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Roland Orzabal didn’t set out to write a standard musician’s memoir. “Live Aid was a little bit boring,” he tells me, as if to further hammer this nonchalance across. “It’s such a banal story that I didn’t feel like including it.” However, when you’re one-half of the band that perhaps best defined the soundscape of the 1980s, you’re going to have to make a few concessions. The resulting book, Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death, and Tears for Fears, is a hybrid of his history with bandmate Curt Smith juxtaposed against lessons in astrology, which intertwine into what Orzabal believes is the complete picture of who he is. “It’s more important that I get all that stuff in with the commentary of how the planets correlate with the movements, ups and downs, triumphs, and tragedies of my life,” he explains. “As opposed to writing everything about Tears for Fears.” For every deviation about the cosmos, though, you’ll be rewarded with studio tales behind the band’s biggest hits — do we have to “Shout” its name? — or anecdotes about Orzabal’s peers. Say, Peter Gabriel’s variable tennis skills. “God bless him, he’s not very coordinated from the waist down,” he says. “He’s got a beautiful serve. But when it comes to running for the ball, that proves a little trickier.”
The release of Welcome to Your Life comes amid a pronounced renaissance period for Tears for Fears, during which Orzabal and Smith opened themselves up to the full impact of their legacy. Their latest album, 2022’s The Tipping Point, was their highest charter in three decades, allowing them to tour at the largest venues since their commercial peak. Hot films are queuing up to license Tears for Fears needledrops, and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is approaching the Spotify 3-billion-streams club. Orzabal has a theory about why this new, younger fan base has flocked to their work. “It’s our emotional honesty and psychological perspective,” he reckons. “I think other bands were keen on presenting a front, so to speak, whether that would be a front of glamour, lifestyle, or political. But I don’t want to look into it too much because I don’t want to slap myself on the back at all.” Not a bad outcome for what Orzabal jokes was Tears for Fears’ edict when they first got started: “Get rich, get famous, and get therapy.”
You and Curt’s partnership was cemented when you both realized that you saw the world in the same way through the themes of detachment, alienation, and existentialism. You were worried that this perspective, expressed through music, might seem a bit adolescent. When did you understand the scope of how universal it actually was?
The music scene of the day made it easy to be introspective and to express your more private feelings. Your darker feelings. The thing is, we were still making pop music, so you could ignore the emotional side of it and just be swept away with the beat, the sound, and the production. When the Gary Jules cover version of “Mad World” was released, we started to see how important The Hurting was to these younger people. We realized that what we were feeling at the time was very much to do with adolescence and leaving childhood behind and becoming an adult. The younger people who love this record now are going through the same thing in 2026. I think something like that is always going to mean something to people of that age.
I want to get a better understanding of how much of a unique entity you were in the ’80s. You were singing about the primal scream and trauma therapy while your peers were dealing with love and death. You even said that you wanted Tears for Fears to be the “Steely Dan of synthesizers” while other synth-pop bands were barely playing the keys with one finger. How did you go about distinguishing yourself?
We wanted to be a proper studio band. It’s quite strange because we’ve sort of morphed over the decades into a great live act. We never meant it to be that way. We wanted to be the antithesis of the band that we were leaving, Graduate, who were more concentrated on jumping around onstage than playing. Our influences were pretty different as well. David Bowie’s Scary Monsters, Peter Gabriel III, and Talking Heads were big for us, but we couldn’t ever manage to be like them. When we tried to be like them, it didn’t work. So we instead tried to take songs and arrange them in a way that felt contemporary. It was really to the best of our ability at the time. But in doing so, we created a unique sound. I mean, as a kid, I was playing in the orchestra and singing in the choir. I liked all forms of music, and I still do. So why not put a trumpet sound in this section? Or a Gothic choir?
Subject matter wise, there wasn’t anyone doing what we were doing. It was complex. Our philosophy was pure Arthur Janov. We were evangelical. We would sometimes do interviews with people and we wouldn’t make sense. We always seemed to add more to the pop. Sometimes maybe too much. In all that complication, it became unique in that way. I don’t think Tears for Fears is complicated, but when I listen to it compared to other music — which is very simple — it is.
You make a crack in the book that Tears for Fears can’t produce their best work without a lot of suffering. Why can’t the happier times yield the same results?
I think it’s to do with emotional depth. Plumbing-the-depths-of-your-soul kind of thing, and going into the dungeon and fighting the dragon and coming back with the gold. When we did Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, for instance, it was done in Los Angeles under all of those blue skies. It was an absolutely fantastic atmosphere. We were having a lot of fun, but there’s no suffering. Waking up every day and looking at that sky, it’s not the same as the dark winters of England and this overwhelming awareness of these things that are floating around and the unconscious that want to be acknowledged. Every time we did that, it led to deeper work that people connected with. We’re not very good at the happy-go-lucky stuff, unfortunately.
