Tears For Fears: Inside The Tipping Point and returning after 17 years

Curt Smith, one half of Tears For Fears, sits down for an in-depth conversation with Headliner about the band’s new album The Tipping Point, the complex nature of his relationship with bandmate Roland Orzabal and the events that lead them to return to making music after 17 years…

It’s September 21, 2021, and Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal, are making their way to the stage of the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane to collect the Outstanding Song Collection Award at the Ivor Novello Awards. The Tears For Fears duo have been honoured with the ceremony’s top honour, and while the significance of the occasion isn’t lost on either, the moment is about so much more than the gong they are about to be presented with.

The duality that exists between them, and which has often revealed itself through the band’s stellar catalogue, is currently laid bare for all to see. The standing ovation in the room, packed with many of the most celebrated songwriters and performers of the past 50 years, seems to be never-ending, the applause and cheering deafening. And while Orzabal, looking rightly triumphant and in celebratory mood, does much of the talking once the eruption of noise eventually subsides, Smith stands to the side with an expression pinched with emotion, clearly fighting back tears.

The fractious relationship between the pair has been well documented, and in the 17 years that have passed since the release of their last record Everybody Loves A Happy Ending, they have endured some of the biggest challenges of their professional and personal lives. There have been rows, scrapped records, changes of management, but more profoundly, the death of Orzabal’s wife in 2017 after a protracted battle with alcoholism and depression, as well as Orzabal’s own serious health issues and a spell in rehab. This was not just a celebration of their music; it was a celebration of their survival. Of their ability not only to endure ruptures that would have ripped many bands apart decades earlier, but to continue making career defining music.

“It was such an emotional moment,” Smith recalls of that September day, joining us via Zoom from his LA home. “It brought both of us to the verge of tears. There was that realisation that we'd never have gotten there without each other. And we're both aware of that. We can have ups and downs, which we've had during our careers, but we realise that our best is when we're functioning as a pair. As I said on the day, there's really two people I need to thank for this, and that's myself and Roland.”

Which brings us neatly to The Tipping Point. Already being lauded by fans and critics as a career high point, it is an album that sees Smith and Orzabal baring their souls in a fashion not seen since their 1983 debut The Hurting, which openly explored themes of mental illness and gender fluidity at a time when such themes were far scarcer in popular music than they are today. From the previously mentioned personal circumstances, to the febrile political landscape on both sides of the pond, Smith says there was always going to be a wealth of meaty subject matter to dig into, but it would take a failed attempt at working with modern-day ‘hit makers’ and a split from their previous label and management before they could mine it to the fullest.

“Initially, our label and management at the time said we should be writing with more modern songwriters and doing more modern sounding records, and we went along with it,” Smith explains, candid yet gently spoken with a hint of fragility in his voice “It was an interesting exercise, but it became apparent to me pretty early on that it felt slightly dishonest. Most of the sessions were half-hearted attempts at a modern hit single, and there really was no substantive matter to me in the songs, which comes from your own feelings and emotions.

“It just sounded like an attempt to be modern, which... I don't think anyone wants to listen to a 60-year-old be modern,” he laughs, “although, I've been proved wrong as far as success goes, but I don't like any of those records. I don't want to be involved in that. And during that period, Roland was going through a personal crisis. I don't think he knew what he wanted; I think he was using it as an escape from his everyday life, which unfortunately, at that point, was watching his then wife slowly deteriorate to the point where she eventually passed away. And because of that, completely understandably, he wasn't capable of really focusing.

“Later on, we revisited the work we'd done and, because we weren't happy with it, it didn't get released. We actually bought what we had done off of the record company, because we didn't want to be with them. And we'd also lost our management. It was just the two of us left. So, in late 2019, we had dinner and discussed whether there was a way forward, and should we even be doing this if we're not happy, as he had come to the same conclusion that this wasn't truly representative of us and didn't have the depth of Tears For Fears.”

Free from outside influences trying to nudge their sound in a certain direction, Smith and Orzabal decided to put their creative potency to the test, taking to Smith’s living room with nought but a couple of acoustic guitars. They quickly hit upon an idea that would become not only the opening track of The Tipping Point, but one of the purest distillations of Tears For Fears at their emotive and rousing best.

Entitled No Small Thing, the song opens with a melancholy acoustic guitar line and a road worn vocal from Orzabal that builds towards a towering crescendo, blending sadness with hope in classic Tears For Fears fashion. There was no chance this wouldn’t be the jumping off point for the record.

“We thought the only way we're going to get this done is if the two of us sit down and work out what we want to do,” says Smith. “And with that in mind, we decided to go back to a place which we hadn't visited since The Hurting, which was sitting in a room with two acoustic guitars and seeing what comes. And if anything came, then we'd know we have something. And we sat down in my house and wrote No Small Thing. When we had that song, we realised we had something to say.

“And to be honest, so much had gone on in Roland's personal life and in the world up to that point in time that if we didn't have enough subject matter to mine, then we really had no business being songwriters. Apart from Roland’s wife passing away, we'd been through four years of Trump in America, the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements, the climate change crisis. There was so much going on that it became easy, once the two of us sat down and realised what we want to do. We're both very aware that there's some magic that happens when we're on the same page. It's getting on the same page that's sometimes a struggle! We both love this record from start to finish - I don't think that's happened since The Hurting, and that's because this started the same way as The Hurting. It's the most personal album we've done since then, to the extent that there is no outside influence. It really is myself and Roland sitting down and deciding on the bits we can agree on. The fact we both appreciate the strengths we bring to the partnership is something we haven’t embraced for a long time.”

It is this singular vision and commitment to doing only what works for them as artists that has ensured Tears For Fears’ longevity over the past four decades. Despite some lengthy spells of inactivity in the studio – they have remained a major draw on the live circuit – they continue not only to inspire fans and contemporaries from their early days, but also to draw new fans and influence the music of the time. From Gary Jules’s cover of Mad World (a Christmas No.1 single in the UK) to the likes of Kanye West, Lorde, The 1975 and others namechecking them as an inspiration, their work has endured. According to Smith, their willingness to say no when not in the right head space to record is what has served them so well.

“That approach has been crucial to our success, without question,” he states. “We're both pretty sure of what we want. And I don't think I want to start, in this stage of my life, doing things I don't enjoy. We've got to be completely happy with something for us to put our names on it.”

In addition to a series of live dates in the UK and the US, Tears For Fears recently performed a three-song set as part of BBC Radio 2’s Piano Room Month, delivering piano and orchestral renditions of their music. For Smith, the opportunity reinterpret the band’s work is always something he enjoys.

“It was a joy,” he smiles. “It's like when we listen to certain cover versions, like Gary Jules, Mad World and Lorde's Everybody Wants To Rule The World, where those arrangements of our songs seem a little more in tune with the lyric, strangely enough, because they are darker. We tend to catch those things and do something slightly more upbeat and bright. These are definitely darker, interesting versions of the songs, which we found quite fascinating.”

Whether it’s another 17 months or 17 years until Tears For Fears set foot inside a studio together again is something nobody, least of all Smith and Orzabal, can accurately predict. One thing they can be sure of is that their bond and their belief in one another is as strong as it’s ever been. Whatever the future holds, it’ll be on their terms and their terms only.

“This is just the way we are,” Smith concludes. “I don't think we've ever been in search of fame or money. I mean, the money side comes in useful and is quite nice, I'm not knocking it, [he laughs] but music is precious to us. And once you lose that and it becomes just a job, then it's a pointless exercise. The whole joy of being a musician, and a successful one, is you're actually making a living out of something you love doing. And that’s a joy.”

You can listen to an extended version of this interview below.