New fop revolution: Dandys recruit Durannies

NME
by -
February 25, 2003

The new Dandy Warhols album will feature Duran Duran stars Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes.

Guitarist Peter Holmstrom told NME that the album, "Welcome To The Monkey House," will "surprise fans" with the band having ditched the trademark guitar jangle that earned them hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to a Vodafone ad. Instead the Dandys have leaned towards stripped-down electronica.

Holmstrom told NME that he and frontman Courtney Taylor were big Duran fans in the '80s and originally asked Rhodes to play keyboards on one track, "The Last High," co-written by Taylor and Evan Dando and slated to be the second single from the album. They worked so well together that they asked him to stay on and produce the record.

"We used a lot of keyboards on this record and tried to strip things down, focus almost completely on the bass and drums," he explained. "Some songs have no guitar at all, just bass, drums, vocals."

Provisional titles include "The Dope," "Burned" and "Plan A," which features Simon Le Bon on vocals and Chic's Nile Rodgers on bass. Davie Bowie and T. Rex poducer Tony Visconti, who produced two tracks, also sings backing vocals on the song "Rock Bottom," which Holmstrom describes as "our T. Rex song."

He admitted that the band are nervous about reactions to the new album.

"It's a different-sounding record. People's instant reaction might be, 'it sucks, it's not like them'. But if they give it a couple of spins, they'll hear it's The Dandy Warhols."

The band earned enough from 'Bohemian Like You' being used by Vodafone to pay off debts owed to the record company for their first two albums.

The album, the band's fourth, is released on May 19. It will be preceded by a single "We Used To Be Friends" on May 5. Tour dates currently confirmed are Dublin Olympia (May 14), Glasgow Academy (17), Manchester Academy (18), Bristol Academy (19), Leeds University (21), Birmingham Academy (22), London Brixton Academy (23).