Part of the “It’s All About Sex” issue of SoHo Style, full interview coming… someday, but here are some highlights from a conversation with Duran Duran (Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes and, at the time, Warren Cuccurullo):
Popi: Do you feel one with the audience when you are onstage, or are you very much separated?
Simon: No, I am very aware of the ring of energy which kind of flows from the audience. I guess we instigate it, we accelerate it, but it builds to a crescendo and actually, when we play great songs in concert, it kind of explodes.
Popi: So you could describe it as orgasmic?
Simon: We’ll let you do that (laughs). I have actually gone out into the audience on tour and it is amazing the kind of energy you feel when you are out there. Quite incredible.
….
Popi: Would you consider New York one of the sexiest cities you have been to, or is there another city you would consider sexier?
Nick: Rome!
Warren: Rio. I grew up in New York, so I don’t think of it as sexy. It is a little more stylish here, and I guess both style and sex are very much intertwined.
Simon: I think New York sets its own timing with sexuality. It’s pop sexuality, and it is quite modern.
….
Popi: What do you think of Los Angeles? The Los Angeles versus New York debate?
Warren: I was transplanted to L.A. when I got in Frank Zappa’s band. I wore a badge on my jacket that said, “L.A. Sucks.” Every time I went out to a club, people would say, “Are you from New York? I am, too.” There’s a real clique of people trying to get away from L.A.
Simon: I’m two-timing New York and L.A. (laughs)
Nick: New York wins absolutely hands down, and if I never went to L.A. it wouldn’t trouble me at all.
….
Popi: Who is sexier, Camilla Parker or Monica Lewinsky?
Simon: Oh, come on! That is a tough one.
Warren: Who would you most like to see naked?
Nick: Monica Lewinsky and Camilla are both not my type.
Warren: I am sure Camilla is sexier.
Nick: I don’t know – why, what makes you say that? You’d at least want to batten all the windows.
Popi: How would you compare the sexual attitudes of London versus New York?
Nick: They are not dissimilar. If anything, New York is probably a little faster paced.
Simon: It’s a quicker shag rate. (laughs)
….
Popi: Where is the strangest place you have had sex?
Warren: In a parking lot. We got caught by a cop. I was with my girlfriend.
Popi: Did they take you in?
Warren: No, thank God. I was a kid then.
Simon: I did it once in an ornamental boating lake in Turkey, and we found a spot where a willow tree came down over the water and people could pass by maybe eight feet away.
….
The publicist enters and conversation ensues about who to invite to that night’s dinner party. At mention of one name, Simon interrupts.
Simon: I don’t want to invite her. There’s nothing worse than being monopolized at a party when you like to flirt. I’m a big proponent of flirtatious behaviour. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s not messy.
Originally published in SoHo Style magazine, Summer 2000
POPI BOWMAN 