Duran Duran Discuss ‘Paper Gods’ Collaborators, From Mark Ronson To Nile Rodgers To Lindsay Lohan: Idolator Interview

It wasn’t enough for Duran Duran to simply release their 14th studio album and have that, in and of itself, be an impressive personal milestone they could be content with. No, pop icons Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor had to go and craft Paper Gods (available now on iTunes), arguably the best damn thing they’ve done since their self-titled 1993 LP — and that’s saying a lot, considering their previous release, 2011’s All You Need Is Now, was a marked return to musical glory and proper form that was made with the deft touch of hit-maker Mark Ronson, now a global household name thanks to “Uptown Funk.”

Ronson was initially back on board for Paper Gods, but his own album, Uptown Special, took him away for the bulk of the project. “He kind of left us cooking in the kitchen and said, ‘I’ll be back later’,” explains Roger, while sitting next to Simon on a humid day in late July in New York’s Upper East Side.

The two are in town, along with Nick and John, to do early promotion for their highly collaborative album that saw them enter a studio with musicians like their old pal Nile Rodgers (producer of Duran Duran’s 1987 album Notorious), “Hideaway” songbird Kiesza, Janelle Monae, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante, Mew frontman Jonas Bjerre and Mr Hudson, who helped shape much of the synthy soundscape of Paper Gods once Ronson stepped away. And then there’s that whole Lindsay Lohan pair-up.

Continue on to read, in Simon and Roger’s words, how the scope of Duran Duran’s new album — their first in a label deal with Warner Bros. — evolved over the course of two years to become the all-star effort that was released today.