All language subtitles for Classic Albums Duran Duran

Duran Duran is a pop group for young
people with a lot of energy.

Her name is Rio
she don't need to understand

And I might find her
if I'm looking like I can.

We were in a period of time

where everything we touched
seemed to be turning to gold.

It's a bright, colourful outburst.

Because I've got my own way

I can find my own way.

We all knew there was something
special happening.

It is pure, pure fantastic pop.

It's just a record that has legs
and lasting value

and it captures a moment in time.

I can't stop myself
It's a new religion

I've something to see.

Rio's a good record.
It's a really good record.

A BLEEP killer second album.

In touch with the ground

I'm on the hunt, I'm after you.

The roadside is littered with
careers of one-hit wonder artists

that could never follow up

and didn't really understand
how to write hit songs.

And Duran Duran did.

Don't say a prayer for me now

Save it till the morning after

No, don't say a prayer for me now

Save it till the morning after.

Every home should have one.

See, this sound at the beginning...
Was complete experimentation.

And I'd been fiddling around with
the grand piano at AIR Studios

and I actually opened up
the top of it

and I was fiddling with the strings.

What I actually did was that
I got some metal rods

and I threw them
onto the strings of the piano

and they bounced around
and made this strange noise.

And it wasn't quite
what I was looking for,

but there was something
interesting about it

and I said to Colin Thurston,
"Can we reverse that tape?"

Because at that time, we were just
discovering things like tape loops

and reversing and slowing
things down and speeding things up.

And, er, he said,
"Sure." And we reversed the sound

and what we got was
the very intro of Rio.

That was really the beginning
of the song, that groove.

Roger started playing
a groove with that.

And we sort of built
the song around that line,

so we started to think
in terms of chords.

Moving on the floor now, babe
you're a bird of paradise

Cherry ice cream smile
I suppose it's very nice

With a step to your left
and a flick to the right

You catch that mirror
way out west...

The inspiration for me as a bass
player

was Bernard Edwards,
the player with Chic.

And a lot of his lines
really caught my ear.

And that was what made me
want to play bass.

It was a very syncopated style,
which was something new to me,

especially as I'd sort of being
playing in punk rock bands,

So Rio was like, er...just all
of those ideas

that I had about syncopation.

And then when we get to the chorus,
it's still like a...

Oh, Rio, Rio dance
across the Rio Grande.

Andy's guitars.

It's a hell of a guitar sound,
actually.

Andy always used to use Marshalls.

But he was quite experimental
with his pedals at that time, too,

so I'm sure it was chorused
and flanged and delayed a little.

But then I'm sure that you know
it's just for you

One, two, three, four!

Her name is Rio
and she dances on the sand.

Yeah. Simon's voice,

when he harmonises with himself,

becomes so thick and lush.

I mean, I've rarely heard
other people's voices blend

so well with themselves.

And, er...he's got a very unusual
sense of harmony.

That's one of the things I brought
to Duran Duran. I brought harmonies

from my choirboy training.

I was able to identify notes
that would...

You know, I always felt
that music's like...

Sometimes the music or the melody,
the main melody's like a pole.

And you can take a run at it at speed
and grab onto it

and you can swing around it.

And you can fly off in
a different direction.

And that's how I think
about harmonies.

Did she nearly run you down

At the end of the drive
the lawmen arrive

You make me feel alive

Alive, alive

I'll take my chance because luck
is on my side or something

I know what you're thinking
I'll tell you something

I know what you're thinking.

When we were done touring, um...

the Rio album,
we all took a vacation together.

And it was kind of one of those...

It was like a scene from Help!

You know, where the Beatles
all get out of the car

and they all go into four
separate doors,

but actually, it's all one house
that they're living in.

And we all took a vacation together.
We went to Antigua. Four of us.

Andy didn't come.
We all went, we took our girlfriends

and we all took beach houses
together.

So every morning, we'd come out
with our towels, "Morning!"

"Morning!" Very Monty Python.

And, um...and then we got a phone
call, "Guys, don't leave.

