Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes descended upon East Village Radio in New York City last night, where a crowd of approximately 700 people packed the sidewalks for a chance to press their noses against the glass of the storefront radio booth. The two members of Duran Duran were there to promote the release of their new album, All You Need Is Now, and spent a couple of hours chatting with Mark Ronson during his Authentic Shit internet radio show.

Questions were submitted via twitter, they played music, and generally acted silly.

Highlights:

• Favorite songs from the new record:
  Nick – Blame the Machines
  Simon -Girl Panic! “because girls make me panic in a good way”
• When will you start touring again?
  Nick said, “Yes, definitely next year, probably I suppose starting sometime in early February. Nothing solid yet, but I imagine it will include the United States.”  Nick also says that he hopes that some dates will include Mark Ronson and the Business, Intl., and later in the show mentioned that they would probably be coming out to California sometime early next year.
• Do you feel like you used to get a bad rap from the critics?
  Simon – “It varies from album to album, but so far this one seems to be getting alarmingly good reviews.”
  Nick – “Some of the rock press perhaps prefer more traditional music than ours, people perhaps who wear jeans and t-shirts people that sing about America, and i have no problem with that. I can see how it’s a little bit of a difference to what we do.”
  Simon – “We can’t wait for (the critics ) to make us happy. we know we’ve made a good album.”
• Simon re-wrote the lyrics for Blame the Machines five or six times.
  Mark – “A lot of lyrical depth was put into this album.”
  Simon – “it’s very different to the way we did the last album , there was a hell of a lot attention placed on the lyrics, and a lot of that has to do with you (Mark). A lot of times you would say it’s just not good enough for this song, it needs this kind of lyric or that kind of lyric or it needs to be more honest or whatever it was, and it made it quite difficult but… in the long run I’m really please it turned out like that, because in the long run I think it will really last.”
• Who sings the female sat nav vocals on Blame the Machines?
  Simon – It’s not Kylie, it’s our favorite English newscaster Nina Hossain from ITV (who also did the vocals at the end of The Man Who Stole a Leopard)…. I wanted to get that kind of sexy but authoritative thing that women seem to have over men, you know what I mean? the way she delivered the voice of the sat nav, you cannot go against what she says.”
• How do you feel about the album leaks?
  Nick – “It’s good to let people hear a little bit of things. I don’t really like people hearing the entire album before it comes out, I think it’s a shame when people leak things like that when they have them, that’s hugely irresponsible.”

• Read more…

• It turns out the makeup artist was right… Nick Rhodes announced on BBC2 Radio this week that Duran Duran hope to digitally release their new album All You Need Is Now in December, with physical copies to be made available in the new year. Those in the UK can listen to the interview here, with Nick at 141min 50sec.

• Duran Duran have updated their social networking sites to reflect affiliation with their own TapeModern record label. Read more about this here.

• Simon Le Bon turned a gorgeous 52 years old this week, and Gimme a Wristband wishes a very happy birthday to our dearest Charlie. Don’t miss Simon’s answer to the Ask Katy question posted on his birthday, in which he goes into great detail about exactly what it sounds like when someone hurls a GPO 706 model table telephone at your head. WHOOOSH!
  

  Saffi and Benji of XIII and the Brave

• Simon also posted this sweet message on DuranDuran.com: “My lovely and talented daughter Saffron has been songwriting for a while. Now she’s only gone and recorded a song with her musical partner
  Benji the XIIIth; this one is written by him. They call themselves XIII and the Brave. They’ve been playing small gigs around the London area and may do a small tour slot soon supporting The Wild Mercury Sound.” You can have a listen to two of their songs here, including the beautifully autumnal The Wind (She Blows You Close).

• If you want to feel all tingly inside, click on the the photo below to listen to all of the snippets from All You Need Is Now collected thus far, all in one tidy file.

Simon Le Bon, showing off his birthday beard yesterday in Rome

• The first quarter of the chat was spent discussing the weather. Simon is fond of autumn and the change of seasons. He does not feel threatened by the cold, and likes throwing snowballs and making snowmen. He may try skiing again this winter.
• Simon tells us that he enjoys spending time in the garden, performing a Kung Fu maneuver called the “horse dance,” wherein he holds a squatting position for approximately 30 minutes.
• Simon praised the packaging of the Notorious and Big Thing reissues (they rarely ever seem to get past the packaging, do they?), and he thinks that all of the Duran Duran material, including Thank You should be reissued. And then reissued again.
• Simon has been enjoying his work with Mark Ronson and the Business INTL.  He feels that he was able to make his part on the title track of the record his very own, and it was “really a lot of fun”. He really likes Someone to Love Me, the tune with Boy George, and has spoken with him about possibly doing something together in the future.
• There was a short discussion of George Michael’s “driving” problems. Simon says George is a great guy.
• Simon asks Katy if you can pick and eat elderberries. He has an elderberry tree, and would like a listener to tell him if it is safe to eat the berries or not.
• There was explanation of title of the new album, All You Need is Now. It has some existental qualities, meaning that the only moment that counts is right now, it also means not to give up even if you have been around for a while. The song is about knowing that you’re still around and proud of it. Simon likes that the title is a “slight mutilation” of a Beatles title.
• “All I can say regarding the release of the new album is keep your eyes and ears open around Christmas as there might be something coming around then, and I reckon before the new year.”
  
• Simon spoke briefly about the FENDI show during Paris Fashion Week. Basically, they couldn’t resist a free trip to Paris and had a lot of fun.
• Simon has a bit of a beard, he is trying it out to do some filming, so we will be seeing it. It’s still a bit “gappy”, but “soft and lovely.”  He says he hasn’t got food stuck in it yet.  He would like to have a Jesse James / Ned Kelley type of beard, complete with handlebar mustache. He has deemed it a “birthday beard.”
• “We’ve got a big year ahead of us… it’s going to to be a lot of fun!”

click for more videos from Simon

Here’s a beautiful video performance of Arcadia’s The Flame… it’s much more clear than other versions I have seen from this Spanish television program. Can anyone tell me the name of the show? I think it must be from 1986, when the single was released. Yeah, yeah… they’re miming… but who cares? Nick looks muy fantastico in that red scarf.