Duran Duran’s John Taylor Looks Back At The Power Station’s Debut LP

John Taylor, left, and Andy Taylor of Power Station perform on stage at the Poplar Creek Music Theater in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, August 13, 1985. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

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By 1984, Duran Duran were the hottest group in pop music, with huge hits (among them “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Rio,” “Is There Something I Should Know,” “The Reflex,” and “The Wild Boys”) and their elaborate music videos. In that year, the British band had been in the midst of their large-scale Sing Blue Silver tour. But for two of the group’s members, bassist John Taylor and guitarist Andy Taylor, that massive success brought pressures and a yearning to break out of the Duran Duran bubble.

“There was so much going on,” John Taylor recalls recently. “When you’re hot, you’re hot, and you get these opportunities. We had Seven and the Ragged Tiger [Duran Duran’s third studio album, released in 1983], which was a difficult album to make. A lot of sitting around, a lot of waiting. And I just had energy for something else.”

That “something else” turned out to be the Power Station, the hard rock/funk supergroup featuring the two Taylors, who are not related; singer Robert Palmer; and Chic drummer Tony Thompson. Released in March 1985, their self-titled debut album became a hit and contained two charting singles: “Some Like It Hot” and “Get It On” (a cover of T. Rex’s glam rock classic, “Bang a Gong”). For its 40th anniversary, The Power Station has been reissued as a deluxe edition featuring a previously unreleased live concert from the band’s 1985 tour, remixes and raw instrumentals.

The genesis of the Power Station project can be traced to 1984, when the Taylors were working with model and singer Bebe Buell. “She was my girlfriend for really not long,” John Taylor recalls. “Bebe was like an ‘it’ girl. And she could sing. So that was my first thought, ‘Let’s do a cover of “Get It On” with Bebe.’ Our record label wasn’t going to say no to anything at that point.

“Then Bebe and I fell out.” he continues. “But then the train was rolling. It’s interesting how ideas just come together. It’s never a straight line. One thing leads to another.”

From there, the Taylors brought on Thompson, who then enlisted Chic bassist and co-producer Bernard Edwards to produce what would become The Power Station album. It’s been well documented that Chic were a tremendous influence on Duran Duran’s music; Chic guitarist and co-producer Nile Rodgers previously collaborated with Duran Duran on “The Reflex” and “The Wild Boys.”

“Nile had been so fast out of the traps, and he produced Madonna [Like a Virgin] and David Bowie [Let’s Dance],” Taylor says. “He was already a superstar producer in his own right. Bernard wasn’t driven in that way, really. He was just hanging out at home, I think. So when Tony called and asked him to come in and meet with Andy and me, Bernard just took control.”

Recording took place at New York City’s Power Station recording studio, from which the group took their name. “We had Jason Corsaro, who was significant as an engineer,” Taylor adds. “Jason had engineered [Chic’s] albums. He was the guy in New York who was really pushing the boundaries of sound, particularly at the Power Station. He had worked on a couple of things with us. So it was just like a swing really into Bernard.”

The original plan for the project was a rotating cast of guest singers—among them Palmer, who came into the studio to record the track “Communication.” Afterwards, he asked if he could take a crack at singing “Get It On.”

“Robert came in, and he was amazing,” Taylor recalls. “And it was Bernard who said, ‘You don’t need another singer. This is your singer.’ So we just had to come up with like another seven songs. It’s so easy.”

He acknowledges that the Power Station project was a relief for him and Andy Taylor after working with Duran Duran for more than five years up to that point. “Duran had become a hit-making machine,” the bassist says. “And so there was a lot of consideration, and dare I say procrastination, that was going into every note that we were playing naturally. We found ourselves in an enviable but quite challenging position. I mean, who knows? We just needed a break from each other, maybe.”

On The Power Station, Andy Taylor’s explosive guitar really came to the fore, showcasing his classic rock prowess. “The dude had come up from the English pop scene, and he had his sights out on Eddie Van Halen and Angus Young,” John Taylor says of his then-bandmate. “He was encouraged by what he was able to do on the recording of The Power Station. He’d achieved a level of exuberance, shall we say, in what he was able to do on stage with that band. I think it was too much for him to come back and sort of fit into Duran — it’s a different kind of architecture, and there’s just a lot less room to maneuver in the Duran sound. And as a result, he went on and worked with some pretty serious rockers.”

The Power Station further displayed Thompson as a formidable rock drummer beyond Chic’s disco-funk hits. “Playing with Tony was quite challenging for me,” Taylor says. “I’d learned how to play with [Duran Duran drummer] Roger Taylor. And Tony was like a stallion. I found him quite difficult to play with, but it was like capturing lightning. And the few times that we did manage to lock in, in the studio, we got incredible things.”

Similarly, the Power Station’s explosive sonics added another musical dimension for the veteran singer Palmer, whose repertoire previously consisted of blue-eyed soul, reggae, power pop and New Wave.

“He should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Taylor says. “He had a fantastic ear for what was happening. I think he understood that he was kind of like the Jack Nicholson of vocalizing. He had a really strong vibe and character, but he also appreciated that he needed to keep the background changing. He just had a tremendous sense of style, musically. Probably one of those artists who is perhaps judged more for the way he dressed than for the music that he made.

“After [the Power Station], he just had that opportunity — “Addicted to Love,” that was the song of the year [in 1986]. It was just such a monster song. It was like everything he was about, that he’d been about for quite a few years. But it just all came together in that song.”

Recording The Power Station album took about only six months (“Nobody expected it. Nobody anticipated it, least of all us,” Taylor now says); the record was a combination of rip-roaring rock (“Murderess,” “Communication,” “Get It On,” and a cover of the Isley Brothers “Harvest for the World”) and sleek seductive funk (“Lonely Tonight,” “Go to Zero” and “Still in Your Heart”). Its biggest hit was “Some Like It Hot,” a track that the Taylors first worked on in Paris during the early stages of the project.

