do better in the charts. It's like that really.

So when is the single due out?
I reckon after Christmas

Are you planning to tour with Thank You?
We will play some shows but whether you'd call it a tour or not. I mean, nothing like the last tour. Definitely, we'll be playing live shows in America.

How about Europe?
Not sure, we're not sure. I've got really sore eyes today. The swimming pool must have got a lot of chlorine in it!

You spend a lot of time in America.
Yeah well, America's the place that loves us the most, and you've got to look after your best relationship first and foremost.

Don't you think that because you spend so much time in America you've got more fans there? Perhaps if you spent more time promoting yourselves in Britain and Europe you'd have a larger fan base?
(very long pause) Maybe. Maybe you're right, yeah maybe. The feedback I've been getting from fans is that you...
...That we don't spend enough time in Europe, we spend all our time in The States. Yeah well, it just works very well for us over there. I mean that is the bread and butter aspect of it. You can tour America for a whole year and not go to the same place twice and it was important for us to do that with the last album. We're just going to do a kind of cursory tour this time. Then we're gonna... That's what we're gonna do! Then we're gonna build it up. We've got another studio albumⁱ which we're working on now here, which we're going to try and get released probably next autumn so that will be what we're working on now.

So you'll tour with that album?
I don't know if there will be a tour, I haven't got a clue. I should think there will be a tour though because we've decided that TV promotion and radio promotion and all that stuff is a bit superfluous for us, we'd rather get up and play our songs.

How about Italy? You're very big in Italy and they seem to have to come over to England to see you.
We only played three shows there on the last tour. It's a funny country, you're bogged down with odd... The strangest things get you bogged down, like if you get caught up in government policy whether they're going to let bands play in certain places this year or that year; the record company, whether they want to push that particular at that time, and just whether the promoter has his head pointing the same way you do. If he wants you to play, like, ten nights in a 1,000 seater then we're gonna say no, that's not quite where it's at. We just didn't really get it all together on the last tour.ⁱⁱ

Didn't something happen with the promoters?
Yeah, it just didn't work out properly so we decided not to do it. And also I lost my voice and that whole thing affected the whole schedule.

Why do you think that happened?
Quite simply because the schedule that we embarked on last summer, which began with fourteen days of straight rehearsal without a break and then one day off and then our first show in Mexico, and then the whole tour which is a very, very intense performance and every time I went on stage I could feel that my voice was a little bit more deteriorated and I knew that at some point it would catch up and it wouldn't be there anymore, and it just happened at Rotterdam.ⁱⁱⁱ

Have you any plans to go back and do that concert again?
Well, we wanted to, we definitely wanted to but there was a problem because it was a sponsored gig, it was sponsored by Levis, and they obviously didn't want to sponsor it again because they felt that they were burned by the first time. It's just a difficult thing. We'll definitely go back and play in The Netherlands again. I don't know what happened to the people who got tickets, whether they've still got them; maybe we still owe them a concert, I don't know.

They were given a free pair of jeans, that's what I've heard.
Really? How much is that worth?

About 30 or 40 Pounds.
And how much were the tickets?

I should think a lot less.
Well, then they didn't do so bad after all.

I think a lot of people would rather see you...
...Than get a pair of jeans! (laughs)

Do you do exercises now to maintain your voice?
I'm not really big on doing that, I find it a bit unnatural. If it's something that I find difficult to put into my daily routine then I tend not to do it unless I've got a problem. There are definitely warm-up things I work on though, maybe I should do a few more on the next tour but it's nice now because I haven't got a voice problem at all, it's perfectly all right, and, you know, we'll just see what happens. And I think we'll also make sure that the schedule's not quite so intense as it was last time.

