Andy Taylor: "I've Got More Music To Make And I'm Going Nowhere Until I Get It Done" (part I)

Refusing to be dragged under by his terminal cancer diagnosis, Andy Taylor has not only been playing guitar on a new Duran Duran album but also making his first solo record for 33 years. Explaining the importance of music in staying strong during his illness, he tells Classic Pop how easy it's been with his old bandmates, why he left twice over... and his hopes of getting back on stage.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood? They were good boys, it's lovely to see them back. I had a messy show with them In Paris once. I got up to play with them in the encore. When I put my guitar on, they'd put an elastic strap on it. There were 10,000 people in the arena, while I was trying to play Relax with an elasticated guitar bouncing up and down on my body. Frankie were pissing themselves."

This is how Andy Taylor introduces himself to Classic Pop, over Zoom from his home in Ibiza the afternoon after Frankie's comeback performance at Eurovision.

Given how his terminal cancer was so publicly revealed during Duran Duran's induction at the Rock And Roll Home Of Fame last year, you might expect Taylor to appear vulnerable and a little weary. Instead, Duran Duran's old guitarist is a vital force, rattling off terrific pop tales at a rate of knots. Before our interview, his manager tells us: "You'll like Andy. Proper rock and roll, ever so garrulous." He wasn't wrong.

Andy is here, at least nominally, to discuss Man's A Wolf To Man. Only his third solo album - and his previous collection, 1990's Dangerous, was a covers record - it's as unpredictable, sparky and joyful as the man himself, switching from the glam of This Will Be Ours to the robofunk of Reachin' Out To You via wistful ballad Big Trigger, all with a restless energy.

The album's genesis is inevitably eccentric, as Taylor explains: "I had a FaceTime call come up: 'Hartwig Masuch, BMG CEO.' I thought: 'The CEO of BMG? I'd better take this.' Hartwig told me he was a long-time fan. He was a very personable guy, one of the few CEOs of a record label who doesn't have lizard-like tendencies."

The exec said he'd love Andy to make whatever album he wanted for his label, perharps a new Power Station record? "I told him that it wasn't very easy," laughs Taylor. "Most of The Power Station are dead. Even John Taylor has come close a couple of times."

With a potential record deal unexpectedly arriving, the guitarist followed the ethos of his former Power Station bandmate, Robert Palmer. "Robert's rule was: 'You can go anywhere you want,'" reveals Taylor. "When you're expressing a song, so long as you have the feeling of 'I love this and I've nailed it', you can work out afterwards which songs work together. Robert was an absolute master of going everywhere - you can't get two more different cultures than Addicted To Love and Pressure Drop.

"After Hartwig's call, suddenly I'd been given the freedom to do what the fuck I want again. Great! There's a big collective consumption of different music throughout my life, but I always get back To Bowie and The Beatles."

Although he's been a producer for Rod Stewart and Gun, Andy is drawn to bands: not just Duran Duran, but consistently playing with Reef, too. Man's A Wolf To Man was written and produced with The Almighty singer Ricky Warwick and Swedish electronica artist Mattias Lindblom. "The album was all made in one room, with one or other of Ricky and Mattias," notes Taylor. "I don't think you need more than two people to write a song, despite the current pop world's way of eight writers on everything. My process is very band-oriented. I prefer having that other person for checks and balances on songs. Otherwise, I start having weird conversations with myself: 'What do you think, Andy?' 'Well, Andy, now that you ask...'

Initially completed before the pandemic, Taylor used lockdown to reassess the album. The big change was ensuring that he sang it all. Reef's Gary Stringer had sung on most of the album initially. Andy's wife Tracey was key in the change, as he reveals: "My wife was particularly the one saying: 'Why aren't you singing more on the album?' She doesn't normally get involved in that side of my work, so that made me think: 'Hmm...' "

Tracey's concerns over her husband getting to express himself were partly because, as Andy states simply: "I was thinking this was going to be my last album. My cancer diagnosis was only heading one way."

