A few years ago I read an interview with a person who claimed to have
been the writer of a good number of Duran Duran's early hits, yet had
only received something like £600 for it, having signed the rights
away. Can anyone refer me to this interview or a decent factual
account of what happened?

I scoured the net for a while but couldn't find anything definite (and
there have been so many members of Duran Duran that it'd take forever
to chase up each one). So I emailed the trivia expert on the band's
own website ( http://www.duranduran.com ) - it remains to be seen if I
get an answer, though, as bands are often sensitive about issues of
copyright etc. I'll let you know...

jeeagle-ga

The band's trivia expert said it's "very funny but completely untrue".
As this is by no means a definitive answer, though, I'm just leaving
it as a comment.

jeeagle-ga

Duran Duran are pretty well renowned for writing all their own
material (except the Thank You album in the mid 90s which was an album
full of cover tracks and the odd cover track like femme fatale on the
wedding album). Their first album 'DURAN DURAN' does state on the
inlay all songs written and arranged by Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes,
John Taylor, Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor so i think the chances of
someone else having written some of those tracks and sold them to
Duran Duran would be fairly slim. The band when interviewed a few
years ago were discussing the auditions for a singer after Steven
Duffy left the band and they said that Simon Le Bon was the only
person who turned up with a book full of songs and lyrics that he had
written so he was the natural choice for the job.