Andy Taylor doesn’t need to prove anything. Not after selling millions of records with Duran Duran, reshaping ‘80s rock with The Power Station, and writing and producing hits for everyone from Robert Palmer to Rod Stewart. But here he is, 33 years after his last solo album, with Man’s a Wolf to Man—a record that’s raw, loud, and defiantly uninterested in chasing trends.
“I got a call out of nowhere,” Taylor says. “Hartwig Masuch, the CEO of BMG, wanted me to make a record. I’m 56 at the time, and I’m thinking—how often do you get offered a record deal at this age? Easy answer: you say yes.”
That was seven years ago. Since then, Taylor has battled terminal cancer, seen the world spiral into division, and come out the other side with an album that rages against it all.
“I didn’t want to repeat myself,” he says. “Didn’t want to phone it in. I’ve spent my life setting the table for other artists—it was time to do it for myself.”
The Lost Duran Duran Album That Never Was
If Man’s a Wolf to Man sounds like a response to the chaos of the last decade, it’s because it is. But for hardcore Duran fans, it also carries echoes of Reportage, the fabled lost album the band scrapped in the mid-2000s.
“We were writing about politics and power,” Taylor recalls. “There was a song called Criminals in the Capital, a tongue-in-cheek dig at the suits running the world. And the label freaked out. Said we couldn’t do it. I remember thinking—have you heard hip-hop? They’re talking about real crime, and you’re worried about this?”
It was the beginning of the end for Taylor’s tenure in the band.
“I thought we should have leaned into that darkness,” he says. “Gone full Night Boat, full New Religion. But instead, it was like, ‘Let’s chase another hit.’ How many do you need?”
No More Pop Star Pandering
If there’s one thing Taylor hates, it’s bland, sanitized pop stars playing it safe.
“Pop music used to have edge,” he says. “You had OMD writing Enola Gay about nuclear war, The Clash making protest anthems. Now? If a song gets too real, some executive gets nervous.”
He points to the explosion of Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond as proof that people are starving for something with teeth.
“People tried to politicize it, but the truth is, it hit a nerve. And labels didn’t see it coming because they don’t know what people actually feel.”
Taylor, meanwhile, has no plans to censor himself.
“The world’s a mess. I’m gonna write about it. I nearly died—I don’t have time to play nice.”
Bowie, Ronson, and Why Ibiza Is the Best Place to Survive a Nuclear War
For all its grit, Man’s a Wolf to Man is still packed with Taylor’s signature guitar heroics—Mick Ronson riffs, big choruses, that glam-meets-punk swagger.
“I’ve been deep-diving into Station to Station, Low, all that Visconti-era Bowie,” he says. “That man was a prophet. He saw what the internet would become back in ‘99. He understood the cultural shift before anyone else.”
And if things go south? He has a plan.
“Nostradamus said Ibiza is the safest place to be in a nuclear war,” he says with a grin. “Something about the prevailing winds. So, I figure—I’ll stay here, make music, and see what happens.”
Whatever does happen, Taylor won’t be going quietly. Man’s a Wolf to Man is proof of that.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
