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John Taylor — news, coverage & facts — IJR

1978–1997: Duran Duran and the Power Station

In 1978, Taylor and school friend Nick Rhodes formed Duran Duran with Stephen Duffy while attending the School of Foundation Studies & Experimental Workshop at Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University). Soon after, Taylor underwent an "ugly duckling" transformation—ditching the glasses for contact lenses, adopting the ruffles and sashes of the fashion that would become known as the New Romantic style, and learning to wear eyeliner and lipstick. He stopped using the name "Nigel", and has been known throughout his professional career as John Taylor.

Taylor played guitar when Duran Duran was founded, but switched to bass guitar after discovering the funky rhythms of Chic, and learned to enjoy playing in the rhythm section with Duran's newly recruited drummer Roger Taylor. He has frequently cited Chic's Bernard Edwards and the Clash's Paul Simonon as his strongest influences, in addition to Paul McCartney, James Jamerson, and Roxy Music players Graham Simpson and John Porter. Duran Duran released their first album in 1981, and went on to worldwide success in the early 1980s.

In 1985, after recording the theme song to the Bond movie A View to a Kill, Duran Duran split into two side projects. John Taylor and guitarist Andy Taylor joined forces with former Chic drummer Tony Thompson and Robert Palmer, who earlier met at Duran Duran's charity concert at Villa Park 1983, to form the band the Power Station. With the guidance of producer Bernard Edwards, they released one album, The Power Station, which produced the hit singles "Some Like It Hot" and the T. Rex song "Bang a Gong (Get It On)".

That year, Taylor also launched his first solo effort, recording the single "I Do What I Do..." for the soundtrack to the movie 9½ Weeks starring Kim Basinger. He also wrote some instrumental music for the movie's score with collaborator Jonathan Elias.

When Andy and Roger Taylor left the band, the three remaining members reformed Duran Duran for the 1986 Notorious album, and continued to record and tour throughout the 1990s with new guitarist Warren Cuccurullo.

On 24 December 1991, Taylor married Amanda de Cadenet, who was already pregnant with his daughter Atlanta (born 31 March 1992). He moved from England to Los Angeles to help further his wife's acting career, as well as to escape constant attention from the British tabloids. Taylor's marriage declined even as Duran Duran's star rose with the success of 1993's Duran Duran, also known as The Wedding Album. He and de Cadenet separated in May 1995.

Duran Duran's success rapidly waned with the widely derided 1995 covers album Thank You. Following that album's supporting tour, Duran Duran spent part of the summer of 1995 in London working on the album Medazzaland. Concurrently, Taylor devoted time to the side project Neurotic Outsiders, recording and touring with that band from the end of 1995 through the start of 1996.

1997–2001: Solo music career

In January 1997, Taylor announced at a Duran Duran fan convention that he was leaving the band.

During 1997 and 1998, Taylor built and toured with a band called "John Taylor Terroristen" (Gerry Laffy on guitar, Michael Railton/Tio Banks on keyboard, Larry Aberman on drums, John Amato on sax and flute) which played numerous shows in Southern California before touring the East and West Coasts of the United States. Terroristen released a live EP 5.30.98 and the accompanying video Better Off Alive through the Trust The Process website. After 9/11, Taylor said he would never use the band name "Terroristen" again.

Taylor also began making forays into acting. His long friendship with Allison Anders led to a starring role in her independent film, Sugar Town, in 1998. He also appeared in small roles in several other movies and TV programmes over the next couple of years.

In 1999, Taylor released two albums of earlier material. The first, Résumé, was made up of unreleased music that he and Jonathan Elias had worked on together during the 1985 sessions for the 9½ Weeks movie soundtrack. The second, Meltdown, was a collection of tracks Taylor had laid down in 1992, during the extensive delays in Duran Duran's recording of The Wedding Album.

Later in 1999 Taylor signed a recording contract with the Japanese record label Avex Trax, and released an album labelled simply John Taylor on the cover, but listed in his official discography as The Japan Album. He continued recording for Avex in 2000, and early in 2001 released Techno for Two (featuring the international hit "6,000 Miles" co-written by Matthew Hager), a decidedly non-techno album filled with very personal songs. Shortly after, as talks began for a potential Duran Duran reunion, Taylor decided to create a retrospective package called Retreat into Art demonstrating his development over the previous five years.

Taylor's final solo release, completed after the Duran Duran reunion was under way, was the collection MetaFour released in 2002. It features a 17-minute Q&A interview with fellow bass player Christopher Maloney at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California.

In October 2012, Taylor released an autobiography called In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death and Duran Duran. In 2013, the Writers in Treatment organisation awarded Taylor with the "Experience, Strength and Hope" award for his work.