“I’ve got a demo of it, and it actually reminds me of the Clash almost,” Taylor says. “It’s a song that I’m very proud of. I mean, the work that the baritone saxes do, and the horns — it’s such a funky, funky record. I listen to it, and I go, ‘That’s me. I’m in there.’”

“The production is just incredible. I mean, every aspect of it, going back to Jason Corsaro and the sound on everything, and probably one of the most indulgent in the history of recorded music. Roger Taylor flew to New York to contribute timbales to the song. I mean, how indulgent can we get? In that particular instance, it was worth it. I don’t get tired of that song. I’m very proud of it.”

In February, 1985 the group made their appearance on Saturday Night Live; a month later, The Power Station album was released and eventually reached number six on the Billboard chart. But as the Power Station were about to launch their tour later that year, Palmer surprisingly pulled out and was replaced by actor-singer Michael Des Barres, formerly of the band Detective.

“There was no way we were going to stop now,” Taylor remembers of Palmer’s exit. “It was our agent, Wayne Forte, who knew of Michael. I mean, Michael had an incredible reputation. There were a lot of people who believed in him from an early age. And God bless him. He was available and wasn’t intimidated at all by the gig. He was able to step into it.

“He had a hit single that summer with “Obsession,” which he’d written with Holly Knight for Animotion. So it wasn’t like digging somebody out of the ground and having them come on stage with us. He was hot to trot. And if you close your eyes, there really hadn’t been much change in the sound.”

The Power Station with Des Barres performed on July 13, 1985, at Live Aid in Philadelphia (those performances appear on the new deluxe set). Coincidentally, John and Andy Taylor were also pulling double duty with Duran Duran, who performed on that same Live Aid stage that day.

“We were out of control,” Taylor says. “There’s a time when you can almost be too famous. And the opportunities that you get, you just can’t turn them down. When we were in rehearsal for the tour, and Live Aid had just been announced, Robert Plant called me and said, ‘So Jimmy [Page] and I are getting Led Zeppelin back together. We’ve already asked Tony. Would you be interested in joining us on stage?’ And I said, ‘Oh, man. Thank you, but I’m doing it already with two bands. There’s just no way.’

“I’m so glad I did because John Paul Jones actually did Live Aid with Robert and Jimmy. I saw that from the side of the stage, and I remember going, ‘Wow, so this is Led Zeppelin.’ And that was without [John] Bonham. That was a hell of a summer.”

The Power Station lineup toured that year, and the new deluxe edition of the album contains a never-before-released live show from Philadelphia’s Spectrum on Aug. 21, 1985. “It’s the only tour that we [myself, Andy, Tony and Michael] did,” Taylor says. “It’s such an odd collection of songs because there are eight songs on the album. One of them is a cover. So there are seven original songs, and we’ve got to fill out a two-hour set. We were going to do “Some Guys Have All the Luck” with Robert [Palmer]. ‘Well, let’s do it with Michael. And let’s do “Obsession” and “Dancing in the Streets.”’ Oh, my God. It’s such a mess. But it’s unique.”

With Des Barres, the Power Station later recorded the track, “Somewhere Somehow Someone (We Fight for Love)” for the soundtrack of Commando starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I wasn’t in the best of shape by the time I got to the end of the tour,” Taylor says, “and I thought, ‘I’m not sure that I need to carry on with this.’ I didn’t really foresee going back into the studio again.

“But we’ve got this opportunity to do this song for this specific project. And we went in. I remember walking away from it thinking, ‘I’m good to move on.’ But listening to it and remastering it for this album, I thought, ‘This is pretty great.’ Again, I’m glad that that’s part of the project, too. It gives you a sense of where we might have gone, I suppose.”

Around the same time that John Taylor and Andy Taylor were touring with the Power Station, the other Duran Duran members — Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor — formed their own side project, Arcadia, which released their only album, So Red the Rose, in late 1985. Like the Power Station with “Some Like It Hot,” Arcadia scored their own Top 10 hit in the form of “Election Day.”

“There was definitely a sense of competition,” Taylor says of Arcadia. “I loved “Election Day.” That’s one of my favorite songs in our catalog. There was competition for sure. They [Arcadia] were continuing with the Duran vibe. Whereas Andy and I were like Thelma and Louise. We just headed for the hills with our six-guns. But now, I think they’re a really fascinating pair of albums for fans, actually. In the context of Duran’s legacy, you get to this junction in the road where there’s not a Duran album, but there are these two albums that you have to kind of negotiate and consider in order to get to Notorious. It was dangerous.”

In 1986, Duran Duran regrouped, amid the departures of Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor, for the aforementioned Nile Rodgers-produced Notorious album. About 10 years later, the original Power Station lineup — John Taylor, Andy Taylor, Thompson and Palmer — reunited. But as the Power Station were recording the Living in Fear album, John Taylor departed and Bernard Edwards filled in on bass. Sadly, the key figures involved in making the 1985 Power Station debut record —Palmer, Thompson, Edwards and Corsaro — have since passed.

“We were definitely playing with fire,” Taylor says about his time with the Power Station. “I don’t think I really appreciated what we had achieved with Duran and how extraordinary that was. But when you’re under pressure, you do all sorts of crazy things. We had the two singles, [Duran’s] “The Wild Boys and “A View to a Kill,” which were both extraordinary three-minute miracles but enormously hard work. Sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes you’ve really got to dig in. And sometimes you just get lucky.

“That’s what the Power Station was. It was like a hall pass. But it was a very intense project. And they were all very intense individuals. Man, I’m so glad I got to work with them.”