@MWC: Mobile as an artistic outlet

BARCELONA – For Nick Rhodes, the keyboardist in Duran Duran, technology has never been an afterthought, but rather something he’s tried to leverage every step of the way in the band’s 29-year career.
Whether its music videos, live show experiences or interactive engagement with fans, Rhodes has consistently tried to stay ahead of the curve, he said at a series of mini keynotes on mobile entertainment.
“When we’re making a new product, we first obviously create the songs and think about what visually we’re going to do, but then, you know, how do you get it out to people,” he said.
As expected, he sees mobile as the next frontier.
“For the first time artists are saying ‘wait a minute, the mobile audience is even bigger than the Internet audience,’” he said. “We look at it as a box of tools and with mobile there’s a lot more that you can do.”
And yet still, he couldn’t point to any integration with mobile that uses mobile technology to its best, but he’s determined to achieve just that.
“We’ve always looked to work with the best people across the creative industries” and Duran Duran is not afraid of making mistakes along the way, particularly if that helps push the envelope on what mobile can deliver, he said.
“The opportunities now are pretty extraordinary with phones,” Rhodes said. “We’re happy to provide content, but we’re also very interested in working with people to see what future technologies can do.”
Rhodes said the band is aiming to work with operators on a variety of projects as it searches for experiences on the mobile device that haven’t been defined yet.
Even at present though, mobile has “given a myriad different options,” he said.
“What I like the idea of is that everything is instant. Now we know we press a button and there it is. I like that aspect of it and it works really well for artists because we really all are communicators.”
Matt Kapko can be reached at matt@eyeonm.com.