#Duran duran singer le bon how to#

It means you can concentrate on the important thing, which is the music. You have to learn to say sorry, to be tolerant, to accept differences. They get indulged and it’s corrosive and it’s corrupting. Solo artists have got nobody around them to tell them they’re being an arsehole. I would warn my younger self that fame is corrosive as well as addictive. And playing in the Rocket Garden at Nasa in Florida was extraordinary – an art collective called Studio Drift choreographed 300 drones, they flocked like slow-motion starlings while we were playing. Going on stage at Wembley Stadium after Elton John for the Princess Diana concert in 2007 was really special. When we first met David Bowie he was still a spaceman to me – he fulfilled all our expectations and later we toured together on the Glass Spider Tour and got to see a different side of him. My whole career would blow that teenager’s mind.

#Duran duran singer le bon how to#

Duran Duran had an advantage in that I knew how to do stuff on camera that would work. The acting thing was crucial because we came on the scene at the same time as video and the explosion of MTV. But I can see the building bricks for Duran Duran in my younger self. The 16-year-old me didn’t know he was going to be a rock star. I met the band wearing pink leopardskin trousers. There was colour, there was style, there was flamboyance – but it still had one foot in punk. What was later called New Romantic was a reaction against the monochrome aspects of the industrial post-punk movement. It was a heady thing, the smell of the club and meeting these guys who dressed like me. This was early 1980, street fashion was changing. I went down one afternoon, and you know what those places are like, the smell of beer and smoke and dancing bodies in the carpet? There’s a definite scent. An ex-girlfriend, Fiona Kemp, had a job in the Rum Runner nightclub and put me in touch with them. There was such excitement in the band when I met them. My younger self has a lot to look forward to. 1984 Onstage between Duran Duran bandmates John Taylor (left) and Andy Taylor at the height of the band’s global fame It feels so good to know I’m not alone.” Music is a very, very powerful force for good. They say: “You put into words and music the way I feel. That’s what I get more than anything from fans of Duran Duran. Music makes people feel they’re not alone in the world. She taught me to be kind and not be a bully, and to help people when they need it. My mum was a very, very big influence in my life and she taught me about being a good person. As we walked off, we heard the MC say “Thank you Dogshit!” But you had to start somewhere.

All you could hear was the drums and a little bit of shouting from me. We went past our time and they pulled the plug on us, but we carried on without amplification. We were a proper punk band – this was 1977-78 – and we played our one and only show at Harrow Tech supporting a power funk band called Supercharge, who wouldn’t let us set up on stage. I remember walking into town in my CND greatcoat from the army surplus, walking around, buying a bar of chocolate, walking home again and not talking to anybody.Īt Harrow Art School I was in a band called Dog Days. I had stopped being so shy but two years earlier I didn’t have any friends. There’s not a lot of optimism around, is there? I miss it. It’s very different from the feeling at the moment. Bowie inspired this feeling of optimism in me and it made me tingle. This modern, clean, young fresh world he painted, this utopia. I found the song Drive-In Saturday absolutely compulsive. I remember Space Oddity being on the radio, but didn’t buy a Bowie record until Aladdin Sane. This was before punk and I was just getting into David Bowie. In this week’s Letter To My Younger Self, he tells The Big Issue‘s Adrian Lobb how he initially wanted to be an actor – but that he still gets the same thrill from playing music as he did when Duran Duran first started playing together. Not bad for a band that grew out of a nightclub in Birmingham. Their latest LP, Future Past, entered the charts at No3 when it was released in October 2021 – meaning Le Bon and his bandmates Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor have had Top 5 albums in each of the last five decades.

The band have sold more than 100 million records, recorded a classic Bond theme (A View T A Kill), performed at both Live Aid (in Philadelphia) and the Princess Diana Tribute Concert and toured with their hero, David Bowie. Simon Le Bon has been a pop star for 40 years, ever since his band Duran Duran’s debut single Planet Earth rocketed into the Top 20.ĭuran Duran were pioneers of the music video, stars of the New Romantic scene and found fame around the world.