ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

If the boys in the Power Station were canines, they'd have no trouble whatsoever in scooping the honours at Crufts. Just look at those healthy coats! Those sparkling eyes! Gleaning white teeth! And those pedigrees: Robert Palmer's is right champion, ditto Tony Thompson's (drums occasionally with Chic and some bloke called Bowie) and, of course, those cheeky heart throbs Andy and John Taylor's need no introduction. Puppy loveboats both, worth a few bob too.

On a wet day at the Montcalm Hotel thoroughbred kennels, a trio of Power Stationers (Andy is with bab at home) are bright eyed and bushy tailed. But the trouble with winners is that one sniff of success tends to go directly to their tousled heads. I tread with care at first, wondering if JT, RP and TT will have surrended to the doggy arrogant superstar syndrome, merely amusing themselves with a novelty jam record until the next royalty cheque arrives.

But, pop kids, I trod in no bullshit. This lot, I am relieved to report, are like three schoolboys whose wizzard prang got serious, and they enthuse about it quite genuinely, using words like 'spontaneous' and 'chemistry', not 'units' or 'rack momentum'. Wow, phew! Somebody remembered they were making music!

Some Like It Hot smokes. It picks up where Let's Dance left off and takes it to the bridge. It's really jolly good. Spontaneous combustion, eh chaps? Tony: "It just happened; nothing was discussed, that's the reason it worked as well as it did."

Robert: "We didn't have an end product in mind, we weren't thinking of making a hit single... it just sort of rollercoastered." No concept, no vision? Robert: "No, John had to the extent that he'd wanted to put the team of people together, and he'd always harboured this idea of a mixture of R'n'B and rock, but when it came to it it was the chemistry of personalities that made it work."

Tony: " I gathered from the start that this was something really special; there was an energy there that was unbelievable, that I hadn't felt in a while. It was one of those things that was supposed to happen."

Robert: "When it first started, John sent me this tape of one song, and as soon as I heard it, I knew it was happening and I jumped on a plane and wrote the words then. I got to New York and said 'who's the guitarist?' You don't realise Andy is such a wild player, cos he's just a layer in Duran, no-one can hear him."

Cue to the entry of JT down spiral staircase from the panstick application section, modelling his now legendary dress. Robert reveals his wife's just bought one, so has Simon Le Bon's girlfriend Clare. Well, girls, it's red, black and cosmic with palmistry thingies all over it - very latterday hippy. He does wear leather trousers underneath, thank godness.

He tries desperately no to be vague after two hours' sleep in two days. Hey, guess what, John - I like the single!

John: "I'm very pleased with it, it's surpassed everybody's expectations. We'd nearly finished the album before anybody took any notice, they all thought we were jerking ourseleves off - nobody, not our management, the record companies involved, took any notice until we sent them a bill for the photosession, then they said hang on a minute, this has gone far enough, we've got to pull in Andy and John's reins!"

John continues the fine tradition of using spontaneously chemical references. "The whole thing was a series of spontaneous... no, contrived coincidences. Robert and I had been talking about it for ages, and Tony was the one I had in mind for it, then we met on the Bowie tour, that clicked straight away, then it was just a matter of getting it together.

"It's only now I'm starting to think hey, I hope it's a hit; normally with Duran, we'd be playing it and saying 'is this a number one or isn't it?' It got so bad with us, that when Union Of The Snake came out and got to number three, everyone went that's it, they're over. We realised it was such a restrictive way of thinking."

And now, we find people - even journalists! - actually liking a record upon which two Durans do their bit. "It's really weird having a good critical reaction," says John, "I'm worried, I've never had a good review in my life. It's been really funny with Robert; a lot of cynics, especially in the States, hate everything Duran stand for, and of course Robert is the real apple of the eye, the critics love him, and they want to say 'why are you working with these guys?'. That's if they haven't heard the record. If they have they say 'yeah, well it worked out real well, didn't it, Bob'. But his fanmail's dropped. People that have been writing to him for 10 years have stopped: he's let them down."

It all actually started when John had this idea to do a cover version of T-Rex's classic Get It On, and now it's turned into a whole sweatin', swingin' LP. Rob: "There's two really out and out rock'n'roll songs - Get It On and Murderess, really sweaty. Then there's Communication and Lonely Tonight - they have a touch of Latin, and there's one ballad that has these James Bond chords on. That's because John had just been to see John Barry ... And we've done Harvest For The World, the old lsley Brothers song."

John: "The album sounds like how I'd originally thought Duran could sound, the original concept. It's very heavy - some of the album's more like Led Zeppelin - honestly! It's really driving, we've got away totally from any electropop sound."

Tony: "It's back to the rhythm section, to the raw roots of playing, and that's something I don't hear too much right now."

John: "The thing was the Power Station studio is about four storeys high, and the drum sound is so big, it's that distinctive - Let's Dance and Madonna were done there, so it's a shame to fill it out 'cos it's such a pure sound."

The Power Station co-op wouldn't be complete without mention of producer Bernard 'Chic' Edwards and Jason 'Wild Boys' Corsaro, who even get picture credits on the album sleeve for engineering a big, fat but basic sound and making Robert Palmer exclaim 'wow, is that really us?'.

And just like they've turned off from automatic pilot in interviews, there's been a new perspective on playing, especially for John: "I was getting to the point with Duran where I was going through stock basslines like I go through stock answers in interviews. This time I had to really think about it, change things around and find an alternative way of doing things. It's not as if me and Andy are going to go and try to inflict the way we've done things on Duran, though.

"The hardest thing for me was playing in front of Bernard, who really inspired me to play bass, so I'm playing it and I'm shaking. I left the studio one night in tears, I just didn't know if I could play to his expectations. It was great, 'cos it was just at the point where I personally needed it, 'cos The Reflex was number one in the States and about five other countries, and I was really sweating to play, really busting my ass and I was thinking 'I must be mad, I don't need this', but I did, I could've got really arrogant."

Even so, the record was put back five weeks because of terrible legal problems. But there'll be no Power Station live gigs (the one and only was on American TV's Saturday Night Live) and no predictable follow-ups; no appearances on TOTP. Says John: "God, it's hard enough being in one group, and I can't cope with that!". Now JT has no new basslines for the next Duran album, starting in two weeks' time. But it was worth it, pups, and I agree with Robert, it would've sold even if it was by Fred and the Bongoes.

(Record Mirror - March 16, 1985)