You went No. 1 with Songs From the Big Chair, and it afforded the group less concern about time and money, and more freedom to explore new musical territories. In hindsight, was that a blessing or a curse?
Curt and I were both sick of promoting that album. We toured for eight months, playing the same set every night. We were tied to this Revox tape machine that had the drums for every song, like “Mad World” and “Shout.” We could never vary anything, and it was really driving me mad. And on top of this, I badly wanted to do primotherapy and psychotherapy. So it was a question of tearing up the playbook, starting again from scratch, and seeing what we had.
But it took a long time. I wasn’t writing songs every month. I would have seriously dry periods. It took a shift in the team, because the Songs From the Big Chair team was no longer viable for personal reasons. We ended up having to produce it ourselves. This process took a long time. There was a lot of soul-searching on my part for all of the right songs. It was just an aversion to what we had done before, because I didn’t feel like we needed to repeat it. I suppose if you’re a careerist, you’re thinking, Wow, that was successful. Let me do it again and get another No 1. album. But my spiritual path was far more important. The stuff that was going on in my head was far more important. So I combined the two and made them work. And that became The Seeds of Love.
Did you see a lot of imitators emerge during this time?
Not really, because we’re always copying something. All of us are. To be 100 percent original is rare. All of these bands came along, and they always cite us as an influence. I can’t hear it. Keane told us that once. I was like, “Okay.”
The fellas performing, we’re gonna guess “Mad World,” four decades apart (L-R). From left: Photo: Gie Knaeps/Getty ImagesPhoto: Daniel Bockwoldt/picture alliance via Getty Images
The fellas performing, we’re gonna guess “Mad World,” four decades apart (L-R). From left: Photo: Gie Knaeps/Getty ImagesPhoto: Daniel Bockw… more
The fellas performing, we’re gonna guess “Mad World,” four decades apart (L-R). From left: Photo: Gie Knaeps/Getty ImagesPhoto: Daniel Bockwoldt/picture alliance via Getty Images
There’s an anecdote you relay about how, as a backhanded compliment, a producer called Tears for Fears the ’80s equivalent of Oasis. Coincidentally, Noel Gallagher has called you guys the Beatles of the ’80s. Which artists have kissed your hand over the years, and where do you see the reverberation of your sound?
It’s too numerous to mention, but every now and again I get a surprise. We met Snoop Dogg while doing The Voice about two years ago, and he was beside himself. And I’m like, “Why?” There was a comment made by Prince to the producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. He told him, “I wanna make a Tears for Fears record.” I’m like, This guy is amazing. Why do you want to make a record that sounds like us? I think what Prince meant was he wanted to make something that was complicated and multilayered. I’ll still take the compliment. Noel Gallagher is all right with me, too.
As early as The Hurting, you wrote that Curt always had the more outward pop-star appearance while you were happy to be “a backroom boy.” You’ve swapped these places at different times throughout your career. Why has this dance suited you two over the years, I suppose, and did it help alleviate any resentment?
Curt and I have a hermit in the back of our brain. There are times where we possibly are happiest where we go away from the public eye and live what seems like a solitary existence. Right at the beginning of our musical journey, when I was writing and rehearsing, I was very depressed. I had a bit of suicidal ideation. I left the structure of school. I was an A student, so I needed that structure to reaffirm my value. And suddenly, it was gone. I dropped out. I didn’t have the confidence at all, but Curt did. He was a pretty amazing partner for me. Through being with Curt, I grew more and more confident as the shadow of my past receded. When I was truly confident was 1989 doing “Sowing the Seeds of Love” — there I am, singing under the sun, like a true Leo. I think that upset the applecart of balance.
Do you have any regrets about the period when Curt left the group and you recorded as Tears for Fears by yourself? Justifying being solo while retaining the name must have been delicate for everyone involved.
Yeah, I kind of do. I hadn’t really thought about whether I had any choice, or about whether anyone has any choice, because the past is the past, and it’s a solid as opposed to the future. Right now, it would’ve been possibly better if I’d used my own name for Elemental and Raoul and the Kings of Spain. The record company was making it almost impossible for me to not use Tears for Fears. They saw me as the goose that laid the golden eggs. It would’ve been okay if it weren’t for the fact that I was incredibly willful. Elemental was great. If you look at the sales, I don’t think, even if I stuck with Curt, that it would’ve affected sales right then.
It’s also a question of doing whatever the fuck you want. I’d been under the cosh with Big Chair so much. I was a good soldier. And when it came to Raoul and the Kings of Spain, that all went out the window. Instead of me going away on my own, waiting for the muse to show up, I was working with producers. We would program up a drum machine, get out a keyboard, and write a song immediately. I was very happy to be the front man. It was a reversal of the roles I had with Curt right at the beginning.