"We're coming out with Russell
and a crew

"and we're going to make a video.
Andy's coming."

Her name is Rio
she don't need to understand.

It's a very iconic image,

that we're wearing these
Antony Price suits on a yacht.

It's like,
what a great juxtaposition of style!

But we thought we were actually
filming in London

and Antony fitted us
up with all these suits.

Last minute,
it got changed to Antigua,

so the outfits turn up,
that's the only clothes we have.

Nick loved all the pale colours
because he wore light make-up

and had very light hair,
he could get away with all these

sort of pale, sugared-almond colours
and silk suits and things.

And obviously, it all worked with
the Caribbean thing of the video.

It was quite tropical looking in a
way and I was always a bit tropical.

Suddenly, it was bang,
straight in there, style, fashion,

statement, articulated.

Do-do-do-do-do-do.

Nobody used to go on exotic holidays
and go on yachts in 1982.

It wasn't achievable.
It wasn't possible.

So it was real vision of the future.

And really anticipated, I think,

what was to come, the kind of whole
celebrity culture really.

I've seen you on the beach
and I've seen you on TV.

What they were showing to Britain
was, you know, this newer world.

Very cleverly, in my view,
showing it.

Punk was fantastic to photograph
because it was very graphic

and black and white, really, for me.

I mean, virtually all my punk
pictures are black and white film.

And with Duran Duran, it's going
from black and white to colour.

And the country and the population
was going from black and white.

The black and white
of the recession, the unemployment

and then the Falklands war
and they were preparing to bring

the colour back into everything.

And I think that was the contrast.

In as much as the Sex Pistols
drag you back to a sense

and a moment in time,
Duran Duran do, too.

Our instinct as teenagers
that wanted it to be great,

wanted our life to be good,

and also wanted to put some
brightness into

other people's lives, was to try
and make something between us

that really excited us,
that made us happy.

Simon's looks were very poetic and
very beautiful and very optimistic.

And that's one of the things,
I think, that changed in the '80s.

It suddenly became very
optimistic.

Save a prayer
till the morning after

Save a prayer
till the morning after

Save a prayer
till the morning after

Save a prayer
till the morning after.

I met John when I was 10 years old.
He was 12.

He literally
lived around the corner from me.

And so we used to hang out
all the time.

We were both single kids,
no brothers or sisters.

So we really became like brothers.
And went everywhere together.

We were friends for a few years

before the idea of actually
making music together came to us.

He went to art college and I was
just finishing up at high school.

And he was already in a band.

So I was actually a little jealous
of this.

And the band were quite interesting.
They were called Dada.

And as soon as that fell apart,
we got together and I said,

"OK, I can leave school, let's do
this properly. Let's form a band."

By this point,
we'd got the bit between our teeth

and Roger was the next guy we met.

I walked in and, er...John
just kind of picked up the bass

and we just started
kind of jamming along.

And immediately gelled.

John and Nick appeared
with a little cassette

and we put it on the big
sound system.

Ah, the Berrows! We first met them
when we went to the Rum Runner.

John and I had isolated it
as the coolest place in town

and so we wanted to play
a show there.

And they got involved
in the management side.

And Paul was really
the creative side,

Michael more on the business side.

It was time to obviously develop
and mature the band

and they needed help to do that.

There were only three of them really
who were committed at the time.

It took us about six months.

Lots of auditioning,
some false starts.

And then finally,
Simon came bouncing in one day.

So I started singing this melody
and they were very excited by it.

And we realised right then and there
that we had something,

we had a good combination musically,

that we could do something
good together.

And he opened up this book of lyrics

and it already had The Chauffeur
in there

and a song called Sound of Thunder.

I think Planet Earth
was probably in there.

Andy came down from Newcastle,
Whitley Bay.

He had a lot of knowledge
of the fretboard.

He could play a lot of chords,
which Nick or I couldn't play.

So he brought a lot of expertise.

It was a bit like an explosion
when the five of us came together.

We were all very serious, we were
all looking for something new

and we all knew this was exactly
what we wanted to do.

Only came outside to watch
the night fall with the rain

I heard you
making patterns rhyme.

