This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.
We had a huge audience, we sold truckloads of albums. If we do something that's cool, people will listen to it. If we don't, we would be selling people short.
It was mind-blowing. It was a small place with 2,000 standing-up tickets. It's great to have your band back and working and playing again, people have been so generous.
The great thing about the Internet is that it allows people to find and consume music.
We wanted to get everyone back focused on the fact we are playing live again. It really does sound great.
We play a long show, and you can't beat yourself up too much over it, as physically you just kill yourself. It was always good fun on the road and it still is.
When you have such a huge past, a big background as we have, you can play off that - a lot of people do. But we felt we wouldn't have a legitimate future unless we put something new together.
You can't do some of the things you used to do. I suppose you have to go at a gentler pace. I mean, God help us, you can't sit at home being a Vicar or anything.
The thing about Duran... that gives you the ability to bring all that opportunity back into your life.
If you were looking at where you would like your career to go, then you would have to cherry pick The Stones. People love coming to see them. They are it, they are the most definitive rock n roll band ever.
I don't think you need a record deal to write songs. You don't need any other reason than you want to do it. It's a far cry from why some people do music today. They make it to order, which is pretty horrible.
Music is escapism, it's entertainment.
When you don't have a record label and you have been on your own as we have, you can look at all these other ways you can get in touch with other people and get music out there again.
I discovered that it was a lonely world being a solo artist. Then I started working with another solo artist, Rod Stewart, and he used to tell me how lonely he was!
Melodic songs that people can relate to has always been our thing.
Some of those songs, you really have to bite them. You challenge yourself, you challenge the audience, you do something different. People weren't expecting it.
The five of us don't know how to exist in any other way. We are an ambitious bunch, I guess.
Those were the days, you know. It's an English thing; as soon as it's gets to 6 pm, you have to go and have a drink. We used to stick to that religiously.
To passively get up and play a bunch of old songs wouldn't have really motivated us. So we are bringing the new material into the set and it goes down really well.
We didn't just want to go out and do that whole greatest hits thing.
