Simon Le Bon
Simon John Charles Le Bon (born October 27, 1958) is the lead singer and lyricist of the pop band Duran Duran. He was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England and was raised in and around London.
Upbringing
Le Bon was a member of his church choir from a very young age, but primarily trained as an actor. He appeared in a few television commercials as a child and in several theatre productions as a teenager. He worked on a kibbutz in Israel in 1979, and then returned to England to attend drama school at Birmingham University in 1980 before meeting the fledgling band Duran Duran.
Duran Duran
Duran Duran had been founded with singer/songwriter Stephen Duffy in 1978, but Duffy left a year later, convinced they weren't going any where. The band had been through a long succession of lineup changes since, but had recently settled on a guitarist and drummer and built a powerful pop sound flavored with disco, funk and electronics but built on a solid rock rhythm section. All they needed was a charismatic singer with a distinctive voice.
Le Bon's ex-girlfriend Fiona Kemp (a barmaid at the Rum Runner club where Duran Duran was rehearsing) introduced him to the band in May of 1980, recommending him as a potential vocalist. As band legend has it, he turned up for the audition wearing pink leopard-print trousers, carrying a book of poetry he had written. He tried out some of the songs the band had already composed together, then spent some time fitting one of his poems ("Sound of Thunder") to one of the band's instrumentals, and found they had a good match. Simon agreed to "try them out for the summer"; within six weeks the band was playing steadily around Birmingham and London, and a national tour supporting Hazel O'Connor led to a record deal with EMI Records in December. Le Bon never returned to his acting career.
The band's first album, Duran Duran, was released in 1981, and they quickly shot to fame as part of the New Romantic movement. Three more albums followed in quick succession: Rio (1982), Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) and Arena (1984). Each album release was accompanied by heavy media promotion and a lengthy concert tour. By mid-1984, the band was ready for a break. Duran Duran's only other work that year was an appearance on the 1984 Band Aid charity single, "Do They Know It's Christmas".
Family
That year Le Bon also wooed the young fashion model Yasmin Parveneh, after seeing her face in a magazine and calling the modelling agency until he tracked her down. They married on December 27, 1985 and Yasmin Le Bon has gone on to a supermodel career of unusual longevity, spanning twenty years despite the births of their three daughters: Amber (born 1989), Saffron (1990) and Tallulah (1994).
Yachting
While Duran Duran was on hiatus in 1985, Le Bon took up the hobby of yachting, and drew media attention when his maxi-yacht Drum capsized during the Fastnet race, trapping him and other crew members under the hull for an hour. He went on to participate in the Whitbread Round the World Race.
Arcadia
Before Duran Duran reunited, Le Bon formed the band Arcadia with fellow Duran Duran members Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor. Arcadia released only one album, the multi-platinum So Red the Rose (1986), and the band never toured.
Duran Duran again
Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor reunited to record and perform as Duran Duran, releasing Notorious (1987), Big Thing (1989), Liberty (1990), but the band's success began to wane in the late 1980s.
Duran Duran had a resurgence in popularity in 1993 with The Wedding Album. Several months into the intensive concert tour supporting this album, Le Bon suffered from strained vocal cords, and the tour was postponed for six weeks while he recovered.
In 1995, Duran Duran released the covers album Thank You, and Le Bon had the chance to cover some of his favorite artists (Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello). That year Le Bon also performed the band's 1993 hit "Ordinary World" with opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti during a "Children of Bosnia" benefit concert.
After bassist John Taylor left in 1997, Le Bon and keyboardist Nick Rhodes were left as the only two members who had been with the band throughout its career. The two albums without any Taylors, Medazzaland (1997) and Pop Trash (2000) were not commercial successes.
In 2001, the original five members reunited to begin working on new material, and have performed around the world. They will reportedly release a new album on Epic Records in October of 2004.