I just got the call, he said,

"I'm the manager of this band called
Duran Duran

"and they're causing
a bit of a stir in Birmingham

"and I really think you should come
and see them."

And first of all, I was a bit
dubious because I thought,

"Can't be anything going on
in Birmingham.

"It's all happening in London."

So Betty came up
and it was like a state visit.

Because Birmingham didn't have...

It wasn't very well represented
in the national music media.

I was just blown away by their
self-confidence and enthusiasm

and just their complete assurance
of what they were doing.

They were just so confident about
who they were, what they wanted,

where they wanted to go
with the whole Duran Duran project.

When we started out,
we had a master plan

and we thought it was going to
work. All of them were just so...

Roger was always a little bit
quieter than the others,

but the others, they were all
trying to get a word in.

Andy, John, Simon, Nick, Roger,
when did you learn an instrument?

I learnt to use my instrument...

..when I was five, actually.

But it was plastic at the time.

LAUGHTER
But I got a real one when I was 11.

I was what you'd call a late
developer.

I didn't pick up mine
until I was about 16.

I was born with my instrument

and it just got used again and again
and again.

I started playing with mine
when I was, um...17.

Um... Roger's still a virgin.

Roger needs two hands for his!

You think, "OK, this is what
we're going to do."

You put the blinkers on and you go.

There's no sign of life

Voices, another sound.

I think it was about 18-20 months
they were around rehearsing.

We knew when we got together
in the room

and started writing songs together
that we had something special.

There's something in the chemistry
of us

that was able to come up with more
and more and more music.

See them walking hand in hand
across the bridge at midnight

Heads turning as the lights
flashing out it's so bright

Then walk right
out to the four line track

There's a camera rolling
on her back

On her back.

Girls On Film did really well.

I think that got us to number five
or something.

It did even better than
Planet Earth.

When we went in to do
the first album,

not only did that album go
relatively smoothly,

but it also allowed them
to draw upon some of that work

for the second album, which enabled
Rio to go relatively smoothly.

We had a lot of material
that we hadn't recorded.

An awful lot of material.

The first album, Duran Duran,
had two hits on it.

We had three singles released.

We were signed by a record company.

We'd been on tour with Hazel O'Connor
and we'd gone to America

and we were causing a big stir, so we
knew something was really brewing.

It was bubbling up.

It was really the most exciting
thing that ever happened to us.

And so the energy that's in the Rio
album very much came from that

first trip to America.

That's the great thing
about listening to this,

you can hear all the different
influences there and ideas

and somehow, it all comes together
and sounds like a whole.

Because you've got the very funky
bass and drums, very dark guitars,

quite dark keyboards, optimistic
vocals, but it all kind of works.

It all just kind of gels
and hangs together somehow.

Duran was really a rock band
with synths.

It wasn't a synth band
with a couple of musicians,

it was a real rock band.

We were a product of our times.

Synthesizers were becoming more
important to popular music,

but there was, as yet,
very few records

that were entirely
synthesizer-based.

There was Kraftwerk, you know.

Depeche Mode were just
about to come along.

So there were going to be...

Synth pop was about to happen.

Techno was about to happen.

But we were coming out of punk,
we were coming out of a tradition

that was all about guitars
and drums.

I think the rhythm on this
was influenced by, um...

a song called Stay, David Bowie.

I think it was on Station to Station
and it was all that kind of...

Very syncopated bass playing.

That runs all the way through,
this guitar.

Kind of Dave Gilmour, I think.

Quite Floyd-ish.

It's a very unusual track.

It's got this kind of pumping,
funky rhythm section.

And that's a classic Nick Rhodes
sound right there, that...

kind of phased strings.

You can take him if you're fast

Didn't I say...?

There's so many vocals going on.

I get along fine with them
friends of mine...

Those two voices in New Religion,
you've got the kind of rhythmic...

Got to take the pay from the saints
and sinners in the regulation hats
and scarves and things

Walking in formation down the lane
they carry their...

And then you've got the...

Don't know why this evil
bothers me...

