POP/ROCK - Dec. 14, 1989

Get Him Off the Road: Bass guitarist John Taylor of the British rock group Duran Duran was banned from driving for 12 months and fined the equivalent of $400 Wednesday after he admitted drinking while driving. Prosecutor Debbie Churaman told Horseferry Magistrates Court that Taylor was stopped on his way home early Tuesday by police who saw him speeding and driving erratically through London. Taylor’s lawyer, Nicholas Price, said the 29-year-old musician had worked until midnight Monday and had eaten nothing except a sandwich before driving to a party. “I have been very irresponsible,” Taylor, 29, said after the court appearance. “It’s no use blaming anybody else. You know what you are doing, and that’s it. It was down to me.” Duran Duran, an English pop group that attracted a large teen following with such hits as ‘Hungry Like the Wolf” and “A View to a Kill,” were an early MTV favorite.