“DURAN DURAN would have been as big as… well, as big as THE LILAC TIME. I can’t say it’s haunted me particularly” said Stephen Duffy when asked about jumping ship from what went on to be one of the biggest bands to come out of the New Romantic movement.
Before Simon Le Bon, Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor, the first incarnation of DURAN DURAN in 1978 was very art school and possessed of a bookish pretention. It comprised of Nick Rhodes as the Eno-inspired synth player and tape operator, John Taylor on guitar, Simon Colley on bass and clarinet with Stephen Duffy as the bass playing vocalist. This line-up performed live at places like Birmingham Polytechnic and local club Barbarellas for about a year before Duffy and Colley departed.
What happened to DURAN DURAN is more than well documented. Stephen Duffy had an up-and-down solo career as well as assorted ventures including electronic combo TIN TIN, dance side-project DR CALCULUS, folk rockers THE LILAC TIME, short-lived Britpop supergroup ME ME ME and a stint as a songwriting partner to Robbie Williams in 2004. But before collaborating with the former member of TAKE THAT, he bumped into Nick Rhodes at a Vivienne Westwood fashion show.
Having found an old cassette of a DURAN DURAN concert from 1979 at home, Duffy began reminiscing with Rhodes and suggested re-recording some of those original pre-Le Bon DURAN DURAN songs. Settling on the name THE DEVILS to avoid confusion and give the project its own identity, the duo set themselves some rules… they would use vintage analogue instruments where possible but adopt modern production techniques while the lyrics would remain unchanged. However, as the pair did not have enough material for a full-length album, they set about writing new songs, their first together in over 20 years.
Released in Summer 2002, the resultant album ‘Dark Circles’ was a delightful blend of past and future; while the period’s Roxy, Bowie, Iggy and Eno influences were evident, as was with Rhodes’ first synth purchase, the EDP Wasp along with various primitive rhythm units and with some dramatic licence, the Omnichord, Rhodes’ new Alesis A6 Andromeda and sampled drum loops.
Propelled by the exhilarating Motorik tension of NEU! with the guitars, bass and synths all hardly in tune, the opening ‘Memory Palaces’ signalled the album’s intent. Leading into an old song that was also performed by Duffy’s post-DURAN DURAN band THE SUBTERRANEAN HAWKS, ‘Big Store’ was a brilliant anti-punk statement calling for the right to shop. Duffy’s deadpan vocal sounded like a camp Iggy Pop over a Giorgio Moroder backing track. Offset by jagged guitar lines and soaring diva backing from Sally Boyden, this was an infectious dancefloor anthem to savour; if it had been released back in the heady days of 1981, it would have had the potential to be a hit.
With cutting drum loops acting as the backbone, the Bowie-esque ‘Dark Circles’ title song saw both guitars and synths providing the “black magic” in the swirling palette while recalling the machine beat of ‘Nightclubbing’, screeching synths provided the backdrop to the solemn ‘Signals In Smoke’ where the vocals did not appear until the 2 minute mark.
Despite having drum machine as its core, ‘Come Alive’ was strangely reminiscent of THE MONKEES ‘I’m Not Your Steppin Stone’ with buzzing bass and an unexpected use of autotune combining for cosmic effect. In ‘Hawks Do Not Share’, Duffy and Rhodes’ produced their very own ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’ with the sparse Omnichord backing accentuating the song’s desolate gothic atmosphere.
A melodic folk ballad made all retro-futuristic, the shimmering ‘Newhaven-Dieppe’ was another original DURAN DURAN song but pointed to how Duffy would attain cult status in THE LILAC TIME and highlighted the eclectic leanings which that first line-up had. On ‘World Exclusive’, the playful art rock energy and breezy “sha-la-la-la” backing vocals provided a pop moment without the funk. But drawing on the Jack Kerouac poem ‘Mexico City Blues’, if Spaghetti Westerns had been filmed in Berlin, then the shadowy ‘Aztec Moon’ with its mechanical guiro would have been its soundtrack.
Written together by Duffy and Rhodes in 1978 when they were still teenagers and inspired by the short story by F Scott Fitzgerald, ‘Lost Decade’ also borrowed off ‘The Great Gatsby’ in its look back at the years that had slipped away between the pair. Not a song from back in the day, the marvellous ‘Barbarellas’ was a solemn lament to the now-defunct club with a descending synth melody reminiscent of John Barry’s theme to ‘Midnight Cowboy’; providing the nostalgic heart of ‘Dark Circles’, Duffy’s plaintive delivery sealed the deal in its touching reflection of the exuberance of youth.
The original DURAN DURAN’s walk off music, ‘The Tinsel Ritual’ affirmed THE DEVILS and DURAN DURAN’s then-art school credentials with a cacophonous instrumental that concluded with a collage of wedding bells played in reverse.
In what could have been DURAN DURAN’s long playing debut in a parallel universe, ‘Dark Circles’ was a joyful piece of revisionist history and showed how Stephen Duffy’s sharp literate songwriting was a fine foil to Nick Rhodes’ arty futurism. If they had stuck together and become a synthpop duo, could they have been a SOFT CELL or PET SHOP BOYS? Who knows? But with its best tracks, this enjoyable curio provided an idea of what might have been and with the benefit of hindsight, what could have been.
‘Dark Circles’ was released as a CD by Tape Modern and currently unavailable
Text by Chi Ming Lai
20th July 2026
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