Takin’ A Walk-music history on foot with Tears for Fears: The Story Behind “Shout,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and Four Decades of Iconic Synth-Pop
Join Buzz Knight on the music history podcast for an inspiring music story with Tears for Fears, the legendary British duo behind some of the most iconic music of the 1980s. Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith discuss the creation of their groundbreaking albums “The Hurting” and “Songs from the Big Chair,” revealing the emotional depth and therapeutic inspiration behind their biggest hits including “Shout,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Head Over Heels,” and “Mad World.”
In this intimate music history podcast, discover how Tears for Fears pioneered a unique blend of new wave, synth-pop, and art rock that defined 80's music history while addressing themes of mental health, childhood trauma, and primal scream therapy, in their beginning resulting in viral music success. The British musicians share behind-the-scenes stories from their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-worthy career, their creative reunion, and their acclaimed 2022 album “The Tipping Point.”
Explore the indie music journey and songwriting process behind chart-topping singles that dominated MTV, alternative rock radio, and pop music charts worldwide. Learn about their influences ranging from progressive rock to electronic music, their production techniques with legendary producers, and how their music has influenced generations of artists in indie rock, dream pop, and contemporary alternative music.
This music history podcast offers rare insights into the band’s creative partnership, their temporary split and emotional reunion, touring stories from performing at major music festivals, and their perspective on the evolution of the British music scene. Perfect for fans of 80s music, new wave nostalgia, synth-pop history, and anyone interested in the intersection of pop music and psychological exploration.
Tune in for more rock music interviews with musicians and follow their music journey on The Takin A Walk Podcast with BuzzKnight-Music History on Foot. Part of IHeart Podcasts.
#tears for fears interview #music history podcast #best musician interview podcast #iconic musician #iheart podcast #rock history #80's music history #inspiring icons #best 80's music podcast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Simon was talking about, you know, the era we grew
up in, and he just he looked at me and
he said, we never knew what to make of you,
and that kind of, you know, sort of summed us up.
We weren't really influenced by a scene as such, because
there was none, so we were kind of outlies. No
one really knew where we fit in and or died
(00:21):
we to be honest.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to another episode of the Taking a Walk podcast
hosted by Buzz Night. Today, Buzz is thrilled to be
joined by two legendary musicians, Roland Orzebelle and Kurt Smith
from the iconic band Tears for Fears. These two childhood
friends from Bath, England have been making music together for
over forty years, crafting some of the most memorable songs
(00:46):
of the eighties. From their early days in the new
wave scene to their massive global success with hits like
Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Shout, Tears for
Fears has left an indelible mark on pop music. After
a period apart in the nineteen nineties, Roland and Kurt
reunited in two thousand and have continued to create music together,
(01:07):
including the Tipping Point released in twenty twenty two, and
they have two new projects to discuss, their new album,
Songs for a Nervous Planet and their concert film called
Tears for Fears Live a Tipping Point Film. Here's buzz
night with Tears for Fears on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, Roland and Kurt, thanks for being on the Taking
a Walk podcast. It's really an honor to talk to
you big fans for a long time. Thank you so much,
and congratulations. You got some great things going on. Songs
for a Nervous Planet, which is fantastic, four new tracks
which we'll talk about, and Tears for Fears Live a
(01:48):
Tipping Point film as well, So congrats on that. What's
become of you guys, You've become so ambitious.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
We always were. I agree, I'm teasing. It's a blessing
and a curse. And I think that you know, the
ambition we showed when we were kids, when we were young,
hampered us in the way that we couldn't match our
(02:20):
idols in any way. So all the records we listened to,
we were too inexperienced and too young to be able
to copy that stuff. But in the meantime, in the
process we came up with something individually individual, so should
I say, And that initially was that it is for
fierce sound.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
You've had so many there's so many influences that are
part of the sound. What role did the Beatles play
in that influence? They had to have played some.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Raw, I would say early on, not that much. I mean,
it wasn't really until later. No, I think our earliest influences.
