Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor says music helps him live with the ‘pessimism’ of his ‘incurable’ cancer

Guitarist was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer four years ago, but shared the news publicly in 2022

Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor has opened up about his cancer diagnosis in a new interview.

The guitarist was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer four years ago, but only revealed the news publicly in November.

At the time, Taylor’s bandmates shared the news in a letter – written by the musician – ahead of their induction to the Hall of Fame, which he couldn’t attend.

“They very graciously, generously read that out before the ceremony,” explained Taylor while being interviewed on Channel 5 News.

“I didn’t have any plan, and then afterwards, the amount of love and support of offers of help,” he said on sharing the news of his health.

“I realised that by talking about it – Duran have quite a large female fanbase, so it’s like, your partner, your boyfriend – give them a nudge, get them a test.”

Taylor explained that he had first noticed symptoms when he had been out running: “I started to notice what you would think was a kind of arthritic sort of pain, and I never thought more of it than that.”

Taylor had then found lumps which felt like “tumours” on his neck. “It was stage four, metastatic – which is a death sentence,” he said on receiving the news from the doctor on his diagnosis, adding that “no one could be prepared for that day”.

Taylor had said that he had hoped to join Duran Duran for the induction, but his treatment had resulted in a lack of energy. “You lose all your testosterone in treatment – just that in itself, I bet most men don’t have a clue,” he explained.

When asked about how he gets through the day-to-day of living with his diagnosis, he replied: “I just thought about getting the most out of life.”

‘I just thought about getting the most out of life,’ said Taylor on living with cancer (Getty Images)

“Then, it was very likely that I wouldn’t get through it at all. Now there’s some new treatments that can help me,” he said, before explaining that he had “made three albums since then” as well as going “on the road with some friends”.

“Every minute’s like an hour, every day is like a week,” he continued, explaining that he was trying to “get the most out of life”.

“I’ve been very fortunate, I’ve had so much in terms of living the dream”.

Taylor added that music had been key to staying positive: “I think [music has] really helped me to live with the pessimism of the incurable disease, but the optimism of making music.”