Simon Le Bon

Le Bon went to Pinner County Grammar School and Nower Hill High School. In 1978, he completed an art foundation course at Harrow School of Art, before studying drama at the University of Birmingham.

For a time Le Bon worked as a theatre porter at Northwick Park Hospital Accident and Casualty, and also sang in a punk band called Dog Days at Harrow School of Art. He appeared in a few television advertisements and also in several theatre productions including Tom Brown's School Days in the West End of London.

Le Bon worked on a kibbutz – an Israeli collective community – in the Negev desert in Israel in 1978, and then returned to England to study drama at the University of Birmingham before meeting the fledgling band Duran Duran in 1980.[2]

Le Bon (centre), with Duran Duran, 1983.

Duran Duran was founded by childhood friends John Taylor and Nick Rhodes along with singer-songwriter Stephen Duffy in 1978, but Duffy left a year later, convinced that the band was not going to be successful. The band went through a long succession of line-up changes after Duffy's departure, but finally settled on a guitarist and drummer. The band had a powerful pop sound flavoured with disco, funk, and electronics, built on a solid rock rhythm section, and all they needed was a charismatic singer with a distinctive voice.

Le Bon's ex-girlfriend, Fiona Kemp (a bartender at the Rum Runner nightclub where Duran Duran were rehearsing), introduced him to the band in May 1980, recommending him as a potential lead vocalist. As band legend has it, he turned up for the audition wearing pink leopard-print trousers, and carrying a notebook containing a large collection of poems he had written—several of which would later become tracks on the early Duran Duran studio albums.[3]

After listening to the songs the band had already composed together, Le Bon spent some time fitting one of his poems ("Sound of Thunder") to one of the instrumentals, and found they had a good match. Le Bon agreed to "try [Duran Duran] out for the summer"; within six weeks the band was playing steadily around Birmingham, London and Nottingham, and a national tour supporting Hazel O'Connor led to a recording contract with EMI Records in December that year.

The band's debut studio album, Duran Duran, was released in 1981, and they quickly became famous as part of the New Romantic movement. Three more albums followed in quick succession: Rio (1982), Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) and the live album Arena (1984). Each album release was accompanied by heavy media promotion and a lengthy concert tour. By mid-1984, the band were ready for a break. Duran Duran's only other work that year was an appearance on the Band Aid charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which was recorded at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London on 25 November 1984. Le Bon's vocal appears fourth on the song after Paul Young, Boy George and George Michael sing their lines.[4]

Following the departures of Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor, Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor continued on as Duran Duran, recording and releasing Notorious (1986) and Big Thing (1988). The group added guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Sterling Campbell and recorded the studio album Liberty (1990), but the band's success had begun to wane in the late 1980s.

Duran Duran had a resurgence in popularity in 1993 with The Wedding Album, featuring the top-10 single "Ordinary World". Several months into the extensive worldwide concert tour supporting this album, Le Bon suffered a torn vocal cord, 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 favourite artists, (Jim Morrison, Lou Reed and Elvis Costello), but the album was severely panned by critics from all quarters. That year Le Bon also performed Duran Duran's 1993 hit "Ordinary World" with opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti during a "Children of Bosnia" benefit concert for War Child. Le Bon described the event to Jam! Showbiz thusly: "If you're talking about name dropping, he's one of the biggest names you could drop, Pav-The-Man".

When bassist John Taylor left the band in 1997, Le Bon and Rhodes remained as the only two members who had been with Duran Duran from the beginning of their recording career. The successive two studio albums with Le Bon, Rhodes, and Cuccurullo, Medazzaland (1997) and Pop Trash (2000) were not commercial successes.

Le Bon performing live in 2005

In 2001, Duran Duran's original five members reunited to record a new studio album, Astronaut, for Epic Records. Astronaut was released worldwide on 11 October 2004. The album was preceded by the single "(Reach Up for The) Sunrise", their first UK Top 10 single in a decade.

Before Duran Duran reunited in 1986, Le Bon formed the band Arcadia with Nick Rhodes. The band had a UK/US top 10 hit with their first single "Election Day", and released one studio album, So Red the Rose in 1985.

While Le Bon has been in Duran Duran for the band's entire recording history, he has also dabbled in solo outings. In 1985, for the Whitbread Round the World Race, he contributed a song entitled "Grey Lady of the Sea" and narrated a video of that year's race called Drum (1987). "Grey Lady of the Sea" was released as a single in Japan in 1988.

In 1989, for Jonathan Elias' Requiem for the Americas project, Le Bon contributed "Follow in My Footsteps", with the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs providing backing vocals. The track was released on 7" single in Italy that year.

In 1998, along with friend Nick Wood and wife Yasmin, he set up SYN Entertainment (Simon Yasmin Nick) in Tokyo, Japan. Having first conceived the idea in 1988, Le Bon is currently described as SYN's "Founder and Chairman", while Wood is "Founder, President and Creative Director".

In 2000, SYN Entertainment founded SYN Records which has released a number of compilations, some of which have included contributions by Le Bon. Another solo track, "Dreamboy", was featured on the SYN-released soundtrack to the Mario Van Peebles comedy film Love Kills (1998).

Also in 2000, SYN co-executive produced the Duran Duran studio album Pop Trash along with Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo's side-venture TV Mania.

In October 2005 Dutch trance DJ Ferry Corsten released the track "Fire", with vocals by Simon Le Bon. It was a remix of the lesser known Duran Duran single "Serious", from the studio album Liberty (1990). (full credits: Ferry Corsten feat. Simon Le Bon – Fire (Flashover remix), on Flashover Recordings) [5] In late 2006, Le Bon became a member of Shinzou Sound, and took part in the Japan-based online manga project, Synesthesia, by co-writing the theme song "Nobody Knows" along with Nick Wood.

In 2010, Le Bon collaborated on the song "Record Collection", the title track from Mark Ronson's third studio album. In the song, Le Bon is heard singing the chorus, along with Mark Ronson and hip hop artist Wiley. Ronson later produced Duran Duran's 2010 studio album All You Need Is Now, and 2015's Paper Gods.

Since 2020, he has been hosting the music show WHOOOSH! with Katy Krassner.[6] Originally on the Duran Duran website, the show moved to Spotify and then to Sirius XM where it airs on the Volume channel. The duo play eight songs per week and discuss them. Le Bon curates all the tracks.[7]