Nick Valensi Joins Duran Duran Onstage in Paris for 'Rio' Encore

Nick Valensi played "Rio" with Duran Duran at Paris' Accor Arena on Wednesday night, joining the band for its final number with 48 hours' notice. The Strokes guitarist, currently on a temporary break from his band, added, in Rolling Stone's phrasing, long-haired indie-rock grit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers' glitter.

The invitation came through family ties. Valensi is married to Amanda de Cadenet — photographer, feminist media figure and host of The Conversation podcast — who is John Taylor's ex-wife. Valensi was already in Paris that week, helping his and de Cadenet's daughter Ella move into a new apartment. (The couple also share a son, Sylvain, Ella's twin.) Taylor invited the family to the show, then asked Valensi to sit in on the encore.

Valensi didn't need much convincing. "I know 'Rio'," he told Rolling Stone. "I had to tell my fingers how to do it, but I already knew most of it in my head. I was saying this to John: When you know a song, like you just know it." He still joined the band in the warm-up room on arrival, just in case. Careful preparation from a man who claimed he didn't need any.

So how do the two guitarists define their relationship?

Backstage, in Taylor's dressing room, the pair tried to settle the question and mostly failed. "It's a family affair!" Taylor said. Valensi was more precise about the genealogy: "I'm not sure that marrying the same woman really makes you related. But I am the stepfather to your daughter."

"Yes!" Taylor replied. "I think of you as my daughter's other dad."

That daughter, Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor, is herself married to a musician — Dave Macklovitch of the electro-funk duo Chromeo. The family tree now has more guitarists than most festivals.

Valensi landed on his own term for it. "I don't know what the real term for it is, but I know that, more than anything, you feel like my brother-in-law," he said. "So when your brother-in-law calls you and says, 'Hey, you're going to be in Paris; we're going to be in Paris. Will you just come on stage and play 'Rio' with us?' — you don't say no to that. I'm a huge fan."

The admiration runs both ways, according to Taylor. "And I love your band too," Taylor said. "We've always had a respect for each other. That's always been there."

Taylor said the rest of Duran Duran shared the enthusiasm. "That was a great moment, out there onstage with you," he told Valensi. "Everybody in the band was super jazzed about it."

The Paris cameo caps a strange year for Valensi's calendar. In May, the Strokes announced on social media that their founding guitarist "will be taking a temporary break from the scheduled tour, but we look forward to his return." The timing was tidy: while Valensi sat in with Duran Duran at Accor Arena, the Strokes were playing the final night of their 2026 European tour in Dublin, without him.

The band reconvenes soon enough. The Strokes perform on Saturday Night Live on November 7 — and if Wednesday's encore proved anything, it's that Valensi's fingers remember songs his head never forgot.