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Pop duo Tears for Fears reveal the heartache and friendship behind new album The Tipping Point

Jacqui Swift

Published: 22:44, 24 Feb 2022
Updated: 10:02, 25 Feb 2022

“THE task was how to make an album representative of us, at 60,” says Roland Orzabal.

“How can we bring our life experience good and bad to the table and make something that speaks to people. Our best work, and the work that’s lasted over the years is the stuff that resonates with people.”

Roland Orzabal said: 'Our best work, and the work that’s lasted over the years is the stuff that resonates with people'Credit: PR Handout

Tears for Fears wrote classic pop songs including Mad World, Shout, Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Sowing The Seeds Of Love after forming in 1981Credit: Rex Features

Tears For Fears — Orzabal and Curt Smith — are recalling why an early version of their excellent new and seventh studio album, The Tipping Point, was scrapped and restarted when both decided it “just wasn’t Tears For Fears”.

They had been encouraged by their old manager to work with other songwriters including Dan Smith from Bastille and Sacha Skarbek, who wrote James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful and Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball.

And while they were happy with some of these songs, it didn’t feel right for a Tears For Fears album.

Orzabal adds: “Our then manager didn’t want to sell us any more in terms of being recording artists.

"He wanted us just to be like a heritage artist. One of the first times he’d seen us play live in Dallas, he saw that we were good and wanted us on the road.

“Straight away he saw the money potential from touring, but he didn’t instinctively trust us just to do our own thing and make a real Tears For Fears album. He wanted to inject some alien DNA, shall we say.”

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Having written classic pop songs including Mad World, Shout, Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Sowing The Seeds Of Love, it seems absurd that the duo, who formed the band in Bath in 1981 after meeting as teenagers, were not encouraged to write an album themselves.

Orzabal continues: “He said at the time, ‘Think of Tina Turner when she came back and worked with Heaven 17. That’s what I want’.”

Now with the same manager who looks after Harry Styles, Orzabal and Smith are looking forward to the future.

I meet the friendly pair in a central London hotel where they’re on day three of an exhaustive promotional round of interviews and radio appearances.

They’re tired but still on a high from recording a magical BBC Radio 2 Piano Room session on Monday with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

“We really enjoyed playing with an orchestra. It’s something we want to do more of.

"But it was strange to watch back, me with my wizard-like hair,” says Orzabal of the white mane that now replaces his old dark hair.

“You can see we have physically aged in The Tipping Point video — we’re not trying to hide it and mentally, we’re still pretty young.

“We were recently asked, ‘What would the Tears For Fears 1982 think about Tears For Fears 2022?’

"And apart from the horror that those guys would feel seeing us at 60, they would listen to the album and they would be so impressed that they probably wouldn’t make another record.”

The Tipping Point is a majestic record that will give the duo plenty of acclaim.

The pair enjoyed a renaissance with Lorde’s cover of Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Gary Jules’s version of Mad World while The 1975, Kanye West and the Weeknd have all cited Tears For Fears as an influence.

“Our old manager wanted to cash in on this and mass manufacture us, but we didn’t agree with him,” says Orzabal.

“It’s like with Coldplay — Everyday Life is them pushing the envelope. It’s a great album. I went to see them in LA and loved it but Music From The Spheres is an industry album. Them working with BTS is about commercial expectations.

There are so many areas of mental health we just don’t understand.
Roland Orzabal

“I listened to that album once and I just didn’t get it.”

Fame has never been the goal for Orzabal and Smith.

The down-to-earth pair have often shunned the spotlight, preferring family time.

They turned down Live Aid as they needed a holiday and it’s been 17 years since their last studio album, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending.

The pair have sold more than 30million records worldwide but spent ten years not talking when Smith left the band in 1991 and moved to New York.

Smith, who lives in LA, says: “We’ve actually released more greatest hits than albums. We’ve had huge breaks between some records because of life.

“When we both had kids, we concentrated on being there for them because we both came from homes with absent fathers.

"Then the touring side became very successful which meant we could go out for two months in the summer, then come back with some money and enjoy ourselves a little bit.”