And it's singing about...
"Don't know why this evil,"

is singing about this other voice.

It's like, why have I got this
in my head?

Why is this stuff going on?

Army majors pull a mean cool truth,
they're lying in a swimming pool

Searching for the undeniable truth
that a man is just a fool

Don't know why this evil bothers
me Take another chance boy,
carry the fight,

You can take him if you're fast

So why is he trying to follow me?
Didn't I say if you're holding on
You'd be laughing at the last

How many reasons do they need?
I get along fine with them
friends of mine

But you have to make a choice

I might just believe this time
You're singing out of tune
but the beat's in time

And it's us
who makes the noise...

They're not obvious pop songs
but I think it's probably that,

you know, because they always had
that kind of dance,

slightly funky element
to their sound.

They managed to marry all these
different elements which,

you know, was quite an achievement

because most bands wouldn't
really attempt that now.

It's a very unusual sound, Duran,

because if you put it on paper,
it shouldn't really work.

John's a great bass groove player,
you know,

he really is
and the textures Nick added,

the guitar-playing was rock'n'roll,
the drumming's, you know,

a really good drummer,
solid, solid, so in that,

you've got all this...

desire...

to be funky,
to take it off left-field.

Hold Back The Rain.

SONG: Hold Back The Rain

Andy's guitar. It's almost like a...

It's got a slap on it like...

It reminds me of She Was Hot,
that Rolling Stones song.

It's these little bass pops in there
that are actually overdubbed.

Then I had to learn
how to play it live.

There's actually two tracks of bass,
Hold Back The Rain, the basic...

That's the straightforward and...

I would overdub
that on a separate track.

The other thing about
Hold Back The Rain that is somewhat

problematic is the chorus is
one of these...

That's played with a pick.

I just couldn't do it
with my fingers so, again,

it's fine in the studio
where you can, "OK, stop,

"let's get the chorus"
and then we go back to...

And we can go back to that
but like live, it's a bitch.

And if the stars burn out
there's only fire to blame

Hold back the rain

No time for worry
cos we're on the roam again

Hold back the rain

The clouds all scatter
and we ride the outside lane

Hold back the rain

Not on your own
so help me, please

Hold back the rain...

The teenage thing, none of us
foresaw the teenage thing.

Get back!

We just thought
we were going to be an album band

and we're going to have quite
a serious audience

but obviously the music
we were making was actually

transcending that and it was
reaching a far wider audience.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

The first Smash Hits
cover that we had was Roger

and Nick, which was really bizarre
if you think about it.

And that immediately gives you
a sense of...the appeal of the band.

The fact that this all-out pop
magazine would take the drummer

and the keyboard player
and put them on the front

and I think that was significant
because that let everybody

know this is a band
of interesting individuals.

When we first went to Australia
was when we really noticed it

in a big way because actually Planet
Earth had become a number one single

there and we went there
and they were just crazy

and we had to get security
and we were locked in hotels

and I mean it was
sort of funny at the time.

None of us had really had time
to grow up into rounded adults.

We were still living at home
so it was a very steep climb.

I was in a car with Roger
leaving a show one day

and the car was rocked by fans,

they were crawling all over it

and I could see that he absolutely
hated it, was quite put off by it.

I think too many of those incidents
was too much for him in a way.

Whereas John and Nick
sort of lived for all that.

I didn't think the lights were
particularly good.

I remember getting
back from our first American tour

and my father still wouldn't let me

watch what I wanted to
watch on the television, you know.

Oh, God.

I think with the Rio album,

we had definitely learned some good
lessons from the first album.

We were lucky enough to have worked
with Colin Thurston,

who was our choice as a producer.

He'd worked with David Bowie
and Iggy Pop so for us,
this was incredible to

be in the studio with someone who'd
made some of our favourite records.

OK, Roger, it's going to be a take.

Well, Colin was a very,
very calm hand at the wheel

and you never...

I don't think at any point
when I was working with Colin did

I question any of the sounds that he
was generating.

I mean he knew exactly
how our band needed to sound.

He heard the talent that
was in the band, he heard the raw

songwriting, performing talent
and he made it modern.