On the new album you're working on, what direction are you taking with it?
Well, it's very... at the moment it sounds quite quirky. It's radically different from the last one. It's already radically different. It seems to be much more of a knock-it-up-in-five-minutes kind of a thing, do you know what I mean? Which isn't a bad thing at all. Some of the best groups have used that as their kind of philosophy, I'm thinking of The Sex Pistols and The Clash. It's not taking it too seriously, not trying to make it pompous. We're trying not to make it pompous in fact, keeping it very fresh, very simple. It's all riff-based stuff at the moment. The tunes are not sort of, it's not like a finely crafted album, it's more of a 'Look what we can do'.

I got the impression with the last album that it was all over the place, it didn't seem to have a theme running through it.
Musically you mean?

Yes, with the other Duran albums if I listen to a song I think, yeah, that song belongs on 'Notorious', it couldn't have come from 'Seven and the Ragged Tiger'. But I think with this album the songs on it were very different from each other, and there was no musical theme running through them that you could place as The Wedding Album.
Oh I see. Yes, I know what you mean. I wish it had got more of a theme, but I think that was because it took so long to make and we were kind of desperate at the time. This is, at the moment this is all very kind of held together, very much in one direction. But that's just the musical aspect of it. I don't know what the lyrics are going to be like, I've got a few ideas...

So it hasn't got any lyrics at the moment?
No, not many.

Are you involved with the musical side as well as the lyrics, do you come up with things like bass lines too?
Not bass lines, more the melodies. I write a lot of the melodies. I might also say, well how about if we went into this chord to that chord, you know. How would it chance the song.

With the album Liberty, in the past you have always said that it failed because people were tired of Duran Duran and they didn't want to hear it, but it seems to me that the fans don't like the record either. Why do you think that is?
(Long pause) Why don't people like it? Well I don't like it very much either and that's the real reason of course. It's got some good things on it, but I just don't think it turned out quite right. I also think that maybe the fans, one of the reasons why the fans don't like it perhaps is because it wasn't very successful. You tend to like, you know, a football team tends to be much more popular when they're winning than when they're losing, you know what I mean?

Yes, but your only number one album in Britain was Seven and the Ragged Tiger, and that's my least favourite.
Really? Yeah, I don't like it as much as our other stuff. You like it less than Liberty?

Yes, definitely.
That's a really tough one.

I think it was over produced.
Yeah, I think that was what part of the problem with Liberty was, I think all of the rough edges were smoothed off.

Was part of Liberty's failure the reason why Sterling Campbell left the band?
No. Not at all.

You've always been very cagey about why he left.
Yes, because it was a personal thing and I really think that it would be disrespectful of me to make public everything that went on, disrespectful to him, and I'm not going to do it.

I suppose when Andy and Roger left you learnt your lesson about not saying what went on?
Not so much that I just think that, it wasn't really like that at all, I mean we never badmouthed Roger. Andy kind of, well Andy dumped us in it a bit so we felt we could say something but it just seems so pathetic and kind of domestic and petty, just petty, it was so petty...(gets distracted by the TV) Oh look, elephant polo! Yeah, it just looks so petty and I don't ever want to get involved in that, you know?

So how did you feel when John announced that he was working with Andy on The PowerStation again?
I was quite surprised when I first heard it, but then I started thinking, oh well it makes sense, it makes sense. But I'd met Andy a couple of times and he said he wanted to work with us again.

So there's no animosity between you now?
No, no. It's not worth it.

Have you seen him with Then Jerico?
Yes, I went to see them.

You said in an interview last year^iv 'Beware of splinter groups, that's when the cracks are beginning to show'. Are the cracks beginning to show in Duran Duran again?
I don't think it's quite the same circumstance this time, it doesn't feel like it to me anyway. I don't think John's doing it because he had to get out of Duran Duran for a bit. I think he did it because he had a bit of time on his hands and wanted to do something with that time. I spent the whole summer bumming around in the Mediterranean, he decided to be productive. For better or worse, it doesn't really matter.

Have you heard the album?
Yeah.