While Taylor's stage four prostate cancer diagnosis was made public last November, he's been living with the illness since 2018. He's bleakly funny describing how keeping his condition private nearly scuppered his reunion with Duran, revealing: "By the time we found out Duran were getting inducted into the Hall Of Fame, we'd been discussing a couple of other projects.

"The weekend our induction was announced, it turned out Duran were going to be in Ibiza. So of course, they were going: 'Hey, let's get together!' But I was in London, having cancer treatment and was unable to say anything to anyone. The one time Duran were in Ibiza is the one time I wasn't. They must have thought: 'Really, Andy?' "

There are many reasons Andy's distance from Duran Duran since he left in 2006 during the Red Carpet Massacre sessions has been so vague. Chiefly, it's because neither Andy nor the band see it as anyone else's business. As Taylor puts it: "My rule is, if it's not been said in the press, I won't talk about it."

But now that there's an ease between all the band again, Taylor is happy to confirm it really was a simple musical difference that led to his departure. Andy states: "I couldn't do the Timbaland album, because it just didn't move me. I was saying to the others: 'Why do we need this?' There's so much talent in that band, I never felt the need to bring other people in to write with Duran. It bugged me.

"It wasn't about getting my own way. But if the force is against you, it's difficult. When you're older, band rules can become very difficult. The band rule was: 'The band comes first' and I thought, 'No.'

"The general feeling was 'You should come with us over here' and I just couldn't. I don't know what it is with me that means I just can't do that. It felt like someone shutting an elevator door on me that I couldn't get past. There has to be a balance, and I couldn't feel it. I had the same feeling as I had when I left during Notorious: 'I'm going to miss all this... again' "

Andy Taylor's new solo album Man's A Wolf To Man coming out in September 2023

Andy is mature and easy-going enough to recognise that what felt incredibly important 17 years ago shouldn't get in the way of the relationships he'd forged decades before. "We've been through some crazy shit together," he laughs. "I've thought a lot about what happened when we were youngsters. All of it comes back, including why I left.

"You re-evaluate it and realise that perpetuating arguments over pretty things is pointless, because the only person you're really falling out with is yourself.

"A band is an entity, it's not about one person. Duran Duran is a living entity. When you think about its journey, the bad bits are amplified too often. When the dust settled, there was no animosity there. It was creative, not personal. We're Pink Floyd in reverse."

That creative relationship has been restored on Duran Duran's new album. Inspired by last year's Halloween-themed gig in Las Vegas, it sees the band cover several suitably spooky songs including Paint It Black, Ghost Town and Cerrone's Supernature, as well as goth-tinged reworkings of Duran tunes such as Secret Oktober, New Moon On Monday and Shadows On Your Side. "Simon is in great voice on the album," enthuses Taylor. "There's a particularly great cover of Soucsie And The Banshees' Spellbound and our reworked Night Boat is fucking fantastic. It's a fun record.

"I just loved playing with them again. We probably didn't understand it when we were young, but we know what we're about now. John's bass playing is tight as fuck; him and Roger are one proper rhythm section. Having the original rhythm section is a big thing for a band. Not to criticise anyone else, but when me, John and Roger play together, there's nothing quite on a par with it. I've found that again on the new record. It was: 'Yes, that's my place!' so quickly."

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Vocal Gymnastics

Having decided he should sing more on Man's A Wolf To Man, Andy realised that he had some good mentors to draw from. "I've been around some incredible singers," he smiles. "Learning to sing is just like learning to play guitar when I was a kid.

"Robert Palmer was a master at vocal technique, as he was lyrics and song construction. In an elevator once, Robert showed me some vocal tricks in 15 seconds on how he got that incredible resonance to his voice.

"That was unbelievable advice, but when you're around good singers you're going to learn some tricks. As well as Simon, I worked with Curtis King, who Bernard Edwards brought into Chic. But the greatest practical advice I've learned was Rod Stewart. When I was producing Rod, he told me: 'I'll do it three times and that's me done.' He'd sing it three times, bugger off to play football and the results would be amazing. Rod showed me that, ultimately, you've just got to sing it. Of course, that's OK if you're Rod Stewart.

"The more you find your voice, the deeper you go into yourself," he continues. "You express yourself more, rather than just generically singing something."

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