The great thing about Colin was
that he really knew how to
nurture people.

You get great producers that are,
you know,

amazing with the desk and great with
the soundscapes but they're

not great with people but Colin was
amazing with people and...

I miss him, I really miss him.

He died recently
and it was a very sad day for me

because somebody went out of my life
that was a very big influence on me.

SONG: "The Chauffeur"

It was actually the last
track that we started

recording on the Rio album.

We were running so late that we
decided to take on an extra room.

We started work in this other
room just to try

and speed things up a little
and I said to Simon, "Look, I've

"got an idea, I'd like to make it
a little more electronic." Yeah.

Because originally, it had been done
with an acoustic guitar.
That's right.

And so I started building the track

and the first thing I started with
the rhythm box and the sequencer...

OK, that's part of the rhythm box,
there should be a bit that says,

"Clap." There you go. Clap.

Yeah.

There you go.

So that was the beginning of it
and then the sequencer...

And the sequencer is very similar to
the original guitar part, isn't it?

Yeah, very much so, and then
Simon would come back in back

and forth and I'd go in and fix
some things up on another track

whilst we were in-between.

I was amazed by what you came up
with, actually.

It was nothing like I'd ever imagined
the song would ever sound like.

Way down the lane away,
living for another day

The aphids climb up
in the drifting haze

Swim seagull in the sky

Towards that hollow western isle

My envied lady holds you
fast in her gaze...

That's the piano and the bass sync.

That's the piano on its own.

Out on the tar plains

The glides are moving

All looking for a
new place to drive...

Well, it only really works with
the bass, doesn't it? Those notes.

Isn't that amazing how...?
Works for me. Yeah.

Sing Blue Silver...

I wonder, can we the glass breaking?

Would that be on "Noise" as well,
do you think? I think so.

Yeah, let's solo it.

Here we go. Ready?

Yeah. Now.

There it is!

It wasn't really glass at all,
I shouldn't spoil what it is! No!

It was actually ice being
dropped into water that just made

that sound that sounded like glass
but, yeah, there you go.

What glass splinters
lie so deep in your mind

To tear out from your eyes with a
word to stiffen brooding lies...

Finishing Rio...

It marked the end of
Duran Duran's innocence.

Because, actually,
we came away from that

and Nick will tell you all about what
it was like to go down to Sri Lanka

straight out of the mixing studios,
he mixed that record with Colin.

At the end of the album,
we had a very tight deadline.

We actually had to be on tour
in Australia by a certain date

and before then,
we had to make some videos.

We were all very
interested in video at that point.

It wasn't something that we backed
away from cos the band was

always about aesthetics
and, you know,

the image of the band
was very important.

But the album wasn't quite finished,

there was three or four mixes left
to do and some editing so I said,

"Listen, I'm not going anywhere
until the album's done,

"you'll have to start doing the
video without me and I'll catch up."

Their management in the
Barrows, Paul and Mike Barrow,

were very, very ahead of their time
in the awareness factor about this.

Paul had had this idea
to go onto location.

I think he'd obviously recently seen
Raiders Of The Lost Ark

and there was a bit
of Apocalypse Now in there as well.

It was such a simple idea but nobody
had even thought of that - just

taking your camera out of the room
to this amazing country with

all this amazing scenery
and shooting a video.

I was a frustrated filmmaker,
frustrated feature filmmaker,

I wanted to make movies.

So, no-one would give me
money to make anything longer than

four minutes so I went, "OK, I'll
make a four-minute-long movie."

Woman, you want me, give me a sign

And catch my breathing
even closer behind

Do do do do do do do

Do do do do do do do do...

Russell was one of the great
music video directors that

emerged from that period
as a director that could

see how the result of a great music
track combined to interesting,

glamorous visuals with the right
artist could create something

that was more than
the sum of the parts.

I'm after you

Mouth is alive

Juices like wine

And I'm hungry like the wolf...

