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Noted rock biographer Stephen Davis — best known forr his tomes on Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones — has just published Please Please Tell Me Now – The Duran Duran Story. The band will release its latest album, titled Future Past on October 22nd.
According to the official description:
Davis traces their roots to the austere 1970’s British malaise that spawned both the Sex Pistols and Duran Duran — two seemingly opposite music extremes. Handsome, British, and young, it was Duran Duran that headlined Live Aid, not Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin.
The band moved in the most glamorous circles: Nick Rhodes became close with Andy Warhol, Simon LeBon with Princess Diana, and John Taylor dated quintessential British bad girl Amanda De Cadanet.
Featuring exclusive interviews with the band and never-before-published photos from personal archives, Please Please Tell Me Now offers a definitive account of one of the last untold sagas in rock and roll history — a treat for diehard fans, new admirers, and music lovers of any age.
2021 marks the 40th anniversary of Duran Duran’s self-titled debut album. A while back, Nick Rhodes told us the band’s longevity still boggles his mind: “It seems completely surreal. None of us feel like we’ve spent three-and-a-half decades in the music business. We still play some songs off that album, off the first album. With the band we all remain very proud of what we’ve been able to do creatively in the studio — and for the live shows. It’s still, to me, exactly the same as it was when we started out in one way; is that a great song does more for an artist than anything else.”
Bassist John Taylor admitted to us that Duran Duran remains a one-of-a-kind chemistry: “The kind of fortune that Duran Duran was sort of happens once in a lifetime, really. It’s just like kids that come together that happen to, like, be into the same thing — just happen to go to the right place, the right time, meet Mr. Big and da-da-da-da. Suddenly, it’s a snowball effect.”