00:03Simon Le Bon, what a flippin' honor to finally talk to you after all these years.
00:11Absolutely, me too.
00:13Yes, I'm sure I was on your list, Simon.
00:17Absolutely.
00:18I said one day I'll be talking to Carla Rae in Las Vergas.
00:24Well, listen, we are really, really excited.
00:27Tickets go on sale today, of course.
00:30For Future Past.
00:31You guys are coming back to Las Vegas September 1st and 3rd.
00:35I don't know if you've seen the theater that you guys are working in, the Encore Theater at Wynn.
00:40It is spectacular.
00:44Yeah, we've not been there before, and I'm looking forward to it so much.
00:50It's beautiful.
00:52You guys are going to have a ball.
00:54I have to talk to you a little bit about this new album, because you guys, I mean, I don't want to say you went in a different direction, but you pulled in some other big guns to have some fun with Duran Duran.
01:08I know that Mark Ronson is a part of this album.
01:11Giorgio Moroder.
01:14Yeah.
01:18Tovlo, also?
01:20Yes, yes.
01:22We're very excited about the way the album turned out.
01:25Errol Alcan, who's the main producer of the album, he was very much part of everybody who came along to it.
01:36So, we, Giorgio Moroder, somebody we wanted to work with for years and years and years, and finally we got the chance to do it on this album.
01:47Mark, well, we always try and do something with Mark, because he's with such, he's an important part of our path, too.
01:53And then we got Graham Coxon, the extraordinary, innovative guitarist, lead guitarist from the English band Blur.
02:05He's really important.
02:07He's a very important part of the sound.
02:08He made the whole album, he made us all work harder, actually, which is always a good thing.
02:15Tovlo is, as you know, a wonderful Swedish pop artist.
02:20Yeah.
02:20And we sent the album to her, and said, do you fancy any of these tracks?
02:25And she goes, I want to do Give It All Up.
02:27And my initial reaction was, oh, no, not that one.
02:30It was completely done.
02:32I don't want to share that vocal.
02:34I don't want to share that vocal with anybody.
02:36But we decided, we got the track, we got the demo sent back from her, and what she did was so magnificent.
02:44I actually ended up writing an extra verse for myself to sing, actually.
02:49Because of what she had done was so good.
02:53That is very...
02:53And then we had the, we've got the extraordinarily pianist, Mike Garsten.
03:00Wow.
03:00The sound of the album, Aladdin Sane, by David Bowie in the 70s.
03:05And so happened to do a track with him on this.
03:07And then there are two artists who I discovered in my, in my kind of radio travels, for my radio show, which is called Woosh.
03:17Right.
03:17I did, I was listening to new tracks, and I found, I found an artist called Ivorian Doll, who's an English rapper.
03:26And one, she's what's called a drill artist.
03:29And we got her on there.
03:31And also, the all-girl Japanese punk band Chai.
03:35Yeah.
03:36Amazing.
03:38Amazing.
03:39You guys pulled in a lot of people.
03:42Here's the thing, and I want to go back just a little bit.
03:45You guys have always, you know, you've always had a, I don't know how to explain, you've always had a feel, that's for sure.
03:53But your sound has changed a little bit over the years.
03:57And I mean, you know, there was the 80s, Duran Duran, in the 90s, when, let's see, music changed a whole lot with your, your Nirvanas and, and, and Pearl Jam.
04:07You guys were still at the top of the charts.
04:10And, which, by the way, the wedding album, one of my favorite albums, I still love that album.
04:14That, to me, was when I heard a very, a different sound for Duran Duran.
04:20And you guys have always been able to do it.
04:23Well, we, we, first and foremost, we are music lovers.
04:29Um, and that's the most important thing.
04:32So, so, so, and we're not frightened of, of trying new things out.
04:35You know, when I hear something by a new artist who does something different, I always think, wow, I wonder if we could do something like that.
04:43I find new, new ideas very inspiring.
04:46Um, and none of us want to make the same record twice.
04:49Right.
04:49Because we know it's, it's not, it's not really possible.
04:53Um, and we like to move on.
04:56We, we want to see, we want to see the variety of what, of what we can do with Duran Duran, not just stick to one thing.
05:03And so, and I think, actually, I think the new album, Future Past, is a really good, um, demonstration of that ethic.
05:13Yeah, it definitely is.
05:15It's, it's such a cool album.
05:17By the way, if our listeners have not heard it, listen to it, buy it.
05:21It is so good.
05:22It's very different.
05:24You say that, Simon.
05:25So who are you listening to?
05:27What new artists are you listening to?
05:29Um, well, there's a girl called Sinead O'Brien, who's an Irish spoken word artist.
05:38I'm really, really very hot on her.
05:43Um, I just, there's a Texan artist I just heard called Alison Pontier.
05:48Okay.
05:48Um, I think that's how she pronounced it.
05:50Mm-hmm.
05:50Alison Pontier.
05:52She's, she's got a, she's got a great track out now.
05:55What is it called?
05:56Oh, I've forgotten the name of it, but I've got it on my next radio show.