Simon and I liked it cos
we were a bit more adventurous

and we liked travelling and we liked
going to slightly weird places

but I don't think Nick liked
the idea very much cos

he still liked wearing make-up
and stuff so, for him,

going to Sri Lanka
and staying in a dodgy,

old hotel somewhere was not
something he wanted to do,
I don't think.

I got there completely fried, having
not slept for two or three days,

and I arrived in Sri Lanka thinking,
"OK, record's done, I'm going

"to take it
and play it to everyone else.

"Let's hope they're happy."

I got off, came out from the plane
and I was thinking,

"OK, where's the guy with my limo?"
So I was looking around

and an Indian guy comes over to me,
he says, "Nick." I said, "Yeah.

"Where's the car?"
He says, "Oh, it's over here."

So we go out and it's,
I mean, blistering heat

and I'm dressed from head to
toe in black leather.

"Wow, OK, well, let's get in the car
and perhaps there'll be some

"air conditioning."
Anyway, it's a flatbed truck.

So, oh, my God.

I said, "Well, how long is it
to the hotel?"

expecting him to say 20 minutes.

He said, "Five hours."

Nick is the most urbane
member of Duran Duran,

was then and is still now.

The most difficult to get
out of the city.

So, we drive for five hours
over these dust tracks,

all the way into God knows where
in Sri Lanka and we end up there

and, literally, as I arrive,
somebody gets my bag

and takes it up to the hotel

and I'm walking down to the beach
where they're filming in a

complete daze and an elephant walked
past me on the street, I was my own.

I thought I was hallucinating.

It was so much fun doing those.

We worked so hard,
we'd get up at 5:00 in the morning

and we'd go to bed at 11:00 at night

and we'd work all day long in-between
and we were totally,

totally exhausted by the end
of our five days there.

But it kind of worked. It was
one of those... This is so crazy.

You know, we've got these guys
in eyeliner and crazy-colour hair

and they're on the back
of elephants.

It was so bizarre but, you know,
it was kind of irresistible.

We came back with three whole videos.

SONG: "Hungry Like The Wolf"

Hungry Like The Wolf was actually
written with the Jupiter-8

which is the synthesizer I used for
much of the sound on the Rio album.

It was sort of new out around
that time, about 1982,

and I completely
fell in love with it.

Simon and I, I think,

had been out the night before and
we had the most terrible hangover

and, for some reason,
were feeling guilty about it

and decided to go and do some work

so we went to EMI Studios
at Manchester Square

and we got in quite early and we'd
been listening to something in the

car and we got a sort of idea and
I started playing with this sound.

It won't sound quite the same
I shouldn't think

because it needs effects but...

And Simon had an idea for a lyric
and by lunchtime,

when everyone else turned up,
we pretty much had the song

and Andy came in and played
a killer guitar riff on top of it

and John and Roger thought,
"This is easy."

That's pretty hooky already,
isn't it there?

And then you've got
Andy's angry guitars.

It was really Andy that gave the
band that real edge and Andy was
pretty...

He was from Newcastle
so he had this edge to him.

Later, Roger added the Simmons drums

and suddenly it sounded like nothing
else we'd ever heard.

It's got these great big fills
in which was this amazing new kit,

it was like a hexagonal drum kit.

There was only really two sounds
on there. You had this sound...

There we go which is a really
cool...very new sound then.

And it had a really kind of pingy,

disco-y sound as well which nobody
used but this was...

One of the drum sounds
of the '80s was this drum.

There's a big roll coming up.

There we go.

One of Colin's things, we always had
a lot of ambience on the record.

You know, we'd record the drums very
tightly, as you can hear here...

It's a very tight drum sound
but then he'd add this...ambience.

There you go,
that's with the ambience.

And that kind of defined the drum
sound for the '80s in a way.

You'd have this kind
of gated ambience.

If you listen to In The Air Tonight
by Phil Collins, it's got this

drum sound that's got this
beautiful ambient sound on it

and that was how
Colin liked to record,

it was this combination
of tightly-recorded stuff

and big ambient mics that gave it
that really powerful movement.

