Wild boys Duran Duran "cool" at last

By Alastair Himmer

TOKYO (Reuters) - Pop stars Duran Duran, who shot to fame for a string of smash hits and dodgy suits in the 1980s, are officially cool at last.

Once panned for being pretty boys who used enough hairspray to blow a hole in the ozone layer, the British band have become a reference point for many of today's chart-topping acts, such as indie rockers Arctic Monkeys and American outfit The Killers.

"It's the greatest form of flattery," Duran Duran drummer Roger Taylor told Reuters in an interview before a sell-out Tokyo show earlier this week.

"Sometimes the music press try to write us out of music history a little bit, so it's been really cool that bands have actually said we were a good band, and they were good songs and they want to be a little bit like us and take something from Duran Duran."

While videos of them on yachts wearing silk suits might be painful to watch now, over 100,000 Internet pages are devoted to Duran Duran, who have sold more than 90 million albums.

The band counted the late Princess Diana among their legions of female fans during their 1980s heyday with hits such as "Girls on Film" and "Hungry Like the Wolf."

However, Duran Duran bristle at the notion they are 80s relics, pointing to a new album made in collaboration with Justin Timberlake and top American producer Timbaland.

"I think people who grew up in the 80s are often going to think of us," said keyboard player Nick Rhodes. "That was when we started out so it's inevitable to a degree. We did have quite an impact musically at that time.