Цитата
Still Hungry. Duran Duran on it`s latest comeback story.
By Sarah Preston
If you came of age in the 1980s, chances are you either got laid while listening to Duran Duran's Rio album, or at least tried to. You loathed lead singer Simon Le Bon for his flamboyant sex appeal, and prudently didn't try to pull off wearing girl's makeup like keyboardist Nick Rhodes. It totally bewildered you that three members of the band shared the same last name but none were actually related to each other (bassist John Taylor, drummer Roger Taylor, guitarist Andy Taylor).
The quintessential British New Romantic '80s pop band is still going strong in 2008. After more than 70 million records sold and about a dozen memorable hit singles, they've reemerged with their 13th studio album, Red Carpet Massacre (sans departed band member Andy), co-produced by hip-hop hitmaker Timbaland and his protege Nate "Danja" Hills, with a radio-friendly song, "Falling Down," co-written by Justin Timberlake.
Before a sold-out Duran Duran concert in Chicago, Playboy.com sat down with band founders John and Nick to talk about groupies, that freaky "Girls on Film" video and why touring is actually better now that they're older.
Playboy.com: Which city has the best-looking groupies?
John Taylor: Sydney, Australia. I don't know.... There are good looking girls everywhere. They're a bit more desperate in the sort of lesser, off-the-map places.
Playboy.com: What's the craziest thing a Duran Duran fan has ever done to try to meet you?
Nick Rhodes: I quite like the one who dressed as a medic actually, in a nurse's outfit. Very nice dress and good shoes. She came backstage and got a pass and made it very, very good. Absolutely, the pass. It was actually in England, in our hometown, sometime in the '90s, during the Wedding Album.
Playboy.com: Whose idea was it for the album art for Red Carpet Massacre, with a model and a stiletto going into her neck?
Rhodes: She's a rather lovely Russian friend of mine. I was staying in France in the summer and John and I had been discussing the cover, and we thought we'd do it ourselves this time. So I took all the photographs and John did all the art direction. We wanted something that brought out the irony in the title, something sexy, something modern, with a little hint of Helmut Newton. It seemed to be the right thing to do. We put her on the red carpet, put some nice red lipstick on her, spread her hair out on the carpet, put some nice shoes on her and put her under threat.
Playboy.com: How was it working with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake on this album?
Taylor: Timbaland is a phenomenon. It was quite interesting working with him; we had five days with him in the studio in New York. It was quite challenging I think, for he and us. He wasn't used to working with bands; he's used to working with solo artists. So as musicians we had to keep reminding him that it wasn't a vocal and track kind of thing. But he's an amazing guy. We all sort of enjoyed getting to know him a little bit. Justin is also a force of nature.
Rhodes: He's obviously a huge talent. What was interesting for us was to see how quickly they all move. Because, I suppose, in a way we have been doing this for quite a while now; we got more set into our methods and ways of recording. That often involves going back to things and revisiting them a lot of times and tweaking things and changing things, completely redoing things. These guys just don't do that; they make a decision and say, "Yeah, that's it, that's great, let's move on, let's make it work, let's get the vocal, let's record it, done."
Taylor: Like you were saying earlier, these guys haven't made any mistakes yet. When you haven't made any mistakes, your confidence is up.... We've made a few. I mean, not really, but we've had a lot of hit songs, we've been around a lot longer, and I think you question what you're doing a lot more.
Playboy.com: Justin's lucky. He's made a smooth transition from boy band to solo artist.
Taylor: It's most unusual.
Rhodes: Also, he made a huge change in his genre, image, career path, completely. Now I think he's very credible as a writer and performer.
Playboy.com: Is touring as much fun now?
Rhodes: Much more fun, because I think we're more organized. The shows are better. Musically, we play better than we did -- we played very well then, but now with technology we have in-ear monitoring so you can hear things very clearly. Sound and lights are so much better than they ever used to be. We didn't used to have mobile phones and Blackberries. E-mail has made things so much easier.
Taylor: Yeah, it makes it easier to be away from home. [Taylor is married to Juicy Couture co-founder Gela Nash.]
Playboy.com: Can you recall any crazy nights you had on tour in the '80s?
Taylor: No, they've all been blocked out.
Rhodes: Most nights in the 1980s -- I remember them all being a lot of fun. The ones you tend to remember are things like awards ceremonies when you meet a lot of other artists. I remember the first MTV awards ever -- we played.
Playboy.com: Will you guys be at the Grammys this year?
Rhodes: Don't know.
Taylor: We're not in that club.
Playboy.com: Whose idea was the video for "Girls on Film"?
Taylor: That was our third video, and we started to appreciate just how much attention we could get through our videos. At that time, it was really before MTV, the place you could see videos was in a network of clubs around the country. [Chicago's] Park West was one of them, where people would go dancing. There were these huge video screens and videos would get projected. I think it was our manager's idea to do a long-form, like a dance mix; like an eight-minute-long video. It was kind of sexy, it would have some sexy moments, it would be X-rated, and it would get infamy on that club circuit. It was a new medium and there was a lot left to be done with it.
Rhodes: It's timing as well. If we were starting out now I think we'd be looking to do things on YouTube and on the Internet. We still are, even at this stage. That's how we think of things. Who's going to see it first? It's certainly not going to be MTV. It's going to be people who turn on YouTube or Google or Yahoo.
Playboy.com
. Вообще же, видео много весит для стольких-то минут 
, Мб 50 
...не сомневаюсь, что он зарабатывает и на шофера, и еще на 10 таких тачек 
ого
. Вот, действительно, делают же статьи, которые просто сгораешь желанием прочитать! Респект авторам! 
