'Obviously we've worked and we've been compensated for it, handsomely, which makes a lot of aspects of life easier. 'It's easier to get the reservation in the restaurant you like,' says Le Bon. Image: Still Wild Boys, but more sensible: Le Bon on stage in Texas in October 2021. 'It's a real across-the-board audience and it's a lot easier to deal with and to play to, I think.' 'A lot of men come to the shows now, a lot of younger people,' says Taylor.

While audiences when they started out were predominantly young women, the typical Duran Duran crowd has changed over the years. 'So we've got to either love them or hate them, and it's much nicer if you love them, it makes your life much happier.'

'Every time we go on stage, we play Rio, we play Hungry Like The Wolf, we play those songs because we know that the people in the audience would not be happy if we didn't,' says Le Bon. 'I think we've been on a bit of a journey of self-acceptance over the last few years.' ' was the first one that said, you know what? Everyone's trying to sound like you, why don't you try and sound a bit more like yourselves?' says Taylor. It was Mark Ronson, who they have worked with a few times over the past decade or so, who helped them start to embrace their '80s-ness once again after a period of reluctance. Both Le Bon and Taylor stress they are band always focused on the future and the new, but they are aware of how they got here. Known for their innovation, from early music video pioneers through to their AI video, Duran Duran have passed the stage where they feel awkward about embracing their roots. Image: The band used AI 'Huxley' to create the video for INVISIBLE, the first single from their latest album. We've always tried to push the boundaries, but that was really. We didn't really know what to expect but I was really blown away by it. 'The images were astounding, I have to say. It's a very different concept to the video for INVISIBLE, the album's first single, which was created entirely through AI, 'a kind of alien creature', as Taylor puts it, called Huxley. 'There was one point where I did actually look down and I thought, hang on, that's not the real Jennifer Lopez, is it? It's very, very convincing.'

'You'd hear someone saying, 'Oh I'm afraid Meghan's broken her ankle and Harry's got a cold, so they're not going to make it tonight'.' Still, they got the Queen. 'Like all Duran Duran parties, we invite everybody,' says Le Bon. While the band haven't marked the milestone year with an actual party, the celebrations come in the form of the single ANNIVERSARY (the album title and the singles are all in capitals), and a video featuring a wealth of celebrity lookalikes, from Elton John and Dolly Parton to Lady Gaga and Posh Spice. Pic: Rudi Keuntje/Geisler-Fotopress/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images Image: Rhodes and Le Bon pictured in 1989.

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