Former Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor revealed in a recent interview that he considered leaving the band for good when Duran Duran’s 2007 album ‘Red Carpet Massacre’ was scheduled to be produced by Timbaland. The guitarist stated that he didn’t agree with getting a help from outside the band:
“I couldn’t do the Timbaland album, because it just didn’t move me. I was saying to the others, ‘Why do we need this?’ There’s so much talent in that band, I never felt the need to bring other people in to write with Duran. It bugged me.”
Andy also described the feeling of blocking and mentioned that it wasn’t the first time it happened with Duran:
“It wasn’t about getting my own way. The general feeling was, ‘You should come with us over here’ and I just couldn’t. I don’t know what it is with me that means I just can’t do that. It felt like someone shutting an elevator door on me that I couldn’t get past. There has to be a balance, and I couldn’t feel it. I had the same feeling as I had when I left during [1986 album] ‘Notorious‘: ‘I’m going to miss all this… again.'”
Other members of the band shared their feelings about working with Timbaland in the past. In a 2011 interview, guitarist John Taylor said:
“That whole project was a f*cking nightmare. We delivered an album to Sony that was a natural-sounding, almost rock album and they were like, ‘We need something a bit pop, do you fancy doing a couple of track with Timbaland?’ Around the same time we fell out with Andy so the Timbaland stuff sounded hugely different from what we’d done before.”
In the same interview, the band’s keyboardist Nick Rhodes stated that he was more optimistic about ‘Red Carpet Massacre,’ although he admitted its difficulties to work with another musician from a different genre:
“When Timbaland saw the guitar and the bass and the drums come in to the studio, I think he was mortified because everything’s in a box for those guys. But I’m really glad we made that album, because in time I think it will stand up.”
Duran Duran recently announced that their new single ‘Danse Macabre’ will come out on August 30. You can find the IG post here.