ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

In a documentary filmed during the making of The Power Station's self-titled album in 1985, Robert Palmer remarks: "There's no way this group should be happening. It should be illegal." He wasn't wrong.

A comet whose original line-up lasted less than six months from inception to implosion, The Power Station was an accidental supergroup whose spare, hungry sound perfectly showcased each element of the band, without any of the self-indulgence normally associated with such projects: Andy Taylor proving just how wide-ranging his guitar skills were, John Taylor getting his groove on like never before, Chic's Tony Thompson unleashing his rock power and Robert Palmer finally showing his sophistication to a mainstream audience.

Song ideas birthed in London took flight at The Power Station, the New York studio which gave the band its name and housed some of the world's tightest session players to further bloster the Taylors' vision.

What began as a fun escape from Duran Duran's internal tensions remains a wild ride for listeners too. Here, Andy Taylor and John Taylor explain to John Earls how The Power Station became an illicit thrill for all involved...

What was the initial inspiration for the band?

John Taylor: Duran has always been a delicate balance between grunt and nuance. Seven And The Ragged Tiger had been a particularly nuanced project, ultimately lacking in grunt. Andy and I felt we needed to express a bit of grunt. We just wanted to rock.

Andy Taylor: It was a case of upgrading our challenge. We'd done loads in Duran on our own - really, everything until Nile Rodgers remixed The Reflex. So, how could we creatively push ourselves further?

How did Tony Thompson join?

John: We first met him when Tony and Nile went to see Blondie in New Jersey in '82, when we suppported. We clicked immediately. Then, when Tony played on David Bowie's Serious Moonlight tour, we hung out after a show in Fréjus. We went to a club in Cannes, where it was: "We should work together, man!"

Andy: Tony had grown up playing along to Led Zeppelin on cardboard boxes. He had a great John Bonham feel that he'd never been able to unleash with Chic. When we first set up at Maison Rouge studio in Fulham, we just let Tony go. Everyone was: "Fuuuuck!"

John: When I was laying out my line of bullshit to Tony about working together, I told him: "The drums will be upfront and you'll be the star." Guess what? Tony really liked the idea.

Is it true you were originally going to have many different singers?

John: Duran went off on tour, where I got a girlfriend. Bebe Buell was a real rock & roller, a real star who'd made a couple of records. I thought: "Ooh, I could make a record with Bebe." I came back from that tour and told Duran's A&R, Dave Ambrose: "I want to make a cover of Get It On with Bebe Buell! With Andy on guitar and Tony Thompson on drums!" "Riiiight..." I fell out with Bebe, but that idea remained.

Andy: I can't remember who they were, but we had lists of potential names, a lot of: "That might be a good idea."

John: Me, Andy and Tony wanted to define a sound for ourselves, bringing in singers to do different things. We were thinking of becoming a house band, like Stax or Motown. A couple of Chic's singers had sung on Seven And The Ragged Tiger, so we were going to start with Duran's backing singers. It was a case of how quickly we could get into a studio and start making some noise.

How quickly did songs start to emerge?

Andy: In our first session, on an evening off from Duran business in Paris, we were jamming Get It On. Tony's hi-hat work made me go: "Wait! Stop! What's that? Do that." T-Rex's Get It On is quite romantic with a gentle touch, but Tony was whacking it out. We just rocked it up, and everything was born from that. Tony's work was amazing, and he laughed his way through life.

John: We also cut what became Some Like It Hot. It's got the beginnings of the vibe, of my dance groove with Andy's rock. We were taking the electronics of Duran out of the way. What's left is that first demo. Listening to it again, I'm surprised how much it reminds me of The Clash, in their later "We've been listening to disco" period.

How did Bernard Edwards become The Power Station's producer?

Andy: Tony was the one who pushed Bernard. We hadn't thought about him until Tony said: "Bernard is the dude. He'll get this, he'll understand what you're talking about. You've got to talk to him."

John: I'd assumed any project Andy and I did would be produced by Nile. Bernard was very much in the shadows at that point, he hadn't stepped forward as an individual.

Andy: Nile was the zeitgeist man, pulling it all in from everywhere. If you gave Nile a ham sandwich, he'd turn it into a hit song. Bernard made sense of a lot of that. He was a serious guy, a no-play motherfucker, with incredible arrangement skills. Bernard's patience and empathy were amazing, but you couldn't fuck about with him, as you'd make an ass of yourself.

John: Bernard was very different to Nile, very lowkey and understated, but robust. He was also the greatest bass player alive. That helped.

The album credits list Bernard's name among the band's. Was he an official band member?