I mean, you know, we started myself and Roland. When
we first started playing, it's like a heavy metal band,
you know, so we were listening to Blois, to Cult
and Black Sabbath and people like that. Then we became
(03:13):
a sort of power pop band that was into the
sort of mod scene. When the Specialism of Madness came along,
and then when we kind of got tired of that band.
It was a time when their recordings were starting to
get a lot deeper. You know, technology was coming along,
so the first drum machine came along, Synthesizers were far
(03:35):
more common, and we were listening to people like Talking
Heads and Peter Gabriel and David Bowie and and I
think those were bigger influences on us when we started.
I think it was in retrospect that we went back
to the Beatles because we were just just that little
bit too young when in their heyday.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I will I will say this though. I remember when
I was a teenager and we had a but the
first band we had, and I remember trying to learn
a Blue Oyster Cull song on the guitar, and our
mutual friend Paul Noble used to bombard me with like
(04:16):
albums from you know, Uriah Heap and Budgy and things
like that. But he also had a vinyl copy of
Sergeant Pepper's and to be honest with you, I just
thought it was way superior than the rest of the
stuff we were listening to. So although it didn't influence
(04:39):
me at the time, it definitely stayed with me.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I actually remember playing in my bedroom the vinyl white album.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Wow, Yeah there you go.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
So, I mean, I remember listening to them, but I
don't think they were that big an influence on what
we did. May have been subconscious, but certainly not the time.
I don't think that. Now.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Roland, when you first met Kurk, did you think he
was a bit of a ruffian?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I did. Again, got to go back to our mutual
friend Paul Noble and I was actually living outside of
Bath at the time, in a town called Kansham, and
I stay with Paul Noble sometimes and one morning he said,
let's well, let's go across and meet my other friend
who lives in the Snowhill Flats in Bath. So it's
(05:29):
a council blocks, but they're made out of bath stone,
so they well, they still look like cancel blocks, but
they're a little they're a little bit prettier. And so
we went up the stairs and knocked on the door
of the flat and eventually Kirk came to the door,
but he wasn't allowed out because he pushed someone down
(05:49):
the stairs. Now this sounds very violent. It may have
been a small mis demeanor. We don't know. But I
at the time was, you know, a very good student,
and I was very concerned about getting good results and
hanging out with the right people. And I honestly thought
that this guy was a Worfian.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Kert, How do you feel thinking about that now?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't really think about
it that much. I gotta say, to be honest, all
those things for me when I was dead age and
I used to get in trouble a lot was just
attention seeking, you know, and then music came along and
replaced it as a way to get attention. And then
(06:35):
of course, you know, you can zoom on a bunch
of years and be careful what you wish for too
much attention, Yeah, and then you go, oh, I've got
to disappear in there. So I think it was, you know,
I mean, the trouble I got in wasn't exactly major.
I mean I used to get in fights, yes, and
steal things, but all for attention because I was I
actually before I met Roland earlier. In yes, I probably
(07:00):
stopped by how I met Round. I also was always
like kind of top of my class at school, certainly
all the way through junior school in the beginning of
senior school. But I didn't get me the attention I wanted,
even though I was being really good. So then I
went the other way and decided to be as bad
as I could to see if that got me the attention.
And it actually did get me attention, just not particularly
(07:23):
the right kind of attention.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
You mentioned Urya Heap earlier, and you ya, Heap I
think is just celebrated there.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Fifty fourth year as a band, Mick Bach is still
out and about and I understand they're bigger than ever
in certain parts of Europe. I think Australia they're They're
pretty massive. When you look back at a band like
that and their legacy and the fact that they're still
(07:53):
out cranking, what do you guys think of that?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Well, there's hope for us yet, you know. I mean, well,
I don't know what it's like to be a member
of your ayah heap. We can only guess. But I
will say this that I find it a lot more
comfortable being an older musician than I did when I
(08:18):
started as a young with The Snapper. I think that
for both of us, the experience we've had, the lives
that we have lived, make it far easier for us
to talk about what we're doing and what we're up to,
what we're feeling. And I think again, a little bit
(08:40):
of the problem we had when we began was we
had a theory about how to live, but we didn't
have the experience to back it up.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I mean, we had the concept of a plane, We
had the concept.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And now, yeah, you guys can finish each other's sentences,
which is pretty amazing. Did you stay in close touch
during those what seventeen years that you were apart as
a band.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Yeah, well we weren't apart. I mean, this is the
Missnoma or you know, the misunderstanding. We never stopped playing
live to begin with. I mean we were a little
bit disappointed, well to say the least, with the success
of Everybody Loves a Happy Ending. But roughly at the
(09:31):
same time the song mad World was covered by Michael
Andrews and Gary Jules and went to number one in England.
