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poems. The book turned out to be a real Aladdin’s lamp because it contained all the lyrics we could ever wish for. Looking back, I believe that was our Ground Zero —for me, the defining moment in the history of Duran Duran was when Simon pulled out that little book of lyrics. There was even one poem that he brought along on that first day, called “Sound of Thunder,” that fitted perfectly to one of the tunes we had already been rehearsing. We tried it out straightaway that afternoon and it worked; eventually it became a track on our first album. We were in business.
    Simon is a much better songwriter than people realize. He’s very deep and thoughtful, and he was just like that when he was young. It was obvious that he was very well read, and I was very impressed by him. His lyrics and his tone fitted our music perfectly, and he always managed to find a vocal melody that worked with the music that I had already created. He also had a commercial ear, which appealed to all of us.
    “I really like the new Simple Minds album,” he told us in conversation, which impressed both John and Nick, who had both just bought the same album.
    “Good, you’re in,” said John. “We’ve got a gig in four weeks.”
    And that was it, he was hired! That was the day the band was formed. Everything before that moment seemed to suddenly lose importance. As well as the lyrics, Simon had a decent voice, maybe not the best, but he had an
original
voice and, more important, it was a
pop
voice. We never needed a rock singer; we needed someone like Bryan Ferry who could cruise over the top of our music—and that was exactly what Simon could do brilliantly.
    Simon and I bonded straightaway. We had something in common—unlike the others, who all grew up locally, we were both from outside Birmingham. Simon was a drama student at the University of Birmingham, but he came from a suburban family down in Bushey, just outside of North London. His family were descended from French Huguenots, and his father, John, was a civil servant. His mum, Anne, ran small businesses in antiques and catering. Simon was the eldest of three brothers . . . and he loved attention. In fact, he was totally up himself—but I mean that in a nice way, because the one thing you need in a good front man is for him to be self-obsessed in a theatrical manner.
    SO with Simon Le Bon on board, we were flying before we knew it. There were now five of us and we each brought something special to the mix. A good band is made up of people with different strengths and weaknesses, and the sum is always greater than any one part. In Duran Duran we were each good at something different, and the strength of each person’s individual contribution was important. For example, Nick’s contribution was very different from mine, but every member of the band was equally vital. I developed a knack for being able to hear something and pick out the bones in order to work out how every part fit together. I had done all the basic work of learning music while I was out on the road, and I’d figured out how all the guys before me had done things. It meant that I could take an idea and help translate it into something original, so I hoped that what I gave the band was a kind of musical cohesion that they had previously been lacking.
    Until now, no one seemed to fully grasp some of the things Nick was trying to do on keyboards. Nick might have lacked some of the traditional musical skills that I possessed, but it was our juxtaposition of different approaches that helped to make us so successful.
    Technology was starting to change keyboards in a big way and suddenly there was a whole raft of new equipment available, mainly from Japan. Whereas in the past bands used to have big banks of wires and stuff, the equipment suddenly all became solid-state, much smaller, and a lot more user-friendly. Technology was always Nick’s thing—he was obsessive about being the first to have a new piece of kit in