No tears shed as duo work on a 'Happy Ending'

By Steve Morse, Globe Staff  |  October 29, 2004

When Tears for Fears rose out of Britain in the mid-'80s, they scored with the hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." And for a while they did just that. They rode a host of Top 5 singles before breaking up in 1990, followed by a decade of silence between leaders Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, who no longer even had each other's home phone numbers.

   

Now the two men have regrouped for a new Tears for Fears album, "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending." They don't want to rule anything; they just want to rewrite history.

"The premise was that because of the way things fell apart in 1990, if this were a Hollywood movie, the director would reshoot the ending to make it more satisfactory, rather than being left with an empty feeling," Smith says. "And Roland came up with the title. . . . He said it as a joke, but I thought it was perfect. That's exactly what it should be called."

Although the new disc has some of the same Beatles-influenced sound of early Tears for Fears, it is much more positive lyrically and fits the path of two men who have moved on to an adulthood rich in family life (each is married with two children) and who have a whole new view of themselves.

"It's almost the antithesis of our first album," says Orzabal, whose group plays the Orpheum Theatre tomorrow. "That first album, 'The Hurting,' was mainly written during my teen years and was very much the perspective of an isolated, existentially challenged individual who suffered from depression and a lack of connectedness with the world.

"There's none of that on this new album!" he adds with a laugh. "This album was written from the perspective of encroaching middle age. Quite often, I say that Curt and I are in the car pool lane of life now. Obviously, life has been pretty good to us."

However, he says, "along with that comfort zone comes the sense of running out of time. Hence the first lyrics on the album: 'Wake up, your time is nearly over/ No more the supernova.' "

"I don't feel very much like a rock star anymore," Smith says in a separate phone interview. "I feel like a musician, and it's a very different thing."

Tears for Fears' hits included "Shout," "Head Over Heels," and the very Beatles-esque "Sowing the Seeds of Love." The group was always influenced by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, though more by McCartney these days, they both confirm.

" 'Sowing the Seeds of Love' had a John Lennon/Bob Dylan angle with distortion on the vocal and a general political attack on the establishment of the day," says Orzabal. "But there isn't much of that on this album. This album has some of the stoic philosophy of George Harrison and has a lot of the cheer-up-and-have-another-cup-of-tea philosophy of Paul McCartney. Those two are again more suited to the car pool lane of life."  

Both Smith and Orzabal are almost embarrassed about the many years that went by without their talking to each other. The music media was left to wonder what happened, since there wasn't the usual mudslinging between partners who call it quits.
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"No, we're not that kind of people," says Smith. "We're terminal sulkers. We basically had the longest sulk in musical history. We don't get angry, which was our problem. You couldn't pinpoint any big argument that we had. We would just walk off and sulk because we weren't getting our way.

"I think in our late 20s, albeit subconsciously, we realized it was time to go off and forge an identity of our own. And for me, the fame side of it really didn't agree with me."

So Smith moved to New York (he now lives in Los Angeles), and the deep freeze began with Orzabal, who kept Tears for Fears running a few years without him. But they still had joint business dealings -- notably real estate holdings -- that prompted a phone conversation five years ago, followed by dinner in Bath, England, where the two had grown up. The talk turned to music and, after a few more conversations, they tried to write together again.

"We sat around strumming acoustic guitars and drinking lots of coffee," says Orzabal. "But in just under two weeks, Curt hit a couple of chords and I was on the piano and [the song] 'The Closest Thing to Heaven' came out pretty much as it is. We said, 'Strange, it sounds just like the old Tears for Fears.' And that was the point where we felt that maybe there was something."

"Suddenly," Smith says, "we started to appreciate each other again, which was a big step."

Another boost came from the surprise remake of their "Mad World," done by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews for the film "Donnie Darko." The song became a massive hit last year. "Both of us loved the version and prefer it to ours!" says Smith.

The new album had already been recorded by then but was delayed this year when the group had to switch labels. "The guy who signed us, L.A. Reid, was moved, and we were stuck with a record company that didn't particularly want the record because he was our champion," says Orzabal. "We ended up battling the company to get our record back. So it is indeed a very mad world."

Yes, but a happy ending.