So on one hand again it was this you know,
huge split between our past music and what we were trying
to do in the present. Our past music we were
becoming more and more legendary, and we found that out
(09:54):
we were playing live. We always played live. I kept
the house in la We would come across for the summer.
I'd say to Kurt, why don't we go and play
a few shows up on the West coast, only about
eight and it was all for fun, and it was
also for a little bit of pocket money. Meanwhile, we
started to get a reputation for playing live, and we
(10:18):
started to play festivals as well, and that you have
a mixed range of ages, and we also found that
a lot of the audience knew the earlier stuff. So
it was a very very different experience for us. And
we were although we were kind of didn't look like
we were doing anything, we were actually gaining momentum. There
(10:42):
was a form, there was some kind of ground swell
going on that was slowly propelling us during those times.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And when you look at the meaning of some of
the songs when you first created the songs, when you
first came out as a band, and you think of
the meaning of those songs and how it impacts people, Now,
how does that strike you that maybe, you know, when
you just you know, everyone wants to rule the world
(11:12):
as an example, you know, is in today's world feels
more impactful than ever, How does that make you, guys feel?
And do you agree?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well, I think that's definitely true. I mean, you know,
the more things change, the more they stay the same.
There's definitely a truth to that. So I think that
if you, you know, talk about the kind of well,
oh you have the kind of subject matter that we have,
it tends to transcend eras and a case in point,
as Ronan was mentioned, we do festivals and we played
(11:47):
a festival called bonn a roue, and they're primarily sort
of eighteen to probably mid twenty, mid to late twenties.
That's that's the audience. That's the audience range. There really
are not that many older people there, and so we
weren't expecting that much, you know, because we were sort
of the elder statesmen that were playing on the bill,
and I was looking at the audience while we were playing,
(12:08):
and pretty much most of the front sort of ten
rows were singing every lyric but every lyric to songs
from the Hurting, which was not big in America. I mean,
it wasn't a big hit in America. It was sort
of well received in New York and LA and maybe
Boston because of certain radio stations, but not certainly not
in Middle America. And then you realize they relate to
(12:30):
that album because they are the age we were when
we made that album. So those feelings are eternal, I
mean in the sense that each generation goes through them.
They go through their teen years, they go through their
early twenties trying to discover themselves, they go through their
hyper political era where they think that they know more
than everyone else, and so these songs still resonate with
(12:53):
all those age groups.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I absolutely love that. I love what you've done with
this album, the hybrid nature with awesome live performance, which
feels to me that it's all live, that nothing's been
touched up to my ears. And then you've got the
four new tracks. Can you talk about the new tracks
(13:18):
and the creation and that collaboration and has anything in
your guys process changed with that collaboration for those new songs.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Well, we had. First of all, we had a lot
of songs that could have been on the tipping point,
so there was a backlog. It would have been very
easy to make another album. The problem with that would
have been, well, what's the narrative and are people ready
(13:50):
for another Fears album? Because you know, there was a
seventeen year gap for us before the tipping point, and
I actually think that that's one of the reasons why
it got so much attention. But we we wanted to
put out a live album. Inevitably, the record company wanted
(14:11):
an extra track, two extra tracks. Possibly. What we didn't
want to do was promote a live album and only
talk about the past. We were also on a roll
following the tipping point. We were so confident about our
ability in the studio to come up with new stuff,
(14:32):
making sound good, make the production beautiful, and so when
it came it was actually right at the beginning of
this year we were going to record maybe one or
two songs, but getting together with Kurt and Charton in
Charlton's studio where we recorded the Tipping Point and everybody
(14:53):
loved to have the ending. The tunes started coming quickly
and we'd come in one and it wasn't quite right.
