Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo wrote and produced three tracks for the Blondie (including " Studio 54") reunion album in 1996 the tracks were not used, but one song called " Pop Trash Movie" was later recorded by Duran Duran for the 2000 album Pop Trash. He jokingly said he would never do so again because their hit single " Too Shy" was the song that kept Duran Duran's " Hungry Like The Wolf" out of the #1 spot on the UK charts. In early 1983, he discovered the band Kajagoogoo and produced their debut album White Feathers. Rhodes studied production techniques while in the studio with Duran Duran, eventually helping to mix several tracks on the Rio album, and was a co-producer on many of the band's later albums. His digitally altered voice is heard on the title track to the 1997 album Medazzaland. Rhodes owns the rights to the "Duran Duran" name.īy the late 1990s, Rhodes had begun writing lyrics for Duran Duran, as well as music. As the band "grew up" in the public eye, however, Rhodes's intelligence, determination, and incisive dry humour became well-known to fans and fellow musicians, and he has become known as the "keeper of the Duran flame". Barely twenty when the band hit major stardom, he cultivated an androgynous and sometimes flamboyant image, wore heavy makeup, and changed his hair colour at whim. His contributions to the band were sometimes underestimated by contemporaries and critics. Rhodes was also quick to recognize the potential of the music video, and pushed the band to put more effort into their early videos than seemed warranted at the time (before the advent of MTV). His arrangements were rich, multi-layered, and unique, and although he has continued to explore the cutting edge of digital synthesizer technology, he has an enduring love for the analog synths of his early days, using them even on albums released in the 2000's He also popularized the Crumar Performer on the early records. The distinctive warble of " Save A Prayer", the keyboard stabs of " A View to a Kill", and the string sounds of " Come Undone" are some of his most recognizable creations. An unschooled musician, he loved experimenting with the sounds his analog synthesizers were capable of, but shied away from the "novelty" sounds of some other early synth bands. The band achieved rapid success, and Rhodes was a driving force throughout. The club owners became the band's managers, and Rhodes began working at the club as a disc jockey. At about the same time as the name Duran Duran was chosen for the band, he decided to change his name, for "aesthetic reasons", to Rhodes after the Greek Isle.Īs the band coalesced into its final lineup in 1979- 80, Duran Duran started playing at a local Birmingham club called the Rum Runner. In 1978, Bates left school at the age of sixteen, and founded Duran Duran with his art school friend John Taylor. Nick Bates was the only child of well-off parents, the owners of a Birmingham toy store called Bates Toy Shop.
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