Do you like it?
Yeah it's good, it's good. It's got some good stuff on it. Robert is really stretching himself, great bass playing, the rhythm section's fantastic, I think Andy's playing much more interesting guitar than he ever played before. It's really good, it's good stuff. It's very much The PowerStation, you know. It doesn't sound like the old album, it's like, you know, ten years later.

How do you feel about Warren doing solo work?
I'm really happy for him. Warren is, in a way, the most prolific member of the band. He has the ability to make music very quickly, to produce ambient stuff which he can knock up in half an hour, a whole album of it. I'm quite happy for him to do that. I don't really see that as conflicting with the band at all. I think if The PowerStation went on tour then that would be conflicting.

So The PowerStation aren't going to tour?
No. Definitely not.

That's not what I've heard.
Well at the moment they still don't have a record deal, and the album hasn't been mixed so it's still in its early stages. It's not politically a very happy outfit, by that I mean everyone in the band gets on fine but the managers tend to have a bit of a power struggle on their hands, which is sad really because it might stop a really good piece of music from coming out.

So EMI aren't going to release it?
Definitely not, as of now. I mean, if they come along and say yes, we want the deal to release it, maybe.

I wondered if the fact that neither you, Nick nor John attended any of Warren's solo concerts meant that you weren't that happy about him doing them?
Well, I didn't because I had a new baby^v, John didn't because I don't think he was around at the time and Nick didn't because he was definitely tied up in other things.

So you won't be going to the one on Saturday then?
Is there one on Saturday? What's the date this Saturday?

The twenty-sixth.
I might.

It's at the Wembley Conference Centre.
Where's the Wembley Conference Centre?

At Wembley!
Will you go?

Yes, I've been to both of them.
What was it like? Did you enjoy it?

The first one I didn't because it was just so different to what he plays with Duran, and it was turned up too loud as well. But I went to the last one and they'd turned everything down and I liked it because I knew what to expect.
So it was the same show?

Yes, exactly the same show. Have you heard any of his stuff?
I've heard some of his stuff, yeah. I mean, I like some of it but some of it I don't like. But I'm so glad he's doing it outside of the group, that stuff.

It seems strange seeing him on stage with different people.
Yes, I might try to get over and see that. What time is he on stage?

I don't know, you'll have to ask Warren.
Well, I'll see.

How's your baby?
Lovely. Really good, but very demanding at present, as all babies are.

Is she like the other two?
Yes, she looks like them.

Which one?
Well, she looks like both of them to me.

Like you then?
(Smiles) Yeah.

What's her middle name?
(Pause) That's something I don't want to tell anybody.

You're not doing Hello! Magazine this time then?
(Pulls a face) Nah! I mean Amber's got a name that nobody knows about. To everybody she's Amber Rose Le Bon, but she's not, she's Amber Rose something Le Bon. We just think that it's really nice for them to have something that's private. Do you know what Saffron's middle name is?

Isn't it.....? (I tell him what it is)
It is. But we shouldn't let it out like that now, should we?

You only seem to be working on this album for two or three days a week. Why?
It's just the way we work. It's kind of ideas time so you don't necessarily all want to be in the same place at the same time. For me, I've got to try and write lyrics and get into that kind of thing and I find it quite difficult to be there working on a song A while they're working on song B, so I stay out of the way quite a lot of the time.

What inspires you to write the lyrics, is it the same thing that inspired you ten years ago?
Really boring things, ordinary things, you know like everyday things. Little stories I think of, or just ideas.

Do you ever write personal poetry that nobody else ever sees, or is all your creativity put into the band?
I do write poetry pieces, yeah. If it gets any good then it gets turned into a song!

What would you say was the most personal song you've ever written?
(Very long pause) I think probably Hold back the Rain.

Really?
Yeah, at the time it was a real message to somebody^vi.

Your lyrics were always very obscure in the past but they seem to be getting easier to interpret.
They're about to get obscure again actually.

Is that a conscious thing?
No, it's just what comes out really. I think they're most literal on Liberty actually. They're kind of leaping a little bit further away from that now.