We'd come in the next day and we'd have different
bits and it was all very, very easy. And the
other thing that had changed radically was the Tipping Point.
There is a very sad album. It was done through
(15:15):
quite a tragic time and also done with an extremely
difficult process for Kerk and me. Whereas the extra tracks,
the four extra tracks for songs sort of Nervous Planet
were a joy to record. They're not tragic. I've been
married now for yet again for more than four years,
(15:37):
and a couple of those songs are they love you know,
there's songs about my wife now, so it's a very
very different atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, they're beautiful songs. And then say goodbye to mom
and Dad.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I mean, what.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
A Touching, you know, beautiful beautiful song and Astronaut as well,
and Emily said, and just really wonderful music. How when
you are performing those songs now live, how how are
(16:12):
they being received?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Well, we've just done We've only played them three times live. Now,
we've just done three shows in Vegas, so it's hard
to tell. Having said that, they were received incredibly well
for those three shows, and pretty much most of the
audience knew them. But my guess is, you know, because
we're doing three shows in Vegas, these are hardcore fans.
I mean they're flying in from places all over the
(16:36):
world to come see us play because it's the only
shows were playing this year, so they knew all the
new songs. And but you know, you have a feeling
when you go play them live how they fit in
and how well they're gonna be received, because you get
to the point where you realize that if you think
they fit in well, you think they're good, that's going
(16:57):
to translate to an audience. I think that we've got
at the stage of our careers now where we have
far more confidence in the knowledge that if we think
something's good, our audience is going to think it's good.
You know, we know our audience, I believe, and.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I do want to highlight you've got twenty twenty five
dates that'll be out there in Vegas at the Fontom Blue.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yes, I love saying that Funtom Blue.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I think they just say Quantum Blue.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Well, let's say Vansom Blue. I do you know it
depends that that's only room service. I'm talking about that.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So I want to talk about Malcolm Gladwell and what
he means to you, to you chaps obviously, because The
Tipping Point is, you know, an incredibly important book, and
Outliers as well. And let's go back to Outliers for
a second, because I think I believe you guys are
(17:59):
an example of Outliers. You've played I'm sure God knows
more than ten thousand hours together, and that represents how
your sound is so amazing, you know these days. But
can you talk about what Malcolm's work means and do
(18:19):
you guys know him?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
To be honest with you, we both read a lot
of books, but those are two we have not read it.
I was aware many moons ago of the title The
Tipping Point, but I think you know I used it
sort of personally for me and it was a tipping
(18:44):
point for me, and it was a turning point, and
it was also a huge turning point for Kurt and
I when we made that album.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think the tipping point had two
different meanings to the extent that, you know, it had
one meaning for the song, and it had one meaning
for an album title, which had a far greater and
a bigger, a bigger, deeper meaning. As to your point
about outliers, yeah, I mean, I think that interestingly. You know,
obviously you read a lot about outliers when you go
(19:13):
through a political season, you know, because you get all
these sort of polls of everything in the outliers are
the ones that kind of are just a little strange,
and we don't quite know if that means anything or
doesn't mean anything. And I think and I think that
pretty much sums us up. You know, we're kind of
somewhere on the outside, you know. And it was interesting
(19:33):
that I and I mentioned this to Roland recently and
I'd gone out to dinner in La My wife used
to work for John Taylor from Duran, Duran's ex, John
Taylor's wife, and we went out to dinner with John,
his wife and Simon Lebon, and Simon was talking about,
(19:54):
you know, the era we grew up in, and he
just he looked at me and he said, we never
knew what to make of you. You and that kind
of you know, sort of summed us up really because
we were we weren't in the scene. We weren't from Manchester, London, Birmingham,
any major scene. We were from this little town Bath
That's where we kind of grew where I was born,
(20:14):
where we grew up, where we started playing music. We
weren't really influenced by a scene as such, because there
was none, so we were kind of outlies. No one
really knew where we fit in, and nor did we
to be honest. But I think that's in the long
run a good thing because we tend to transcend those
(20:36):
trends that tend to you know, be cyclical or move on,
you know, they move on to something new. We've just
to managed to continue this sort of even level of
success throughout the years. That has enabled us to keep
playing and keep recording also and also helped us retain
a private life, which is incredibly important. You know, Wh're
(20:57):
not people that walk down the street and get ready,
is that much We're just not and we've never been
those people.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
How difficult, though, was it being so young when success
first came into your lives?