“Yes,” adds Orzabal. “We had a little bit of pocket money and a home life — a happy family was more important.

“We were pop stars when we were kids, then as we got older, we didn’t see ourselves like that.”

Never shy of tackling the heavy stuff, Tears For Fears songs have dealt with depression, political protest and domestic violence.

And it was writing about the heart-breaking loss of his first wife, childhood sweetheart Caroline, in 2017 that allowed Orzabal to revisit and finish The Tipping Point and mend his friendship with Smith.

Married for 35 years, Caroline struggled with the menopause and alcohol, which contributed to her death.

Our old manager wanted to cash in on this and mass manufacture us, but we didn’t agree with him.
Roland Orzabal

She was ill for five years and developed alcohol-related dementia.

Orzabal says: “There are so many areas of mental health we just don’t understand.

“If someone suddenly changes personality, if they suddenly go from extrovert to being withdrawn, it’s hard to understand.

“Caroline lost her parents when they were young and I think she never fully processed that.

"She was always obsessed with dying, like her mum at that age, but she didn’t even get to that age. She was 55.

“The songs specifically about Caroline, The Tipping Point, and Please Be Happy, were written while she was ill.”

Please Be Happy, which is sung by Smith, is a heartbreakingly beautiful song.

Orzabal says: “You never really believe someone’s going to die. If something becomes too painful, you don’t process it, so songwriting is therapeutic.

"But I still can’t listen to that song and the first time I heard Curt sing it was difficult. Oh, I’m going to break out in tears now.”

The sadness is still evident. “The way that we programmed the album is important.

"My Demons punches you in the face. Then, when you’re ready to submit, Rivers Of Mercy creeps in and you start to feel tingles down your spine.

“But that’s really softening you up for the killer, Please Be Happy, which is gut-wrenchingly sad. It’s so sad that I left the studio when we were doing the playback because that song just demolishes me.”

Roland and I are like a marriage and like any marriage, we tend to blame each other when things go wrong. We got to a point in 2019 on tour when we really weren’t talking to each other.
Curt Smith

Smith says it was difficult for him to see his friend grieve through his loss.

“It’s hard to watch anyone you’ve grown up with go through that pain but the only thing I could do was walk away from it. It wasn’t helping us being together.

“Roland and I are like a marriage and like any marriage, we tend to blame each other when things go wrong. We got to a point in 2019 on tour when we really weren’t talking to each other.”

Orzabal says 2018 was a bleak year for him. “Caroline had passed and things started to go wrong physically for me.”

He suffered a seizure and ended up in hospital and also had two voluntary stays in rehab as he struggled with side-effects from painkillers.

Orzabal says: “It took me the best part of that year to get myself together again.”

In 2019 Orzabal, who has now found happiness with second wife Emily, decided to contact Smith again and the pair met for lunch then went back to Curt’s house to jam, something they hadn’t done in years.

Album opener No Small Thing was the result.

A collaboration between the two friends without any interference from a manager or label.

Orzabal says: “I was keen to push forward. There were about five tracks we started to work on, and I needed to reconnect with Curt. It wasn’t very difficult at all.

“When we say we fall out it just means we aren’t communicating, so when we do, it’s easy.”

No Small Thing is one of the stand-out tracks.

The Tipping Point is an album of now. There are some very contemplative songs, some sadder subjects, but it still leaves you with a sense of optimism.
Curt Smith

But there’s not a dud track on the album.

Rivers Of Mercy, Long, Long, Long Time and Master Plan are up there with the very best songs Tears For Fears have ever made.

And the pair are already looking to include the new songs when they go out on the road in May in the US, arriving in the UK in July.

“I’ve had an idea of starting the show with No Small Thing,” reveals Orzabal.

“But I need to talk to Curt about it.”

The Tipping Point is an album that reconciled Tears For Fears and reassesses their place in music history.

But most importantly it made them revalue their friendship.

“We know how much we mean to each other and what’s important,” says Orzabal. “You can hear it in this album.”

Smith says: “The Tipping Point is an album of now. There are some very contemplative songs, some sadder subjects, but it still leaves you with a sense of optimism.