Technology was changing just as we were getting started. You had these records by people like David Bowie and Talking Heads and Brian Eno that took production into a whole new direction. That really influenced us, and pushed us to find that early sound we had.
Curt Smith
Laurel Canyon area music is legendary.
We spent a year touring the world and it wasn't until it was over that we truly appreciated the upside and downside of our success.
American rock was, and still is to some extent, a closed shop. REO Speedwagon, Toto, Boston, Foreigner all those bands, and I wouldn't be able to tell which from which.
I'm becoming hip to my children because bands of their generation name us as influences, so you can definitely hear it, the same way as we were influenced by other people.
I think when you finish an album, you tend to have your favorites, where a lot of the time are not the singles.
My private life, my relationships are much, much more important than my career.
We're both getting older, our children are starting to leave home. But I can say that I'm just as passionate a songwriter now in my 50s as I was in my 20s. But instead of talking about the general kind of angst that I felt as a teenager, I'm writing about more specific issues.
Mad World's distinctive percussion intro was played on a Roland CR-78 drum machine. We first recorded it at twice the speed, but it sounded great slowed down.
For me, I didn't want to be famous and there was a desire to be me and not 'that guy from the band' so I was happy to see it all go.
I like the country, the peace and quiet, because the music business is so hectic.
I run every day. It keeps me sane and it's my meditation.
My daughters prefer Tears for Fears songs as they're more upbeat and generic. Dad's songs are 'a little too sad' for them, which just means that they're harder to understand.
MySpace is just spam central. I mean, every day I just get mail inviting me to gigs that are nowhere near Los Angeles!
I find that albums generally tell a story. Because it's music, it doesn't have to be in chronological order.
I think psychology still has a sway over everything we do, but music, in and of itself, is the therapy.
I went through a divorce during the 'Seeds of Love' album.
I mean the joy of doing the 'Psych' thing I have to say, is that, you know, I'd met them beforehand, James Roday and Timothy Omundson specifically. I met Dule Hill when I got up there. But they're just, you know, a nice bunch of people.
My father always worked away, and died when I was 17, but I hated him by that point. It hit me later in life, but back then I was teenage and angry.
We really hated being in a band. The joy for us and why we slipped nicely and neatly into it was because we didn't need a band anymore. We became a duo because of technology.
There's something rhythmic about running, so it's not surprising that I love it. I'm a bass player, after all.
I couldn't deal with the fame, the pressure and everything else.
We've always been slammed by most of the British press. They probably hate us because we're too normal and incredibly honest.
In England, people get bored very quickly. People aren't satisfied with one thing. You can have hits, but to stay there you have to start doing new things.
Our own lives always influence the way we write.
Sometimes albums can be quick, sometimes they take forever, and we're very good at taking forever.
We were blessed that we were successful when we were. That enabled us to live in a comfortable fashion.
I guess because we're essentially a two-man band, we're attracting Wham's crowd. But Wham! are more of a businessman's band.
Having lawyers involved never leads to good things.
I have no preconceived ideas; I gave that up a long time ago… The only thing we can do as musicians is make an album we like, and an album that we consider to be incredibly good.
I don't think we ever really think about it when we're doing it, because if you sort of go in with a plan of attack, it tends to take away the natural rhythm of songwriting.
I think what we find fascinating and interesting is when people take our music and turn it into emotionally something else. And weirdly, Lorde's version of 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World,' the production really goes with the lyric more than our version does, because our version, albeit the lyric is dark, the music is quite uplifting.
We just weren't a hip band. I mean we recorded our second album in Bath at a time when everyone else was recording in New York or Los Angeles.
The synth helped us in that it meant you didn't have to be a traditional four-piece band and basically, you didn't have to work too hard.
At the height of our fame, we didn't see anything. We didn't leave the hotel because we were doing interviews all day. We may have traveled the world, but we saw nothing.
A lot of songs we've written have been political, but they're also personally political.
We know we have a method of reaching people, but we have never wanted to preach. We like to make our views palatable, music that is easy to swallow, and I think we've done that.
More than anything else, being famous just didn't agree with me.
The only formula we have when we work together is that we both have to have a product we can endorse when we finish. Something we both like. It's a matter of compromise. In the end what you get is what both of us can agree on. In that comes Tears for Fears. I don't know what the mix or magic is, that's just what it is.
Me and Roland used to fight a lot.
Normally the amount of music we have is what you hear on the album and that's it.
I have this TV pilot I was writing for and a couple of films. It's just a different way to express myself.
I write music for film because I love it.
I just have to sell enough records to continue financing making more records.
When I get some time off, I don't even want to see people half the time.
We were touring the States tied to a load of drum machines and sequencers and synthesizers, playing to hundreds of thousands of people and yet feeling strangely removed from the music.
It's always good to be somewhere with some history, maybe that's England, which has a long history.
My kids don't really buy albums. They buy singles.
I live 10 miles outside of Bath, where there are about 10 houses. So it's nice and peaceful and quiet. Keeps your feet on the ground, basically.
We've influenced other artists, and when younger generations become fans of those artists and hear about us, they discover our music too.
