ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

Paul Bursche spends two days watching The Power Station bring their "corporate image" to life on video.

Ever been stuck in a traffic jam with a member of Duran Duran? Surprisingly, it's not much different from being in a jam with anyone else. Except for the noise. Andy Taylor pushes up the volume just one extra notch and the sound of the new Power Station LP spills out onto the pavement of London's Kings Road. Passers-by stare in amazement, for the moment not noticing a member of Duran, but just ogling at the sheer noise.

Andy is unaware of the disturbance he's created. He's totally immersed in the music, displaying all the enthusiasm of a child with a new toy, noticing things about the car stereo that only a musician could. "Your stereo's not balanced properly," he yells (he has to!) at Suzie Rome, Duran's press officer and then spends 15 minutes fidding about the graphic equaliser.

He gives a running commentary as each song starts up: "That's Murderess - its' our sort of spy song. A terrible lyric brillantly sung. Ace. Get It On. It was the original song that made us want to do this. Great, isn't it? My guitar unleashed on the world!"

Andy's bubbling over with things to say about The Power Station. This is the only interview he's doing, so he seems anxious to get it all out now.

"When John formed Duran," he explains, "it's well known that his original idea was to cross The Sex Pistols with Chic, what I call Punk Funk. The Power Station has finally realised that idea, but it seems that the solution all along was to actually get members of Chic in on it! That was a boost in itself, you know. Those guys (Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson) don't play with any old dirt!"

There are two things that Andy wants to emphasise about The Power Station. One, it's not just John Taylor's group. Two, this is not the end of Duran.

"There's really only one way to answer the people who are saying that it is," he smiles. "That'll be when Duran's new album comes out in October or November and we do our tour. I dunno, though. Perharps we should split up, sell twice as many records, and then do a big reunion tour."

Ever been lost with a member of Duran Duran? The original purpose of our journey was to deliver Andy to Meantime Studios, Greenwich where the Some Like It Hot video is being filmed. After a spot of lunch we make good time to Greenwich through the thinning stream of traffic. But then it takes us a further two hours to locate the studios, unable to find one person in the area who knows where they are.

When we finally arrive at the studio it's in a large warehouse and appropriately next to a power station. In the last couple of weeks Shakin' Stevens and Paul Young have filmed videos here, while Bowie is due to arrive next week.

In the dark interior of the building, there's plenty of hustle and bustle. Director Peter Heath is taking great pains to ensure the lighting is correct, something that's to take most of the day. He's using a back projection where pictures are flung up on a giant screen behind the group, so the lighting must be perfect if the group are not to be blotted out.

Dotted around the stage area a multitude of props lie waiting to be used. There are mannequins with skeletal heads, artificial trees, treadmills, a bicycle and most impressive of all, a cactus that bursts into flame.

Andy has no qualms whatsoever about admitting he hasn't got a clue what it's all about. Neither has Robert Palmer, who's lounging in one of the two trailers parked outside. He arrived at nine this morning and has just risen after seven hours solid sleep.

He was out on the town with John last night, but he still looks dapper and very stylish. And at least, he knows what the song's about.

"John first came to me and said that he didn't care what I wrote about as long as it was called Some Like It Hot. I approached the thing along the lines of those people who choose to live their lives on the edge, living dangerously."

Robert has to rush off to complete the only shot that will be done today, with him in a clergyman's outfit delivering a kind of sermon along the lines of "if you like it hot, don't be surprised when you fry!"

Afterwards he too enthuses about how pleased he is with the album. "When I listen to a piece of music I don't hear notes," he says. "I hear feelings. And in that record you can hear everybody doing their best, four guys giving it all. You're listening to honest spontaneity."

The next day Andy arrives back at the studio feeling a little disgruntled. He wasn't required yesterday, so he feels that the day was a waste of his time. He's also been suffering from insomnia recently, a result of his body having failed to readjust to being back to England after a stay in America.

There's a more urgent feeling on the set today, a sense that there's loads of work to be done. To confuse matters a film crew from MTV are in the process of making a half hour special on The Power Station which you'll also be able to watch on The Tube. There seem to be about a million people scurrying around on the set, and what with film crew filming film crew it's getting pretty darned complicated.