I remember interviewing them
after Rio had come out

when they'd just come back
from the really gruelling

two-and-a-half-month tour supporting
Blondie in the States

and Canada and they were absolutely
exhausted and, obviously,

this was all part of how
you broke America.

The band had this very effeminate
image in the US at the time.

It was quite tricky selling a
New Romantic movement with make-up,

etc to an American audience,
especially in the Midwest.

There was always this
issue in the US about

whether you needed to remix
certain parts of an album

or a single or a song to fit

"the American marketplace,
the American club scene"

and I had met a producer
called David Kershenbaum.

Well, the first thing that struck me
were the chord progressions.

The melody and the chord progressions
were different than what was

going on in American music
at the time

and it was captured by some
really infectious rhythm.

And I had introduced him
to, I think,

Paul Barrow with a view that maybe
Paul would want to consider him

to help him
remixing some parts of the album

so that it would give more of an
"American feel"

or an "American mix"
to some of that music.

And that's really what
we were aiming at,

was getting Simon's voice
correctly out in front

but yet surrounding it with the
right rhythm elements that would

bring it forward and
I was taken by the sound, I thought

it was something that could
definitely work.

So, yes, we sold our soul
and we remixed the album with David,

who did a very good job.

But then there was this whole new
other avenue - MTV.

When we were starting out,

what we wanted to do was bring
together the two greatest

cultural forces in America
for the baby boomers -

one was rock'n'roll music
and the other one was television.

A music channel where they were
going to play nothing but videos.

This was a revolution.

Hungry Like The Wolf
was picked up by MTV

and it put it into high rotation.

One day,
my associate Tom Freston and I,

who was there
at the beginning of MTV,

were out in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
just doing anything we could to

try to find a story about MTV having
an impact on record sales.

And Capitol Records could see
that in certain towns,

for no apparent reason,
Duran was moving stock.

A clerk scratched his head and said,

"Yeah, I'm selling Duran Duran
and The Buggles and I don't know why

"because they're not getting played

"but I just sold three boxes in
Tulsa and that's a lot of records."

And it almost came down to
being as absurd as

on one side of the road
where they had cable,

where MTV was being piped in,

on that side of the road
were Duran fans

and on the other side of the road
where MTV didn't exist or the cable,

there wouldn't be fans.

We developed a great
relationship with MTV.

They were hungry
for videos at that point

because you had people that
wouldn't make videos.

I mean some of the kind of more
credible rock people really

backed away from it, they thought
it was going to ruin music,

they thought it was
the end of music.

Because you're lonely
in your nightmare

Let me in

Because there's heat
beneath your winter

Let me in

And it's silent
on your stone field

Let me in...

The Sri Lankan experience really
pressed it home that actually

what was being made was in effect
a film and wasn't just a bunch

of video clips, if you like, for
promotional purposes for the singles.

It was something more than that

and so it was therefore a learning
experience for the band

as much as it was a great
experience for Russell Mulcahy to

actually have the have the budget to
indulge in his great ideas.

And we filmed three
videos in that seven days

so when we were in a jungle,

we would film a bit of
Hungry Like The Wolf

and then we'd do a little bit of
Save A Prayer.

Save it till the morning after

No, don't say a prayer for me now

Save it till the morning after

Save it till the morning after...

It was a whirlwind, we were there,
and particularly for me,

arriving late, just got in,
did the videos, we were on a beach,

jumping into the sea,
there at the sunset, on an elephant.

Simon and I would drop
from a helicopter on top of this

massive mountain which
I don't know how I ever did that,

I mean I'd never do that in my life
again and then we had to

climb back up into it and flew off,
went over a jungle and that was it.

All done.

Don't say a prayer for me now

Save it till the morning after

No, don't say a prayer for me now

Save it till the morning after

Save it till the morning after...

Save A Prayer is
still my favourite track on Rio.

I just think it's totally timeless,
that song.

I love the melancholy
atmosphere of it.

I think Simon singing on that is
probably the best I've ever
heard him.

Feel the breeze deep on the inside

Look you down into your well

If you can, you'll see
the world in all his fire

Take a chance like all dreamers

You can't find another way...

