Nick Rhodesis an English musician, singer and producer, best known as the founder, keyboardist, and only continuous member of the band Duran Duran. He is also informally monikered as "The Controller", after being introduced as such on stage by bandmate Simon Le Bon during the Astronaut album world tours of 2004–2005.
Rhodes has been involved in several side projects outside of, but related to, Duran Duran: he released albums with Arcadia in 1985 (featuring 3 members of Duran: Rhodes, Simon Le Bon and Roger Taylor), and recorded and performed as The Devils in 2002 with Stephen Duffy, longtime musical friend and the original lead singer of Duran Duran. In March 2013, he released the TV Mania side project with former Duran Duran guitarist, Warren Cuccurullo.
Contributions to Duran Duran
The band achieved rapid success, and Rhodes was a driving force throughout. An unschooled musician, he experimented with the sounds his analogue synthesisers were capable of, but shied away from the "novelty" sounds of some other early synth bands. The distinctive warble of "Save A Prayer", the keyboard stabs of "A View to a Kill", and the string sounds of "Come Undone" and "Ordinary World" are some of his most recognisable creations, as well as the futuristic oscillating synth that characterised Duran Duran's self-titled first album. He popularised the Crumar Performer on the early records.
Rhodes was also quick to recognise the potential of the music video, and pushed the band to put more effort into their early videos than seemed warranted at the time (before the advent of MTV). Barely twenty when the band hit major stardom, he cultivated an androgynous and sometimes flamboyant image, wore heavy makeup, and changed his hair colour at whim. By the late 1990s, Rhodes had begun writing lyrics for Duran Duran, as well as music. His digitally altered voice is heard on the title track to the 1997 album Medazzaland.
In 2001, the original five members of Duran Duran reunited to record new music; see Duran Duran for details.
Personal life
Rhodes met Julie Anne Friedman (heiress to the Iowan Younkers Department Store fortune) at a yacht party while on an American tour in 1982, and married her on 18 August, 1984. They have one daughter together, Tatjana Lee Orchid (born 23 August 1986). After a brief separation and an attempt to reconcile, they filed for divorce in 1992. Rhodes has had several long relationships with various women but has not remarried.
Rhodes, as a former art student, became enamoured with the art world early in his career, making friends with pop-art artist Andy Warhol and The Factory crowd, and attending exhibitions worldwide. At the end of 1984, he released his own book of abstract art photographs called Interference. Many of the photos were displayed at an exhibition at the Hamilton Gallery in London. He continues to showcase photography on occasion, including in British magazines such as Tatler and also occasionally appears at the Cannes International Film Festival.
In November 2011, Rhodes received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts degree from the University of Bedfordshire, for his services to the music industry. Rhodes appears in Burke's Peerage under his second cousin's entry for the family of Lindley-Highfield of Ballumbie Castle, being related to the Highfield family through his paternal grandmother, Irene Lavinia Bates (née Highfield).
Rhodes is a long-time vegetarian, occasionally a pescatarian. In a 2012 interview at DuranDuran.com he cited Italian, Lebanese and Indian food as his favourites. He moved to central London two years after Duran Duran's success and continues to reside there.
