Andy Taylor |
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Andy Taylor Biography |
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Andy Taylor (born 16 February 1961) is an English guitarist, singer, and songwriter, best known as a member of Duran Duran and The Power Station. He has also performed as a solo artist, and served as a record producer for several other artists.
He was born and raised in Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear, North East England, and attended Marden High School. He began playing guitar at the age of eleven, and was soon playing with local bands, even producing one at the age of sixteen. He dropped out of school early to tour England and Europe with several different bands, playing working men`s clubs and air force bases. Taylor joined Duran Duran in 1980 (easily the most experienced musician in the band), and enjoyed their rise to fame over the next five years. He married Tracey Wilson, one of Duran Duran`s hairstylists, in 1982. The couple have four children. Taylor invested his royalties in real estate, and once owned a wine bar in Whitley Bay named "Rio" after one of Duran Duran`s biggest hit singles. In the mid eighties Taylor grew dissatisfied with the band`s keyboard-heavy synth pop, however, and longed to stretch out his rock muscles. During a hiatus in Duran`s schedule, he joined forces with bassist John Taylor, Chic drummer Tony Thompson, and singer Robert Palmer to create the band The Power Station, which had three hit singles and played the Live Aid concert in 1985. The band was a distinct break from the New Romantic Duran Duran material as they pursued a hard-rock music style. Taylor would later rejoin Power Station bandmates Palmer and Thompson for Palmer`s first solo album since the band`s formation. The resulting album, Riptide proved to be a massive success for Palmer. After The Power Station, Taylor allowed Duran Duran to believe he would be returning to record a new album, even as he was signing contracts for a solo career in Los Angeles. Another Capitol Records group, Missing Persons was disbanding at the same time, and Andy hired Terry Bozzio and Patrick O`Hearn to work with him. This caused ex-Missing Persons guitarist Warren Cuccurullo to approach Duran Duran to fill Andy`s position -- a vacancy no one in Duran Duran knew existed. Eventually Duran Duran sued Taylor to force him in to the studio to complete the album Notorious, but he ended up playing on only a few tracks before departing the band completely. He later countersued to claim some of the royalties from that album. Andy Taylor married his long-time girlfriend, Tracey Wilson, in 1982. They have four children, Andrew James, born August 20, 1984; Georgina, born August 12, 1987; Bethany, born in September 1991; and Isabel, born in May 1996. Biography Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Taylor_(guitarist) |
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 We felt if we didn`t have new material in us and we didn`t have a real reason to exist, then we probably wouldn`t have done an 80`s revival thing. We are very conscious about the fact that`s what we are as a bunch of people. When you don`t have a record label and you have been on your own as we have, you can look at all these other ways you can get in touch with other people and get music out there again. If you were looking at where you would like your career to go, then you would have to cherry pick The Stones. People love coming to see them. They are it, they are the most definitive rock n roll band ever. To passively get up and play a bunch of old songs wouldn`t have really motivated us. So we are bringing the new material into the set and it goes down really well. I don`t think you need a record deal to write songs. You don`t need any other reason than you want to do it. It`s a far cry from why some people do music today. They make it to order, which is pretty horrible. The great thing about the Internet is that it allows people to find and consume music. Rock n roll is what I would die for, but I love music and I love exploring, taking the challenge of playing, writing or singing... or producing. We play a long show, and you can`t beat yourself up too much over it, as physically you just kill yourself. It was always good fun on the road and it still is. Some of those songs, you really have to bite them. You challenge yourself, you challenge the audience, you do something different. People weren`t expecting it. Those were the days, you know. It`s an English thing; as soon as it`s gets to 6 pm, you have to go and have a drink. We used to stick to that religiously. It was fairly evident that nobody wanted to do this as a one-off thing. It`s too big a part of our life to do it quickly and dispose of it. You want to have stability in the commercial aspect of your operation. We recorded a bunch of the shows because they were the first shows we`d done back together. We wanted to have a memento of them. We didn`t just want to go out and do that whole greatest hits thing. We`ve never actually stopped talking. We all saw each other-there wasn`t any great divide. There were no big walls or barriers to get over. There are very few guys you meet in your life that you can work with, but the five of us just know what the other guys are thinking and where we fit. When you are younger, you are running on that pure naive adrenalin, you don`t have any real responsibility aside from making sure you get there and play. And there`s usually someone there to help you do that! The five of us don`t know how to exist in any other way. We are an ambitious bunch, I guess. Melodic songs that people can relate to has always been our thing. This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don`t sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder. Music is escapism, it`s entertainment. We`ve kinda been watching the business fall apart and have been wondering how to take care of our business and make sure it doesn`t get affected. We wanted to get everyone back focused on the fact we are playing live again. It really does sound great. I thought it would be weird if Duran Duran came back but didn`t have a great song the whole world could sing. That`s one of the things that drives us. It was mind-blowing. It was a small place with 2,000 standing-up tickets. It`s great to have your band back and working and playing again, people have been so generous. When you have such a huge past, a big background as we have, you can play off that-a lot of people do. But we felt we wouldn`t have a legitimate future unless we put something new together. We had a huge audience, we sold truckloads of albums. If we do something that`s cool, people will listen to it. If we don`t, we would be selling people short. From doing Power Station, it was like, it`s the same guys, but it doesn`t sound like them. When we were in Duran, the labels and management wanted more Duran stuff so they could sell it. We were very young in Duran, and to get pushed in a corner can be very difficult to get out of. I discovered that it was a lonely world being a solo artist. Then I started working with another solo artist, Rod Stewart, and he used to tell me how lonely he was! The thing about Duran... that gives you the ability to bring all that opportunity back into your life. You can`t do some of the things you used to do. I suppose you have to go at a gentler pace. I mean, God help us, you can`t sit at home being a Vicar or anything. | ||
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