We knew it was an anthem,

we knew that it was and really great
anthems, they stand out anyway.

And then these guitars, these...

So beautiful, there's
a lot of chorus on them but that's

the body of the song, that's what
supports the melody throughout.

The bass...is recorded
over two tracks.

I've been playing this live recently

and I've been using
a sort of chorus pedal to give me

this sound which is what I thought
it was but it's actually two tracks

which gives that sort of phased
effect, almost like a fretless.

It's four synths.

And there's four guitars.

It's a nice mixture of techno
and organic and it's that warmth,

it's warm but it's new at
the same time which is nice.

The most important line
in it is the one about

"some people call it
a one-night stand

"but we can call it paradise."

This idea of let's not
think about what it means,

let's not think about tomorrow,
just think about now, you know,

that's the only thing that matters.

Some people call it
a one-night stand

But we can call it paradise

Don't say a prayer for me now...

That feeling that now is
the important time,

it kind of slightly got over the sort
of rumpled sheets aspect of it and

concentrated on the philosophy idea
a bit more and I'm really glad

it did that because that's really
what was in my mind at the time.

You just don't expect the frontman
of a style band, which is

not to dismiss them, that's like
dismissing Roxy Music, you can't.

You just don't expect them
to go deep into themselves

and occasionally, Le Bon did,
he had that ability to do that.

It's only one drum take.

In those days, you could play
the song for five minutes,

if you made a mistake at the end
then it's, "Oh, no, I've got to go

"and do it again" so you'd have to
go and re-record the whole drum
track.

And we used to make 12" versions
as well which were like

ten minutes long
and they were all played live.

You know, you couldn't cut it
up on the computer

and make loops as you do now.

It's like, "OK, Roger, this is
a ten-minute version of the song.

"Start now." And ten minutes later,
I'd still be playing it.

Save it till the morning after...

Andy's lead comes in so we have...

Which is actually the closest
we ever got to a sort of
anthemic rock thing.

It's a nice mixture of old and new.

This thing called a "bender..."

So, the melody on
Save A Prayer goes...

It's just one of those parts that
every time he plays it,

you've got to smile, you know,
it's just one of those magic

moments on stage,
it's not lost its specialness.

SONG: "Save A Prayer"

And it's just very gentle,
it's quite romantic

but it's also bittersweet
and it's quite sad

and I quite like that
quality about it

and I just think that was kind of
so unexpected of them at the time.

It's quite a sensual album. All the
grooves move along the right beat.

It feels comfortable,
it feels natural,

there's nothing that really
sounds over-rushed.

And these combinations of
their own individual images,

their own way of dressing, looking,
the styling that went on,

these wonderful videos, coupled
together with this wonderful music.

How could you not be happy

when you were listening to
Duran Duran's music?

One, two, three, four

Her name is Rio
and she dances on the sand

Just like that river
twists across the dusty land...

I'm glad they've come to be seen as
a proper band because the temptation

would always be to diss it cos they
were such pop dollies, you know.

The point is that there was a severe
group intelligence behind that.

Clear as day, they were smart guys,
they are smart guys.

Where they were all coming from was
correct - art, style,

fashion, deep knowledge of music.

Anything that is classic is
because it is enduring.

In other words, it's timeless,
and Rio, today,

is just as fresh as it was the day
I first heard it.

It was just one of those amazing
periods of time, probably we'll

never touch again, where everything
just seemed to be perfect.

I think that's a combination
of a band that is at the top

of its game, that is just having
so much fun, playing every day.

It is playing more than it ever
thought it would play

and an engineer-producer who just
knows exactly what to do,

knows exactly how to channel
what he's hearing.

I was so excited by the fact that
we'd made this record.

We just hit the right nerve.

Sometimes, you know, you can
try and overthink things

and guess at what it is the public
would like to hear and do

something that you feel is right
on the pulse and miss it by a mile.

Other times, if you just do what
you like and what comes naturally,

you've hit that nerve.

SONG: "Rio"

Do do do do do do do

Do do do do, ahhhhhh

Whoa, wow.

Hey, there she goes again!

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