But, mind you, this is well before streaming. We were very reliant on radio, and radio is reliant on being relevant. Whatever fashions are going on, whatever movements are going on, replaces the previous one. I would say by the end of the ’80s, or certainly after ten years of Tears for Fears, we were pretty much out of favor. That began the long period of becoming less and less relevant. I honestly think that even if I stuck with Curt, we would’ve had the same problem as every other band does as well. The record companies look at you as a three-album act with one greatest-hits album. It’s ten years, and then you’re out of here. They’ll look for the next one.
When you and Curt reunited and released your comeback album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, in 2004, it was received as a disappointment. The public cared very little about a modern Tears for Fears project. What did that experience teach you about the music industry at the time?
You do all these things for personal reasons. The quality of your life can be incredible while, career wise, it’s an absolute disaster. In fact, I think it’s a bit of a play-off. When your career is going really well, your personal life suffers and vice versa. Everybody Loves a Happy Ending was all about getting back together with Curt. He changed and I changed. We wanted to see if we could have fun making a record. We immediately slipped into this “We love the Beatles” thing.
We did that too much. My solo album from a few years prior, Tomcats Screaming Outside, was very dark and influenced by what was going on in Bristol — drums, bass, and inspired by Massive Attack and Portishead. Then all of a sudden, I’m in Los Angeles. We have a change of lifestyle. I’m playing tennis three times a week and going into the studio just to see what would emerge. If we had been a bit more picky and conscious of who we were and the market, we would’ve probably made eight more songs and then picked the ones that sounded more like Tears for Fears. There are songs on that record that I’m not enamored by. They’re not intense, you know?
How did you reckon that the world cared so much about your past but had little interest in your present?
It’s up to you as an artist to prove them wrong. I don’t think we did for a long time. Even when we came back with The Tipping Point, it had so many links to what we’ve done before. It was almost a perfect Tears for Fears record if you wanted to emulate the past. I’ve never needed to be a successful pop star. I just care about paying the rent. At the end of that album’s promotional run I had a chat with my family about whether we should stay in Los Angeles or go back to England. My wife really wanted to go back to England to the big house, and that was the beginning of her alcoholism. It’s sad. Life is full of what-ifs. Had we stayed in Los Angeles, would the same thing have occurred?
Still, you write that being an older artist makes more sense to you than being a young one, challenges be damned. Why is that?
Life has been a series of questions that are only answered when you hit a certain age. When I was younger, I didn’t ask those questions loudly enough to the psychic principle that could answer them. But I do now. I think long and hard about things. The other thing I realized is if you go through a terrible experience, whether it’s addiction or losing someone close to you, someone else has. They are always feeling alone. I think part of our job is to try and reach people inside and say, “No, you’re not alone. This is a common experience. And here’s a lovely song about that.”
In the decade following that tepid album release, something wonderful happened: Tears for Fears started to court younger fans and took on an image of being cool elder statesmen of pop. You boomeranged back with an excellent new album, The Tipping Point. What do you credit for getting out of that middle-age slump?
Streaming has changed the musical outlook because younger people are delving into older acts. Streaming is, in a sense, presenting a level playing field between artists from the ’70s and ’80s and ’60s and nowadays. There’s also the fact that these platforms have completely promoted one of our songs to a ridiculous level where it’s become a megahit. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” gets a million streams a day on Spotify. We became a constant feature, and then all it took was for us to make a good album, because the doors were suddenly opened again when they had been firmly locked.
Curt is thanked in the acknowledgements of the book for being a test reader. Did he offer any insight or an opposing view for certain recollections?
He didn’t. I was hoping for some comments or some friendly debate, but that didn’t happen. I don’t think any of the people we work with have a better memory than me. My memory is ridiculous. I can see where people were standing and what keyboard was used for every recording of The Hurting. Curt was surprised by my knowledge. Obviously there’s a lot of Curt in it, because it’s our story. I wanted him to feel like he was being represented well. He read the first draft. He was in tears. He was moved because he was in a vulnerable place at that point in time. I said, “Well, what do you think of all of the astrology passages?” And he said, “Oh, I didn’t read those.” So I thought, Right. I went back to the drawing board and made sure there were no more than four pages of astrology at the time.
You mention in the book the existence of a few unreleased songs. When I talked to Curt a year ago, he seemed optimistic that your next album wouldn’t take, say, 18 years to make. Can you clue me in for what the band’s future looks like, both on the recording and touring side?
I’ve already recorded nine songs this year. I was staying in Los Angeles for the first half. Nowadays I’m a bit more fruitful. I’ll visit those songs again in November when I’m back in Los Angeles. I’m under no pressure because there’s no one saying, “It’s gotta be a hit single, it’s gotta be this, or nothing like that.” So an album won’t take 18 years because I don’t think I’ve got 18 years, but I don’t really know. There are plans at the moment to do some shows next year in June, July, and August. In terms of future music, we would probably need something to happen to give us a kickstart.
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