When you make videos do you have the ideas yourselves of what you want them to look like?
Oh yeah, sure.

Often bands say that they get someone else in to do it and it was their idea.
Sometimes it is and sometimes you use your own ideas. I always think if you've got your own ideas they're worth twice as much as anybody else's so any band ideas we have we do want to use, definitely.

What's the next single likely to be?
Perfect Day

Have you got a video for that?
No we're working on that now.

You've got a video for Femme Fatale, haven't you?
Yeah.

Is that ever going to be released?
Yeah, probably on a video. I don't think it will be released as a single. It won't be on this album of covers, so I really don't think so, not now.

There wouldn't have been any point in putting it on Thank You though; it was on the last album.
Yes, but it was one of the covers we did.

You've got a video for White Lines too, haven't you?
Yeah, but that's going to get re-done if it gets released as a single. We did it for one of these big screen rock videos that's in America. Eye works I think it's called.

You videoed the Wembley Arena show from earlier this year for that didn't you?
Yeah.

Did you video the whole concert?
No, just that song.

So none of the rest of the concert is on tape?
No.

That's a really big shame.
Why?

Because I thought that was one of your best tours.
Yeah, but part of the beauty of them is that they're on, somebody sees them and the only way that they exist is in people's memories.

So how do you feel about all the bootleg tapes and videos that the fans circulate?
Oh I don't think that kind of destroys that, but I do think it's fascinating that there's a whole bootleg cottage industry that surrounds the band. I think that's very healthy in fact, and I'm quite happy about it, it doesn't tread on our toes in any way. I don't think it's in competition with us, in fact I feel better about that than half the stuff the record company puts out. It's done with that much more soul and that much more feeling, and with much more enthusiasm. And also it's a mark of your success, with all the great bands there are lots of good bootlegs out.

I'm waiting for one of your recent electric shows to come out on CD, there are lots of the acoustic concerts.
Oh right. I think that was because it was much easier to tape because it was quieter and very good sound quality.

Talking about bootlegs has reminded me of something. Going back to Liberty, there is a tape in circulation of demos from that time and it has some really excellent tracks on it that weren't included on the album, such as Worth Waiting For, Bottleneck and Dreamnation.^vii A lot of people think they were the best tracks from those sessions, so why didn't you include those on the album? Do you remember them?
I remember. What was the first one you said? Worth Waiting For, yeah. That was kind of sub-U2 I thought. Bottleneck, how did that go?

I couldn't sing it.
Oh, go on.

No, I can't.
Did it have any words?

Yes, Bottleneck was one of them but I can't remember all the lyrics because the sound quality of the tape isn't very good.
What else? Dreamnation. Well I don't think they were that good, that's why they didn't make it to the album.

I think a lot of the fans would disagree with you there.
Yeah, well they always want what they can't have, you know, there's a bit of that in it. I think that when you've been around as long as we have, the whole fan scene gets quite like a soap opera, everybody's got their own opinions. They're much more willing to go, 'Well, I don't think this is so good', you know.

It was interesting to hear that John sang lead vocals on some of those demos. Do you think he'll ever sing lead on an album track, or even live?
With a lot of practice, maybe he will. I'd have no problem with it.

You wouldn't mind?
No. I mean sometimes I've told him, 'look, I don't like your tunes', because sometimes he writes tunes, 'so if you want to do it, you sing it'. He hasn't really had the confidence to do that, and I think he might even think that I'm saying 'you sing it' in the knowledge that he hasn't got enough confidence and in that way I'm vetoing the song, but I'm not. I'm quite happy for him to sing the stuff.

His backing vocals come through quite strongly live.
Yes, he's got a good voice, he just needs to have more confidence. And tune it, that's quite an important factor.

