Duran Duran Rethought New Album During Pandemic

Duran Duran frontman, Simon LeBon admitted that the band totally rethought their upcoming album, Future Past, during their time-off during the pandemic.

LeBon shed light on how the band decided to revamp what they had ready to release in 2020 and move forward in another direction, telling the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, “We had an opportunity to step back. We actually thought, y'know what? (The album’s) not finished, and it’s not good enough. And we can make it better, and we can make it complete.”

He explained, “We thoroughly intended to get this record out in 2020, but everything suddenly shut down. And then we thought, hang on, let's not rush this. We don't know what's going to happen. And it would be very easy for the album to go out there and become completely overlooked or just disappear in comparison with the other things that are happening in the world. So we thought, we'll just hang on for a minute. . . The album doesn't get released until October 22nd. We just want to make this one the best piece of work it can possibly be for now.”

We asked Simon LeBon if the Cure being chosen for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2019, raised his hopes for Duran Duran and the other English bands they came up with in the 1980's being inducted: “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts seven acts a year, so there must be a very sort of fine process of elimination to get there. One does not presume to be inducted. It's just one of those things that might or might not happen — and if it does, you're very grateful for it.”