Duran Duran, Brighton Centre, King's Road, May 30

The bass player who turned Duran Duran’s New Wave into eclectic funk might live in LA, but he says the band are seeking the same things we all are.

“It’s amazing how glamorous that bus going into Birmingham is right now,” he says, when asked about the Peavey Liberator A435 bass he helped design in 2006, then named after a commuter road into the West Midlands city.

“I lost my dad last year and I would still go to Birmingham every time I was in England. There was a romance in doing that. And that’s what it is, that’s what we’re all chasing: romance.”

The romance the band pursued in the 1980s was clearer: Beatles-esque fame (they were dubbed “The Fab Five” by the British press), legions of supermodels and stacks of money.

At their commercial chart peak, mid-1980s, Taylor dated Bond girl Janine Andrews and Danish supermodel Renee Simonsen.

He was voted sexiest man in pop by People magazine readers. His band led the MTV-driven “Second British Invasion” to the US with pop propelled by ground-breaking, glamorously located music videos.

Nowadays, Taylor says, that all seems irrelevant.

Along with singer Simon Le Bon, who came up with the words to title track to new album All You Need Is Now, he wants to embrace the present.

“In pop, a manifesto can be five words. All You Need Is Now – I love that phrase.

“We’re in there now with all of you. We’re here. Enough of the 1980s. We’re all going through the same thing. We’re all riding out our lives together.

“It’s not on that beach or in that foreign city. Life is where we are.”

His home may now be in the hills on the US West Coast but, ironically, he grew up in another Hollywood, in South Birmingham.

It was from there he used to take the bus to town along the A435 to meet keyboardist, Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran’s only ever-present member, at the city’s Rum Runner club.

The two put the group together while gigging at the club and the original line-up was completed in 1980 with Roger Taylor on drums, Andy Taylor on lead guitar and Londoner Le Bon on vocals.

They recorded their eponymous debut album a year later.

On the back of third single, Girls On Film (and its video with topless women mud wrestling), the record reached number three in the UK charts.

By 1986, three albums in, they had cracked the US – mainly thanks to second album Rio.

What set the group apart from other super-styled synth-led bands was the incalculable treasure the industry craves: a pop sensibility and knack for hooks, combined with cool.

“The reason it worked was because there were five guys who all had it and were up to their neck in music,” says Taylor.

“The combination made for an unstoppable energy. If you had taken any one member out we wouldn’t have been successful.

“We were like a plane with a tail. A cockpit. A fuselage. And two wings. It was a perfectly balanced thing.”

Young Taylor was influenced by punk rock, but picked up the bass after hearing Chic’s Bernard Edwards slap and pop out the grooves on Everybody Dance.

While Edwards revealed the musical possibilities of the bass, Paul Simonon from The Clash had the attitude.

“I would go to see The Clash play and it was because of who he was and what he stood for.

“That was when I first became aware of the bass player as a force on the stage.

“It wasn’t very punk but I got into the disco grooves and I wanted to play those disco grooves the way Sid Vicious or Paul Simonon might play them.”

He may have lacked technique and had no training but he had instinct.

“Everything was from the gut.”

He talks of the first three records (including 1983’s Seven And The Ragged Tiger) nostalgically. The energy came because they were all very strong voices.

“In early Duran everybody was a force. Everybody is shouting and has something to say. If you listen for bass, you hear it. If you listen for keys, you’ll hear them.

“That’s what we’ve battled with in later years as we have gone through line-up changes and tried to integrate new players or when we’ve had session players.”

“If you listen to the albums year by year, you can hear how the changes influenced the sound.”

Taylor’s playing in Duran became more discreet, which reflected a gradual withdrawal from the band. He didn’t want to put himself in the spotlight.

Running parallel, though, was the bass-driven super-group Power Station he formed with Duran’s Andy Taylor, Robert Palmer and former Chic drummer Tony Thompson.

The other Duran members, Le Bon, Rhodes and Roger Taylor, made a second splinter group, Arcadia.

Consequently, by 1986, after the touring and side-projects, the Duran wheels were wobbling. Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor left. The band lost its edge.

It wasn’t until 2001 that the original five members got back together. Taylor says it was a painful process.

“We didn’t know who the f*** we were. We thought we were the Red Hot Chili Pepppers. It wasn’t until we started rehearsing for the reunion tour, and playing the lesser-known album tracks, New Religion, (Waiting For The) Nightboat, that we started to remind ourselves who we were.”

After MTV and Q Magazine Lifetime Achievement Awards, a Brit Award and a US Superbowl tailgate party show in 2003, the 2004 reunion tour culminated with five sold-out nights at Wembley Arena.

Recording proved more difficult. 2004’s Astronaut was the first album by the original line-up since 1983.

The process was enough to prompt Andy Taylor to leave again. For some bizarre reason hip-hop pop producers Danja, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake were then employed to help make the follow-up, 2007’s aptly-titled Red Carpet Massacre.

Is it fair to say they had no direction and nothing to write about?

“We were originally of the zeitgeist, which is as 18-year-olds are supposed to be,” Taylor explains.

“Eighteen to 22-year-olds own the world – especially popular music. It is of them and for them.

“At that age you’re not thinking about it, you’re just doing it.

“Then you get married. You buy a house in the country. (Look at Justin Timberlake: he has done three films in a row – it’s like, what the f*** are you doing?) “And it’s as if it’s too much riding that wave and you had to get away. Then for the rest of your career you’re looking at it and thinking how can I get back on?”

All You Need Is Now is Duran accepting they might never hop back on. Yet 35-year-old finger-on-the-pulse man Mark Ronson was invited to produce.

“It’s tricky as you get older. I really believe in age appropriate behaviour,” says Taylor, earnestly.

“There is nothing worse than mutton-dressed up as lamb. Although I think I’d rather have mutton dressed as lamb then mutton dressed as mutton.

“But we’ve tried it; we went and made a record with Justin Timberlake. But this is more on our terms.

“Mark said he wanted us to be who we are. When the original band reformed eight years ago it was a train wreck.

“Mark came along and said this is your style. Nobody has done it better since.

“Then it comes together and has the flavour of old. The title track sounds now, but then you hear Le Bon singing in the chorus and it takes you right back.”

- After cancelled shows in Glasgow and Newcastle, Simon Le Bon has recovered from laryngitis and the Brighton show will definitely go ahead.

* Doors 6pm, from £35. Call 0844 8471515.