Andy Taylor

Andrew Taylor was born at Tynemouth Royal Infirmary, near Newcastle, England, on February 16, 1961. He is an Aquarius, but is too practical to believe in Astrology.

Andy's father was a fisherman and so was his grandfather, and he grew up in the tiny coastal village of Cullercoats. His family was very poor, and Andy spent his early years using an outside toilet and washing up in a tin bath.

Early in his school career, Andy did well enough to be accepted into an academically superior "grammar school" (prep school) at age eleven. But his happiness at his new school was to be short-lived.

"The first day I went to grammar school," he recalls, "--dead exciting, you know--well, I came home and my mother had gone! So I thought, Oh, well, it's just me and my old man and my little brother..."

Soon after this, the family moved to nearby Whitley Bay, and Andy transferred to a lower-ranked comprehensive school, in which he quickly lost interest. His father, because of a decline in the fishing industry, had been forced to become a carpenter. Hoping that his son would avoid a similar fate, he encouraged the young Andy to continue practicing the guitar he had taken up at the age of five.

That suited Andy fine. He put together a band and played his first professional gig when he was just thirteen.

"I totally lost interest in school," he recalls, "became a real bum and drop-out, never used to go at all. And then I became the black sheep kid at school 'cause I had long hair and played in groups, and all the rest of the lads were going camping or something...I wasn't into that."

Andy was into playing, and he devoted himself to that. Teachers tried to help him by educating him in a trade such as bricklaying or plumbing, but he was just not interested.

"I got into all sorts of trouble at school," he says. "But when your heart's in something, you just do it. I didn't even think about it really."

Eventually he just stopped attending class altogether, and started playing all the time with various bands, first at local bars in the north of England, and later at clubs and military bases in Europe.

Andy had the experience of spending time playing with several different groups (often changing groups every few months) in many unusual places. He played for ten weeks at a Greek beach club; he also played a thirteen-month stint in Germany, just as one of his favorite groups, the Beatles, did early on in their career.

Andy also had a frightening experience in Luxembourg. His band was owed almost $4000 by a club owner there, and when he went to ask for the money, he was held at gunpoint by local police.

However, this did not dampen Andy's enthusiasm for music, and upon his return home from one of his European trips, he saw an ad in the paper that would lead him directly to Duran Duran.

Andy is appreciated by the rest of the band for his dry sense of humor and his ability with figures. He is the only Duran who actually likes business meetings.

His main dislike is for "arty-farty conversations." He also dislikes pretense, aggravation, and "losing my temper."

Andy changed his name to Andrew Wilson-Taylor upon his marriage to hairstylist Tracey Wilson in August 1982. Rather than cancel the band's American tour that summer, Andy flew Tracey out to Los Angeles and they had a formal wedding at the Chateau Marmont there.

Although Andy used to be known as someone who worked hard and played hard, since his marriage he has calmed down a lot. He and Tracey have settled into a comfortable house in Wolverhampton. They also own a loft in London, a restaurant called Rio in Newcastle, and a fifteenth-century cottage in Shropshire, with enough land to raise animals.

In fact, animals are now an important part of Andy's life, and he helps run a charity home for them. However, he also says that one of his pet peeves is "dogs messing on the carpet."

Photo captions: p. 25 "Andy ponders the meaning of life."; p. 26 "Music is the most important thing in Andy's life. 'When your heart's in something, you just do it,' he says."