Power Station Soars!

Is there life beyond Duran?

We talk to lots of rock stahhhhs here at Creem, right? Hell, we'll humor anyone with a record, whether they can talk or not. So really, you ought to believe it when I tell you that singer Robert Palmer and Duran Duran bassist John Taylor were excited during this interview. And it wasn't the bullshit excitement that most entertainers whip out to flog every new project. These were pros hyping a project, sure, but they were honestly hyped themselves. The two of them, gorgeous and groomed within an inch of their lives, holding court in one of New York's most impossibly posh hotels - and they're acting like kids who just got away with something real big.

And if you don't believe my hype, will you believe Mick Jagger? "I'd been trying to get Mick to do some vocals on a track, because originally we were going to use several singers on Power Station. But when we heard the stuff - see, he's pals with Robert's manager - anyway, he said 'what could I do? I couldn't add anything to it; it's really good'."

In case you haven't be hyped by any other mag yet, here are the basics. Power Station is a one-time-only band with an eight-track LP by the same name. The musicians involved constitute the kinkiest line-up in rock since Jermaine Jackson sang in the rain with Pia Zadora. Robert Palmer did the singing and lyric-writing; Duran Duran's John Taylor played bass; Duran's Andy Taylor played guitar; Chic/Bowie sideman Tony Thompson played drums and Bernard Edwards produced. Six tracks are P.S. originals, and one of the two covers is a no-mercy funk remake of the '70s T. Rex classic Bang A Gong (Get It On), guaranteed to blister your backside. The album was roughly three years in the making, as of February 24, '85, the group was permanently unmade. Everybody went back to his normal gig. End. Fini. One album, one performance (Saturday Night Live), one or two videos, and the coach turned into a pumpkin.

"We better stress that it was very much of a one-off thing," says John, leaning across a coffee table clotted with imported cigarettes and cassette tapes. But how could they resist repeating what was obviously such an overwhelming rush? The day of this chat, Taylor had only heard the final mix of the first single (Some Like It Hot) a few weeks before, and Palmer only the night before. Palmer in particular was still rather stunned at the final sound. It was almost like he was trying to explain to himself how it happened.

"You get driven," he says. "Once it starts to work, you can't think of anything else. The alchemy was amazing. And it just snowballs. The fact that everything blended like it did, it was a surprise. A lot of times you can work really hard, and, musically, the parts might be alright, but agiven group of musicians might not have resonance; it won't necessarily sound like music. But when four individuals, five counting Bernard, come together from all over the globe and start putting down tracks, before they've all met each other, and then they do meet, and keep trying, the chances of them ending up with good music is a million to one. So we're all absolutely delighted with the whole thing."

For a long time it looked like a million to one that the Power Station would cut anything. The original idea was John Taylor's in 1977 - at the time, Duran Duran was just a name in his head. "I heard this wonderful song called Good Times by Chic. It had this great crunching sound." He was equally worked up about the newborn furor from the Clash and the Sex Pistols. Why couldn't the three be combined? But then the other four members of Duran Duran appeared, "and we discovered synthesizers and became the pop band you know now. But I still knew that the other idea, it could work." All the way through what taylor refers to laughingly as "pop pinup stardom," he hung on to the original notion.

Enter natty, erudite, "high class" Robert Palmer, the singer behind several pristeen white funk albums as well as minor American hits like Doctor, Doctor and You Are In My System. "I met Nick Rhodes first," recalls Palmer, who could easily be a male model were he not already in such a respectable line of work. "And then John and I became friends too. I always liked the guys in Duran Duran because I like their attitude toward their gig," Palmer grins, obviously thinking about his high-brow supporters who would blanch at such alliance. "They weren't down and bitchy and snobbish like a lot of other English musicians. A lot of them are really snotty and cynical. That's why I left England to live in Nassau years ago. I couldn't take it. The guys from Duran Duran liked what they were doing. So we hung out occasionally, and then, gradually, this idea came up, and well, now it's fait accompli."

Not quite that fast. On the contrary, they talked about it for a number of years, "every six months at three a.m.." Palmer couldn't quite believe it when Taylor finally called him this past year and announced that some basic tracks were ready and would he just take a listen. PUHHLEEZE? Taylor had met Tony Thompson on Bowie's Serious Moonlight Tour; Thompson eventually convinced Edwards ("my idol", says Taylor) to produce. As for guitarist, it didn't even really dawn on John to ask Andy until Andy asked John, "No way has Andy ever played like he does on Power Station," Palmer admits. "I didn't even know who it was the first time I heard the guitar work on the basic tracks."