What's your favourite song to sing live?
On the last tour, well I really got into Come Undone. The Chauffeur's always fun. I tend to like the ones where there's not so much loud backing because it's easier for me to hear how I'm doing and tune properly. It was great fun doing Crys­tal Ship acoustic with just me and Warren, but also one of my other favourites from the last tour was First Impression. I thought that was great to do live.

That was a big surprise, you coming up with that.
Yeah, but it was good though, it worked well, didn't it?

Yeah, it was very good. It went down well.
Yeah.

Why did you not include anything from the Big Thing album?
Because we did that huge Big Thing Tour and we thought, you know, we'd give everything else a chance. I think you can only hold people's attenti­on for an hour and 45 minutes if you don't have an intermission. I went to see Bruce Springsteen once and he was on for four hours, it was a complete and utter bore for the second two hours and I don't want to do that to anybody. So, given that you've only got a limited amount of time, for every song you choose, you've got to take another one out and we just felt that we didn't want to do anything from Big Thing, we did all that on the last tour. I mean, what would we play? All She Wants Is? No, we did that.

I seem to remember hearing Save a Prayer and Hungry Like the Wolf somewhere before too. You've played those on almost every tour you've been on.
Yeah, but we just didn't feel like playing anything off Big Thing. There were good songs on it, I'm not saying they were great, but they were good songs. I mean I love All She Wants Is, I think that's fab. What else do I like? Do You Believe in Shame? Was that on Big Thing?

Yes.
What was our first single?

I Don't Want Your Love.
I Don't Want Your Lurrve. That's right. But Palomino was great. I think Big Thing has got some really good songs on it, I love listening to it, it's one of my favourites actually. I don't know, there were just other things we wanted to do more. The thing is, you said Hungry Like the Wolf and Save a Prayer, well, can you imagine what would happen at the end of a show if we hadn't played those songs and we did our final number and walked off stage? We'd lave a lot of pissed off people. And that's gonna happen one day, that's definitely gonna happen one day.

So one day you won't play what everyone expects you to play?
Yeah of course. And afterwards we'll get people saying, 'you should have played that', all these really irate people, and we'll go, 'oh, fuck off, don't be so stupid, it's up to us what we play, and you damn well like it!'

Do you have a favourite album?
Well, apart from the one that is always current, you've always got to count that one out because you always like that one more than the others, because that's your future and you're rooting for that one, it changes. I mean, I went through a period of really listening to the Notorious album and then listening to Rio a lot. Actually, Rio's probably the one I listen to least, no, Seven and the Ragged Tiger I listen to the least actually. I don't know, the lyrics, I don't know. There are some good songs on there.

Do you often listen to your own albums?
Not that often, no. I always have them when I go away. It's interesting, because you always get really, really excited about your new stuff. I used to love listening to The Wedding Album, I'd just lie there and listen to the whole thing at night and think, christ, it's great, because it's your own music, something you did yourself.

Doesn't it feel odd to you to listen to your own voice?
Well no, not in the same way as it does to most people.

I suppose you're used to it then?
Yeah, I've heard my voice so much, I know what it sounds like and I've got used to it, it doesn't worry me.

You always say when you're working on a new album, that it's the best you've ever done.
Yes, but all bands do that. Of course you do, it's natural, but you do believe that.

Yes, but then a few years later you always slag that album off. Take Notorious, at the time you said it was the best thing you'd ever done, and then a few years later, when you were working on Big Thing, you said it was rushed, it was an experiment, but this album's the best, this one's really good.
Yeah, sure. I don't think we'll really slag off our past albums again, I'm not going to slag them off. It's almost like slagging other bands off, it's stupid, it's pointless. I guess if people compare your new album, which hasn't sold anything, it's always an under-dog and people tend to compare it to past successes. Very rarely do they compare it to past failures, that would be awful, wouldn't it? But because of that, I think we tend to try and put it up against the record that it's in comparison with and sometimes you might think that by putting that album down, you're putting this one up, but that's pretty stupid. And people in bands are pretty stupid, it's very childish the whole thing, very childish.