Far from the madding crowd is John Taylor, secreted in one of those precious trailers. They seem the perfect answer to the rigorous demands of shooting a video, coming complete with oven, fridge, air conditioning and video (Long Good Friday and Bladerunner are the favourites today). Andy says they're the only way you can spend ten hours on a shoot and still look fresh when it comes to doing your bit.

John looks a trifle delicate. "I don't know why. Last night was a quiet night!" He soon snaps awake, though, as he begins to thumb through the reviews. " I don't know why I'm reading these," he says wearily. "Force of habit, I suppose."

I can't see what he means. For once the reviews have been charitable, it seems The Power Station will be well liked. "That's not what I mean. In our eyes the whole exercise is already a success. Considering the logistics involved in the four of us getting the same time free, just getting the record made is the achievement."

An achievement indeed. Especially when you consider that in the beginning according to John there was no encouragement from his record company EMI.

"EMI!" he splutters. "There was an initial lack of confidence period! Except in those who were in the studio. Even Bernard (former member of Chic and producer) was a little sceptical at first and Robert had to be cajoled into doing it. It suited us, though, that no one was taking any notice of us. We were able to to work away in peace, without anyone getting on our backs and demanding a single off us or anything. EMI didn't hear from us until we sent them a bill for a photo session we did. They must have said, 'Whoah, let's get John and Andy back here, they're obviously losing their marbles! But as soon as they heard the tapes we'd done they went Wow!"

For John, of course, there was one obvious advantage to The Power Station recording session. It brought him face to face with the man who first made him pick up a guitar, Bernard Edwards.

"You're not kidding. He was my inspiration to play. It was fantastic, it was like going back to school. I never picked up a bass until I heard Good Times and then at the end of The Power Station recording session Bernard - prince that he is - gave me the guitar he recorded it on."

Later Andy informs me that Bernard "really grilled John, made him work really hard" and ended up getting the best bass playing of his career out of him.

It was John, aided by Robert, who got the striking artwork together for the single cover. "We'd both done graphics," said John, "so it seemed natural for us to do it ourselves. The idea for the artwork came from an image in a book I had. It was originally very heavy, with all sorts of S&M overtones, but we've lightened it up a little."

At this moment John is pounced upon by MTV so I steal away to the studio where the sight that greets my eyes is enough to make me take one, nay two, steps back in amazement. It's the girl illustrated on the single sleeve who's riding a bicycle in what can only be described as a suggestive manner with the camera pointing at her rear end.

Her name is Tula, she's a model, extremely tall, a former sex changée, star of the famous Smirnoff vodka adverts, and also this video. She's dressed (nearly) in an outlandish outfit of a tight corset top, spikey bra, a tiny skirt and high heeled shoes. All are fluorescent, and the effect... well, you'll just have to wait for the video.

"She's the star of the video," says John later, "and on the sleeve of the single and album. But she's more than that. She is The Power Station, our corporate identity. We're not trying to sell a group. In a way we're trying to sell her. I like the idea of corporate image, not so much as a big power thing but the imagery itself. The whole thing about having paper with your logo on it, a design, an identity. Ideally the record sleeve should have had on it, The Power Station, London, Nassau, New York, instead of John Taylor, blah blah etc. What I have in mind is something like the British Electronic Foundation from a couple of years ago - the collaboration of Heaven 17's Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh - but without suits. We don't wear suits - well, he does!"

John points at Robert who's just devoured a large helping of Japanese sushi, brought to him by the ever thoughtful Suzie. "I've had a load of sleep and a load of sushi," he says smugly. "I almost feel human."

From what we see of the filming it seems that Tula is the girl who goes around burning everyone and everything she sees to a cinder, until she finally burns herself up. It's very spirited, and much in keeping with previous Duran videos. It should help the single's path to tremendous success, which leads us on to asking, what next for The Power Station?

"It's over," says John. "We'll never release another album in our present form, but I would like The Power Station to go on. The next album may take another three years - we may make an album with Yehudi Menuhin yet! Seriously though, I'd like to see it as a platform for other things. It's a nucleus, something flexible for other people to branch out from."

Says Robert: "The spirit in the studio when we did the record, was such that if we tried to repeat it or recreate it in that form, it would be obscene."

"And promise Duran fans," adds Andy, "that although this was letting all our hair down and we've learnt a lot, Duran Duran's next album will definitvely not be a rock and roll album."

Paul Bursche (No1 Magazine - March 1985)