Andy: Bernard was as integral as anybody, but we already had the best-looking bass player in the world, so did we need another? You couldn't have two. Tony was living the life as a musician, playing with Bowie. Bernard wasn't doing that. He was the producer.

What made you first approach Robert Palmer?

John: Robert isn't in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, when he really should be. Anyone who's got a deep understanding of '70s music has an appreciation of Robert, who took a very particular path. His records are roadmaps of interesting collaborations and what's hip. There's something about Robert that's very evocative: there's a lot of feeling in his music, yet also detachment. For me, it's the perfect combination.

Andy: I first met Robert at Steve Strange's squat in 1981. He must have been off his nut, because I was off mine, and I thought Robert was really off his. We started to hang out. Robert was a tough old cookie, who could hang out with the best of them.

How quickly did you gel with Robert as a band?

John: We'd sent him Some Like It Hot to sing on. On the plane over to New York, I played Robert the demo of Communication. He scribbed down some lyrics on a cigarette packet. Once we got him behind the mic, Robert knocked out Communication in one. Then he said: "What's happening with the T-Rex song?" Within an hour, he's nailed that too. That's when Bernard said: "We've got our singer, we don't need to go looking."

Andy: I don't think either of us ever really wanted loads of singers. Robert had a way with language so that, once we added to it, the songs started to become whole. He really put the hours in, in terms of lyrics. He'd overwrite lyrics, giving us some much choice. He said: "I've got this title: Murderess." What a great title. What else do you need to know when you've got a title like that? He was so disciplined. He'd walk up to the microphone, bottle of wine, sing the song and fuck off.

John: Robert loved being in on the gag - that he was suddenly with two members of Duran Duran in this intense supergroup. He'd say things like: "Who would have seen this coming?" He'd see that I have charm for days, but an artist like Robert always needs an MD who can take care of the musical details. Andy can be that guy, who could say: "The guitars will definitely be in tune and sound great."

Robert looks incredibly suave at all times in The Power Station...

Andy: Everywhere I went with him, Robert had a suit on. He might take the jacket off and roll the sleeves up, but he maintained that look, constantly. People would say: "I hope he doesn't turn up in a T-shirt." Not that he ever did.

John: Suave? Oh, he was up there. But Robert was also a very quirky guy, who loved to laugh. He never appeared to take anything that seriously. Robert was a connoisseur. He liked clothes and took them seriously, and he was the same with music, and food and wine. In Duran, we were comfortable with the fact our fans each had a favourite band member. The Power Station was like that, only more so, for extremes of personality. In our photos, the look on Robert's face was always: "Trust me, I know how ridiculous this is." Whereas Tony's look was: "I don't know what the fuck is going on here either, but I could get laid with this photograph."

John, what was it like playing with Tony as a rhythm section partner?

John: Hairy! Tony was like a racehorse who needed a very firm jockey, which was Bernard. In Duran, I learned to play bass with Roger drumming, so we had a very tight relationship. Tony had a huge personality and was a really big drummer. At first, I didn't understand how John Bonham could be his favourite drummer: in Chic, the drums are a certain way in the mix. But in The Power Station, Tony let that Bonham side out a lot more. I thought: "Wow, where are the steady disco beats?" But Tony was: "Fuck the disco beats, I want to rock! Isn't that what we're here for?" It was intense. To some extent, Andy and I didn't realise what we'd started.

Speaking of Roger, what did he contribute to the album?

Andy: Rog was going to overdub some timbales, rototoms and octabans on Some Like It Hot. He did loads of cool stuff like that with Duran: listen to Girls On Film. He got that from Steve Jansen of Japan, who did a lot of that. The session would take a few hours, but this is the madness of it all: Roger sat for four days at The Carlisle Hotel in New York, waiting for a phone call to overdub his timbales. Day one: no timbales. Day two, day three... Finally, day four: "Can you come down the studio, Rog?" This was nothing to do with me, I'd have been a little more conscious of not having Roger hanging around for four days. Roger was the floating fifth member, going between New York with us and Paris with Arcadia. It was better being in one place, rather than trying to do both. That's too crazy.

Did you know straight away that 'Some Like It Hot' would be a big song?

John: In the first two minutes, you've got Tony's drum solo, just like we promised, and this groove by a horn section that's so dry, dirty and like nothing else happening in music at that moment. And then you've got Robert, who's really being announced to a mainstream pop audience. To some extent, Some Like It Hot is the song. It's the manifesto, of: "This is what The Power Station is."

Andy: Robert had an acute ear for stacking up harmonies. When he nailed the vocal on Some Like It Hot, I thought: "This is a really big record." As a musician, you learn how to arrange songs in a way that the singer can get on top of. We'd have a basic idea, and maybe a title, so that you could hear where the singer could get on top and do their thing.

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