Disbelief, it turned out, was almost as abundant as the good music. "Bernard gave an overview and played Some Like It Hot and the guy said, 'God, Bernard, you must really need the money to work for those schmuckos - who really did this record?' And Bernard said says, 'No, they really can play, that's really the two guys from Duran Duran on the record.' The guy says, 'Naw, that's you playing the bass. C'mon, Bernard, you've known me for a long time, tell me the truth, that's not who you say!' He just wouldn't believe Bernard."

Advert for the Power Station's Some Like It Hot single: "Who really did this record?"

Actually, there were times in the process that the musicians didn't believe what was happening, either. What had started out as a fun EP of cover tunes was quickly turning into a real-live, no-kidding album with original songs. Not only did these guys play together but they could really write together, too. "It just kept going," Palmer remembers, "and you can't forsee something like that. You just can't. Everyone was just doing what came naturally, and everyone else just kept liking it more and more. It snowballed."

By the time all the songs were written and the snowball was turning into an avalanche, there were some disbelievers that needed some serious convincing. Managers and record companies connected to the Power Station troupe were beginning to realize that something was going on - something expensive -  and it was out of their hands. "But by then, they'd left us alone too long." A small smile forms on Palmer's face. "They'd been thinking we were just screwing around during our time off. By the time they got interested, we were just burning. We knew we really had something."

The jig was up when Taylor's manager got a bill for an upcoming photo session to the tune of ten grand. "You know that photographers like Scavullo or Avedon are very expensive. I organized this session, and then there was my manager on the phone from London, and he hadn't heard of any of the music yet. He says 'no way John, you can't spend this much on photos.' He cancelled the fucking session, because he didn't take it seriously. 'This is where their indulgences have to stop, no matter how many records they sell.' So he came over and heard the music, and then he went wild. It was great; everything had been done totally anti-corporate, and then, suddenly, they were all hurrying to accomodate us." Three weeks before this interview, the band chose "from all the people clawing to get at us" and signed a nice record contract. "The cat was out of the bag," gloats Palmer. And it was not a corporate cat.

Next to recounting the tale of How It Happened, Taylor and Palmer most enjoy speculating about Who Will Buy It. The Chic audience, the Duran audience and the Palmer audience are not  exactly one and the same. And then there's the difference between in critical status, especially between Duran Duran and Palmer. "What matters is what the public thinks," Palmer says. "There's this broad audience that won't know or care who's in the band. I mean, I'm usually pretty good at guessing and I wouldn't be able to guess who's in this one. There'll also be interest from the individual fans of each of us but the broad audience is the element we really don't know anything about. Certainly they'll be able to tell this was no contrivance." Will the critics? "There are so heavy prejudices flying around here. This is gonna turn a lot of heads," Palmer nearly smirks.

"There's a lot of critical esteem for Robert," Taylor smiles, in Palmer's direction, "and a lot of critical hatred for Duran Duran. Some people heard that Robert was singing on the record and they said stuff like 'you know Robert Palmer, you pin-up boy, you??' We're getting magazines to talk to us about this project that normally wouldn't touch Duran Duran, but they'll write about this because Robert is involved. We did an interview the other day with a magazine that covers black music, and they would normally avoid Duran too, except that Bernard and Tony are involved with this. Matter of fact, the first thing the guy says to me is 'tell me what Duran Duran sounds like.' It made me realize the extremes of what we're dealing with here."

Palmer jumps back in. "See, I've never had the sales, but I've always had the critics. So even though I'm not really famous, I do have a little clout in that one area." And Duran Duran has clout in the other and Bernard and Tony have... "Hopefully some of the people who buy Duran Duran will buy Robert's next record because of this, and the people who listen to us or Robert will get interested in Chic, and people will hear some new things all the way around," says John, as if he'd found a way to right some old wrongs. "Maybe that's the way it'll go." Then again, maybe it won't. Shrugs Palmer: "I don't care if it sells one or one million. We were so lucky to have this chance, it just doesn't matter."

"A bunch of people got together and followed the music"

And maybe, this one time, it really doesn't. After all, what's to lose? It's a one-shot event. John Taylor is rich enough for six lifetimes. Palmer lives like a baron in Nassau and makes his own music his own way, and Thompson and Edwards could play sessions and produce records til they croak and still not find time for everyone that wants to work with them. Maybe this one time, the hype is for the right reasons: a bunch of people got together and followed the music and it worked.

Laura Fissinger (Creem Magazine - 1985)