Did you ever think you'd reunite?
Andy: When I was 20, I didn't imagine we'd be here in our 40s with this enthusiasm. And hair.
Roger: And teeth.
John: And enthusiasm for hair products.
So why did you get back together?
Simon: I was on tour with Nick and Warren [Cuccurullo, when Duran Duran was a trio in 2000], and it wasn't working. I told John how I felt. He said, "Don't you think it's time the original five got back together?"
Roger: Once you're in a band this big, you can never get away from it.
Simon: Nick was up for it, if it wasn't a reunion tour. Andy said, "I'm on a beach in Ibiza, but what the hell."
Andy: You get to a point where you want certain things back in your life.
John: Like fame and sold-out concerts.
How does it feel to be back?
Nick: We realized what incredible chemistry we have.
Andy: Everyone still has the same [influences] and is more or less the same person, and that enabled us to fit together again.
John: Andy said something that stuck with me: "Nobody showed up with a sitar." It wasn't like, "This is where I'm at. I think we can make this work!" [They laugh.]
Simon: "My rabbi is here to write the lyrics...."
How crazy were things the first time around?
Nick: With the chick-o-meter?
Andy: American girls were a little more open-minded.
Nick: I think it's safe to say that we all had a good time in America.
Roger and Andy, why did you walk away from the band in 1986?
Andy: We had made seven albums between us in four years! It was massive pressure.
Roger: I was burned out. So I lived the country life for a while. I kept horses and chickens.
Nick: Goats? Mules?
Roger: Not quite.
John: Pigs? [They laugh.] Did you make your own bacon?
Nick: It's very Spinal Tap, this is.
Talk about being '80s fashion icons.
John: Clothes and music in England in the '70s were tied together. The Sex Pistols worked with Vivienne Westwood. Nick and I grew up on that. The English have a reputation for sartorial elegance. The bands we went to see as teenagers were [wearing makeup].
Andy: Don't get me started on Elvis. Elvis dyed his hair at 17.
Roger: Elvis was the first metrosexual. Put that on a T-shirt.
John: We're conscious of the band's image. Though we've made mistakes in the past.
Andy: The mullet extensions might have been a bit long.
Nick: But Andy, you did the king mullet better than anybody.
Simon: Black, with white on top.
Andy: That's part of it: "Look at me—I'm a pop star!"
Your kids range in age from 8 to 20. They're as old as the first Durannies.
Roger: What Dad did finally makes sense, you know?
Nick: None of them had ever seen all of us play together before.
Andy: At one of our Wembley Arena shows [last May], nearly all of our kids were running around backstage. Big ones, little ones. It's the greatest vibe when they're there.
So you have your kids around instead of huge afterparties?
John: Oh, we still have afterparties, but now the kids come.
Roger: The older ones join in.
Simon: And stay out later than we do.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
