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Chat with Nick Rhodes – Notes from Katy’s Kafe1

Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran
◦The new album is almost finished, and Nick says he’s “not lying this time.” Everything is being finalized now, from the artwork and packaging to the track list. They are scrambling to tweak the final mixes , and the album will be mastered Friday (12th November) by Spike Stent, known for his “monstrously large sound.”
◦There will be nine new Duran Duran tracks for download exclusively via iTunes on December 21, preceded by the a single release of the title track.
◦Artist Clunie Reid has created the cover images using photographs shot by Nick and graphic design from the team at Pop Magazine. They have not decided on the main image yet, but are talking about doing a small exhibition of the twenty images that Reid has produced. Nick would not reveal the color scheme, but says it will be “interesting.”
◦Being Followed is one of Nick’s personal favorites, saying that it captures the anxiety and loss of privacy of our times, like Orwell’s 1984 coming into the Google world.
◦Nick also favors the song called Safe, featuring a “spoken rap” with a “garage feeling to it” by Scissor Sisters’ Ana Matronic. They kept fiddling with that one, especially the verse melody, but ended up having Simon re-record the original one.
◦There are a lot of different sounding songs on the album, but The Man Who Stole a Leopard is the “most epic” piece. It has an electronic feel along the lines of The Chauffeur. A story of obsession, Nick and John loosely based the song on the 1965 movie starring Terrence Stamp, The Collector. Nick likens the song to The Gift, a Velvet Underground song, but “not as gory.” British newswoman Nina Hussein delivers a news story at the end of the song.
◦On the topic of videos, Nick says they will likely make one for each track, some will feature the band, and some will not. This process will unfold gradually, and he is excited about the prospect of doing something different with a very new approach.
◦The stage set for the South American tour will not be the same as the tour that will follow the release of the album. They may preview a couple of songs in South Africa, but mainly they are excited just to play there after such a lengthy absence from the country.
◦“These songs were pretty much built for playing live.” Nick says they would like to play the album in its entirity at some smaller shows, but he is not sure how they will fit that in, saying “we will have do do a couple of weeks.” He spoke about how things like that “in the longer format” are appealing, looking at it as an album experience. Delivering it live like that is something that Nick feels we have lost in out “short attention span age.”
◦Nick feels that having nine tracks seems “concise and right” for a digital release. Some of the songs are quite long, with a few clocking in at over five minutes.
◦One of the working titles for the album was Blame the Machines, which will be the second track on the album. The song is based on a news story from Germany about a man who followed his satellite navigation device and ended up driving the wrong way on the autobahn. The song is a commentary on how reliant the world has become on technology, always assuming that the machines will be right.
◦Nick describes the release of this album as “a fairly monumental moment for us in our careers,” realizing that “we wanted to go more towards the original sound and live instrumentation.” He says that producer Mark Ronson “has brought out the best of Duran Duran.” Nick also said that this album is “the strongest thing that we’ve done since the Wedding Album. Pressed to put it into a chronological order of sound, he says he would it after Rio and before the third album. The new album has a “real completeness to it” and highlights include ballads, electronic songs, and strong melodies.
◦Before the Rain is another song that was given “The Chauffeur treatment, with some of Simon’s most powerful lyrics lately and a TR 808 rhythm box and Fairlight samples. The sounds are similar, but feel “comfortably different with modern technology.”
◦Duranduran.com is getting an overhaul, with Andrew Day (who has worked with the band for many years) leading the design team. Some of the goals are to make the site functional, friendly and faster, with more “things to play with” and options to go deeper.
◦Nick Rhodes has never had tea, coffee, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kool Aid or Yahoo. The only clear explanation given for his avoidance of these libations was that “he doesn’t like the logos,” with the exception of Coke. Nick drinks approximately one beer per year, two if it is particularly hot.

... je suis vraiment curieux d'entendre cet album .... ah que l'attente est longue ..... tiens, Nick ne boit qu'une Bière par an ... il c'est calmé depuis les soirées avec Robert Smith