Do you have a lot of fights in the band?
(Voice goes up by an octave!) Oh yeah, lots of fights all the time! Yeah all the time, we're always at each others' throats.

Is there any one person that wins more than the rest? Do you as the singer feel that you have more of a say over what happens?
No, no. I think I'm more prone to completely wild histrionic behaviour than anybody else in the band, I think I'm a little bit more demonstrati­ve. John used to be but he's really calmed down a lot and I think I've taken over, I take things very personally. If you could tape a few of our arguments, they're really funny, really petty.

Do you all like the same music?
No, no.

So you're all influenced by the different music you hear?
Yes, you've got a kind of third hand mish-mash of ideas. I don't even think in terms of being influenced anymore. Sometimes I find myself singing something that has been inspired by something I don't like, but I'll sing it all the same. And because I'm singing it and I've got a different slant on it, I'll start to like it and I'll start to think that I do actually like that record after all. I mean the big one for me was a song from 1979, the disco explosion, and I hated it at the time and I kept finding myself singing it, and you find that with your own records. Things you don't like, you'll find good in another record.

Are there any bands around at the moment that you think you've influenced in their music?
Oh well I think we've influenced a lot of bands, I mean just our very presence has influenced them. Whether we've influenced them musically or not, I mean by existing we've influenced Suede. People always tell me that Blur sound like us but I'm not sure I'd agree with that, I think they just sound really good.

I've heard people say that Blur's track Girls and Boys is the Girls on Film of the '90s.
That's interesting. Do you think they say that because they share one word? They've got one word in common so... It's quite possible.

I like Blur.
So do I.

I think I can see the similarity.
I think it's a thing about fun though, it's a fun thing that's come across that we've always had, a slightly juvenile approach to everything.

I think that's good though, I don't like these boring bands that are too serious.
I think The Wedding Album was one of our most serious albums actually, very serious. I mean if it wasn't for songs like Too Much Information and UMF, it would have been quite serious indeed and I'm glad we did have the lighter stuff.

What influenced you to write Drowning Man?
John, he wrote it. It was about Britain becoming part of another state of the USA really.

I know a lot of Americans really hate that song because of its lyrics.
So what? I'm not surprised they hate it. It's true that it's about the Bush administration and everything that's wrong with it.

Do you find politics influence you a lot?
They do naturally because politics and what's going on socially are related, and songs are definitely influenced by social values.

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with a really good idea for a song?
Yeah, and I have to write it down. But I don't get up, I have a pad by my bed.

Do you ever find something you've written in the morning and you don't remember writing it?
Yeah. No, not that I don't remember writing it but thinking, God, that's a load of rubbish, and at the time it seemed so good.

When you're writing a record that's going to do well in the charts, are you aware at the time that it's going to be a hit?
Oh sometimes, I mean when we wrote Ordinary World we just knew that it was a really good song.

Are you also aware when you've written something that's really crap?
We don't write crap, do we?

No, not most of the time. Occasionally.
Like what?

Well, I don't like Drowning Man, I think that's awful.
Yeah? What, musically and lyrically?

I don't like the lyrics.
I love 'heart of ham', 'you're sinking faster than a drowning man, gun in his pocket and a heart of ham'. That's hilarious, that's a really good lyric.

I don't know why, I just don't like that one. I'm sure there are many people who would disagree with me.
Sure. I like the bass line, I think it's really cool.

Do you play your new albums to your friends and family before anyone else has heard them, to get their opinions?
Yeah, we do.

Does Yasmin tell you if you've written something awful?
If she's thought something was awful she hasn't told me. Oh no, that's not true, yeah she definitely has, oh god yes. It's usually something I don't like anyway. But I think she listens to the way I sing a lot, in the same way that every one of us if we listen to a mix, we hear ourselves: so John will hear the bass parts and Nick will hear the keyboard and Warren will hear the guitar and I'll hear the vocals. We all hear our own parts louder than anybody else's part, no matter what balance they are, you tend to concentrate on your own part. I think my wife tends to hear the way I sing things as well, she can tell if I'm not comfortable with something, she can tell by the way I sing and she'll say so, you know?

