When personal tragedy struck Roland Orzabal, he found solace returning to a band with its own fractious history. Now, with their first album in 17 years, he and Curt Smith say they’ve come full circle
Some years ago, Curt Smith, the singer and songwriter best known as one half of Tears for Fears, found himself in Vancouver. He was filming one of several guest spots he made on the US TV detective series Psych, and after work that day he joined the rest of the cast at a local karaoke bar.
There, before the stage, Smith was struck by the idea to get up and sing one of his band’s most famous hits, 1985’s UK platinum-selling Everybody Wants to Rule the World. How hilarious it would be, he thought, when people clocked that he was the actual singer of the song. “And no one paid a blind bit of attention,” he says now. “No one! They didn’t realise it was me.”
Meanwhile, back in England, Smith’s
