![]() He made me mixtapes of Suede, Pulp and Blur in an effort to “improve” my musical tastes, not realising that most of those bands had been influenced by Duran Duran.Īged 16, I had to leave school. When I told him I was a Duran Duran fan, he memorably labelled them “cock rock” and made me promise not to make him listen to them. “You should come to our studio sometime,” he told me.Īged 15, I was asked out for the first time, by a boy a year older than me. Months later, I met him again at an interview with the London radio station LBC, and told him I wanted to be a singer-songwriter. To my amazement, we met Warren himself and had a picture taken with him. A year later, when I was 14, we went to a solo gig by Duran Duran’s then guitarist, Warren Cuccurullo. We travelled to see Duran Duran at Wembley Arena, where we sang along to every word. Aged 13, I had finally made my first proper friend. But despite her long glossy hair and trendy clothes, she didn’t care that I wasn’t as cool as her. I was underdeveloped and barely five feet tall with facial hair, and was terrified she would think I was tragic when she met me and saw my Tesco jeans and reversible anorak. I came across an advert in TV Hits magazine for a penpal who liked Duran Duran, and started to correspond with Anna, who lived in Eastbourne and was only a year older than me. While the other girls at school had posters of Take That and East 17 in their lockers, I stuck up pictures of Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes. I gradually listened to Rio, and Notorious, and Seven and the Ragged Tiger. I dreamed of one day meeting Duran Duran, and playing piano and singing on one of their albums. It seemed right that I should like a band no one else at school liked, as no one liked me either. But when the girls at school found out that I liked the band, they called me a loser for wanting “to shag a bunch of sad old men”. I saved up, bought the cassette tape, and played it so much I wore all the white writing off both sides.ĭuran Duran had made a huge comeback with the album, which reached No 4 in the UK, and No 7 in the US. I learned that the band was called Duran Duran, the song Ordinary World, and that it was from an album called The Wedding Album. For days, I stayed glued to the radio, hoping to hear it again. It was, of course, about the breakdown of a relationship, but it seemed to speak directly about my situation. It was beautiful, with a soaring guitar riff and heartbreaking lyrics.
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