Banner

How It All Started...

The boy band sensation lead singer of the 1980’s, fashion icon of the New Romantic’s era and the member of the band named by Princess Diana as her favourite group, Le Bon has survived three decades of ups and downs in the music business. Born Simon John Charles Le Bon on October 27th 1958 in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England and raised just outside London. It was at a young age when Simon first found pleasure in singing when he joined his local church choir while attending Pinner County Grammer School.Simon worked part time as a theater porter at a local hospital’s emergency room. His acting saw him appearing in several television commercials and a few theater productions. After returning from a period in a kibbutz in Israel in 1978 Simon attended drama school. Around this time her auditioned for a position in a punk band at Harrow College of Science. But it was his inauguration into the up and coming band Duran Duran that would see the beginning of his international fame and fortune. As the band developed they secured gigs around Birmingham and London until they signed a record deal with EMI records.His first choice of a career in acting took second place to his new found career with Duran Duran. The band’s self titled first album was released in 1981 and the group soon fell into the category of the New Romantic era. By 1984 the band had released a further three albums and made a live appearance at Bob Geldof’s charity single, ‘Do They Know its Christmas?’ along with George Michael, Sting, Bono and Paul Young.A year later Simon saw the face of the woman he would later marry in a fashion magazine and after tracking her down he married Yasmin Parvenah in December 1985. The couple remain happily married and have had three daughters together over the past 20 years. Yasmin Le Bon is still modeling after more than twenty years in the business.Along with his love of music Le Bon also developed a love of yachting which led to him joining the Fastnet race in the yacht ‘Drum’ which tragically capsized off the coast of Cornwall, UK leaving Le Bon and his crew trapped under the water for forty minutes before being rescued. Undeterred the crew and Le Bon took ‘Drum’ to third position in the Whitbread Round the World race in 1985-86. 1993 brought Le Bon the honour of performing with, the now deceased, Luciano Pavarotti during a ‘Children of Bosnia’ concert where he described Pavarotti as ‘Pav-the –Man’. Le Bon remains the only member of Duran Duran to have remained with the band through its entire career, seeing the comings and goings and returning of other members.

Duran Duran