Nigel John Taylor (born 20 June 1960) is an English musician and actor, who is best known as the bass guitarist and founding member of new wave band Duran Duran. Duran Duran were one of the most popular bands in the world during the 1980s due to their revolutionary music videos that played in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV. Taylor played with Duran Duran from its founding in 1978 until 1997, when he left to pursue a solo recording and film career. He recorded a dozen solo releases (albums, EPs, and video projects) through his company "Trust The Process" over the next four years, had a lead role in the movie Sugar Town, and made appearances in a half dozen other film projects. He rejoined Duran Duran for a reunion of the original five members of the group in 2001 and has remained with the group since. 　　John Taylor grew up in Hollywood, a suburb of Birmingham, England. As a child he attended Our Lady of the Wayside Catholic school and the Abbey High School, in Redditch, wore glasses (due to severe myopia, over -10 dioptres), enjoyed James Bond movies and the hobby of wargaming with hand-painted model soldiers. In his early teen years, he discovered music, choosing Roxy Music as his favourite band, and before long was collecting records and teaching himself to play piano. His first band was called Shock Treatment. 　　1978–1997: Duran Duran and Power Station 　　In 1978, Taylor and school friend Nick Rhodes formed Duran Duran with Stephen Duffy while attending the School of Foundation Studies & Experimental Workshop Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University). Soon after Taylor underwent an "ugly duckling" transformation—ditching the glasses for contact lenses, adopting the ruffles and sashes of the fashion that would become known as the New Romantic style, and learning to wear eyeliner and lipstick. He stopped using the name "Nigel", and has been known throughout his professional career as John Taylor. 　　In 1985, after recording the theme song to the Bond movie A View to a Kill, Duran Duran split into two side projects. John Taylor and Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor joined forces with former Chic drummer Tony Thompson and Robert Palmer, who earlier met at Duran Duran's charity concert at Aston Villa football ground 1983, to form the band The Power Station. With the guidance of producer Bernard Edwards, they released one album, The Power Station, which produced the hit singles "Some Like It Hot" and the T.Rex cover song "Bang a Gong (Get It On)". 　　That year, Taylor also launched his first solo effort, recording the single "I Do What I Do..." for the soundtrack to the movie 9½ Weeks starring Kim Basinger. He also wrote some instrumental music for the movie's score with collaborator Jonathan Elias. 　　Duran Duran's success rapidly waned with the widely derided 1995 covers album Thank You. Following that album's supporting tour, Duran Duran spent part of the summer of 1995 in London working on the album Medazzaland. Concurrently, Taylor devoted time to the side project Neurotic Outsiders, recording and touring with that band from the end of 1995 through the start of 1996. 　　1996–2001: Solo music career; 2012–present: Author 　　In 1996, Taylor co-founded the independent record label B5 Records in California with producer Hein Hoven. B5 Records originally recorded from Hoven's Lake Hollywood home but eventually built a state of the art studio in Santa Monica dubbed "B5 by the Sea." The label had a cutting-edge website created by Kapil Mathur which featured a virtual journey through the B5 studios, and which allowed visitors to "interact" with Taylor and Hoven using mobile avatars in a virtual environment. 　　At B5, Taylor sang and played guitar and bass on his first solo album, Feelings Are Good (And Other Lies), working with collaborator Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. The home-grown album was marketed by mail order, and sold its CDs directly via the website. The music and vocals were generally rough and raw, much more akin to grunge and punk music than to Duran Duran, while the lyrics reflected Taylor's chaotic personal life and his ongoing divorce from de Cadenet. He participated in writing an album for the reunited Power Station in late 1996, but his personal problems forced him to withdraw from the project, which went on to record with Bernard Edwards on bass and toured with a hired bass player. Increasing creative differences within Duran Duran, his move to Los Angeles and a desire to focus on his solo work also led Taylor to reconsider his place in that band. In January 1997 he announced at a Duran Duran fan convention that he was leaving the band. 　　2001–present: Duran Duran reunion 　　In 2000, Taylor was approached at his home in Los Angeles by singer Simon Le Bon about a possible reunion with the original Duran Duran lineup, and he was enthusiastic about the idea as long as the other two Taylors (Roger and Andy, who had left the band in 1986) were willing to rejoin as well. An agreement was soon reached, and Taylor demonstrated his renewed commitment to the band by getting an enormous linked-D's tattoo on the upper side of his right arm. 　　After a highly successful tour of Japan in 2003, the reunited band was signed with Epic Records, and released the album Astronaut in October 2004. They toured throughout the first half of 2005 before returning to the studio to work on their next new album. Guitarist Andy Taylor left the band again in October 2006, and recordings from this session (with the working title "Reportage") were set aside when the band got a chance to work with famed producer Timbaland. The resulting album, "Red Carpet Massacre", was released in November 2007. To celebrate its release the band took the unprecedented step of performing the album in its entirety for 10 special performances on Broadway in New York City, with a world tour in 2008. 　　In 2006, Taylor and Nick Rhodes collaborated on the compilation album entitled "Only After Dark". 　　Guest appearances 　　Over the years, Taylor has worked on projects with several other performers. He has performed with James Angell, and played bass on the Deadsy song "She Likes Big Words". He co-wrote and played bass on the Mindi Abair song "It Just Happens That Way", and did backing vocals on her cover of "Save Tonight". 　　He played bass on "Lose Yourself With Me" by singer Jan Linton in 2003, which also featured the guitars of one of Taylor's teenage idols, former Be Bop Deluxe front man, Bill Nelson. 　　He remixed the song, "Like a Hard Rain" for Japanese artist Nanase Aikawa, and played on two songs for the Japanese band Slut Banks. 　　Taylor's side project Neurotic Outsiders has re-convened for an occasional live show or two since a surprise four-show stint at the Viper Room in 1999. 　　In 2010, he contributed bass to the debut album by Swahili Blonde with ex-Weave! drummer Nicole Turley on the track "Tigress Ritual". 　　In 2012, he provided lyrics and vocals to a song he collaborated on with trance duo Koishii & Hush entitled 'C'est Tout Est Noir'. Taylor considers this a follow up to his single "I Do What I Do..." from the soundtrack to the movie 9½ Weeks.