Duran Duran hope Sam Smith made his James Bond song 'Writing's on the Wall' his own.

The 'Rio' hitmakers famously penned the theme for 1985's 007 adventure 'A View to a Kill' and were pleased when they discovered Sam had been chosen to provide the title track for 'SPECTRE' starring Daniel Craig as the suave spy for a fourth time.

The band think the 'Stay With Me' hitmaker is a ''fantastic singer'' and have urged him to just ''enjoy'' the experience of working with one of the biggest movie franchises in history.

Asked what advice they would give the 23-year-old pop star in an interview on 'Loose Women', frontman Simon Le Bon said: ''Sam Smith is a fantastic singer. You make it yours that's what I would say because that is how we approached doing it. We didn't try and write one that sounded like Eartha Kitt or Tom Jones. We wanted to make a Duran Duran Bond theme and make sure it sounded like that. That's what you've got to do, enjoy the journey. The James Bond franchise is massive and you get on the train and take it all in.''

Duran Duran have just released their new LP 'Paper Gods', which they worked on with previous collaborators Nile Rodgers and Mark Ronson.

They insist the album is ''classic Duran Duran'' but their sound has been updated for this generation.

Le Bon explained: ''It's classic Duran Duran and I think one of the reasons it took us two years make the album, was on the one hand we were trying to write 12 great songs, which sounds simple enough, but we are also re-designing the sound of the band for 2015.''