Do your children like your music?
Oh god they love us, absolutely love us. Us and Nirvana, their two favourite groups.

I saw them at your concerts this year.
Yeah, they think they're absolutely fantastic.

When you take all your family on tour, is that because you want them to see you on stage and know what you're doing?
Well yeah, I think it's...

Do you ever find it distracting?
What, for me? Nah, of course not. They're my kids. It's not as if I'm trying to pretend I haven't got kids, but some artists are like that, John Lennon was like that. He tried to pretend that he didn't have kids, he kept his wife and kid completely secret for years, almost denied their entire existence, just so he could appear to be this available young male.

When they get to school age, will that change the way you tour?
They are at school age, Saffron's at school now.

Really?
Oh yeah, kids go to school young now, at three. Will it change things? No, no, it won't. I like to have them around on tour because I like to see them, and it's great fun for them to see me. They like what I do, and they're really happy to see me on stage. They wouldn't miss a show for anything, if they thought I was going to sing... It's fantastic for them, they love it.

Do you think they feel intimidated by all the fans?
No they don't feel intimidated. Sometimes they just get really pissed off and they tell them to go away, and they say to me 'Why are the same people just hanging around watching us all the time?' which is exactly the way I tend to think.

Yes, you tend to get most of Italy camped outside your house during August.
That's why I'm never there in August, I go to Italy!

Do you mind seeing the fans here at the studio while you're working?
Well, I don't, but I know Warren gets upset because it's his house. But what can you do? When I was at Apollo Place^viii I used to say, 'Look, you can't stay here, it's pissing me off and it's pissing the neighbours off'. I've pretty much got it under control where I live now though, I haven't signed anything or taken a photograph with anybody for over six years in the place where I live.

Why do you keep changing your hairstyle?
I haven't changed it for ages!

You shaved it off a few months ago.
Yeah, you shave it off, you grow it back, you shave it off, you grow it back... I like the feeling of short hair.

And you went blond.
Well the blond thing was, I did that because a lot of people were saying 'Oh I wish you were blond, you look so good blond' and I thought, OK, and then they all said they didn't like it.

Are you not bothered about your image at all now, as in looks? Obviously in the '80s it was important...
Oh I think it's important to us now, I just think that we have a different kind of look that we're trying to achieve. A sort of we-don't-care-about-our-look look! You know what I mean?

Do you think you're still attracting new fans now?
We definitely did with the last album, obviously we aren't now because there's nothing out there to attract.

Who do you think you're attracting now?
I really couldn't tell you, not off the top of my head. These are marketing aspects which really aren't of great interest to me.

That was a really amazing stage set you had in America in the summer last year. Did you video any of that? I'm not sure we did. The model is going to go on display at the, I think it's called the Museum of Theatre.

When you write a song, do you have a tune in your head when you write it?
A lot of the time yeah. Right, last question.

How do you see Duran Duran in five years' time?
Like The Rolling Stones about twelve years ago: a lot of fun, just a lot of fun. It might be a bit freer, if we're still together it'll definitely be a lot more fun. Not a lot more than it is now, but I think there's a lot more fun to be had.

So what's your ambition?
To grow old ungracefully, to last for longer than Mick Jagger can. Ha ha ha ha !

1. Medazzaland
2. Concerts in several Italian cities were planned late ’93, but were cancelled when Simon lost his voice. These concerts were never rescheduled.
3. Simon lost his voice at Rotterdam Ahoy’, September 4th 1993 and had to walk off stage halfway through the second song.
4. In the ExtraOrdinary World video
5. Tallulah
6. A few years later Simon revealed he wrote the song for John.
7. These demo tracks have since been released on a bootleg CD called Didn’t Anyone Tell You?
8. Simon’s previous house in London