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Yeah, very very difficult. Well it was, yeah, it was,
But to be honest with you, our first album, The Hurting,
was difficult. It shouldn't have been, but for some reason
it was. I mean when we went in to record, well,
first of all, we had a fake start with The Hurting.
(21:43):
We tried to record it with a producer called Mike Howlett,
who was famous for producing orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
and other synthesizer duo from the time, and we had
our own way of doing things. We were actually using
a lot of live drums, which was not de rigueur
(22:05):
at all because you had the success of Human League
and the Dare and Dare with them with the lind
drum machine. So Mike tried to actually make us sound
a bit more like that, and that didn't go very
down very well with myself and Kurt. So the next
person we used was a producer called Chris Hughes, and
(22:26):
we had a meeting with him, and it all went
very very well, and we ended up in a recording
studio to record a song called Mad World, and it
was just great fun. And Chris's production technique was additive,
so he didn't change anything other than he would use
(22:46):
a part and he would take a simple part and
put it on piano. He would take another simple part
and put it on brass, you know. So it was
all a wonderful experience for Kurt and me. That's why
we went in to the studio with him to record
The Hurting. But the problem with that is that I
don't know whether it was us or whether it was
(23:08):
the producer and engineer, but we just started to analyze
virtually every aspect of that album, the high hatted part,
the simple part. We would all four of us have
a cute discuss things for hours.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
There was far far more talking and arguing than there
was doing exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
So what happened with that, I mean, you know, they
were tough times that we were working late. Well, we
were working at some point all the way through the
night that was at Air Studios, and we would see
Paul McCartney walk in fresh as a daisy at about
nine o'clock in the morning. It already got his kids up,
(23:49):
done the school run, got on the train, and it
was just so by the time, by the time we
were on top of the pops and we had a
top five hit with Mad World, we were just kind
of a little bit sick of it all, you know,
that's the problem. And so the difficulty was really in
the studio, and the difficulty came from us being inexperienced,
(24:13):
and it wasn't until our mid to late twenties when
we took over. We took the reins and said, okay,
that's enough, we are now going to produce these albums,
which resulted in the Seat of Love.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, and I don't think you know, during the hurting
it was necessarily anyone's fault. It was just the situation
we were dealing with Chris and Ross, who were both
Chris especially quite intellectual, and we were budding intellects at
that point in time, and we're very sure of ourselves.
(24:49):
So the arguments were really there were pissing matches, that's
all they were. It was just, you know, who could
outwit someone else or you know, prove their point more
than someone else. And it was all about the argument
and the discussion than the actual recording, and we'd have
to have all of that sort of sorted out before
(25:10):
someone won. And it was a question of winning, and
it was basically myself and Roland versus Chris and Ross
and then the record company Dave Baits and our guy
would come in and blow everything up and so then
we'd have to sort of, you know, start all over again.
It was just a very difficult time emotionally, so uh,
(25:31):
you know, especially to put people. You know, if I
look back at it now and if I look, you know,
and my kids are older than now than we were,
then Rowland's the same, oh much older, yeah, much old,
you know, and my kids, you know, I'm again thinking, well,
they're not particularly mature yet, you know. I mean, they
they're fantastic and wonderful, but they still got a lot
(25:53):
to learn. And I'm like, but we and we were
put in that situation, like you know, from my eldest
four years five years younger than my artist is now.
So it's you know, if I could think of how
my children would have dealt with that at the age
of twenty, I have no idea it probably would have.
There were needed a lot of therapy for that one.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You were probably too impacted by the mighty Python argument
clinic bit. You just felt like you had to do
your own version of it, you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Know, it felt like that on certain days.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, yeah, you mentioned Mad World. I just recently discovered
this version by an artist named Sierra Hall. I don't
know if you've caught that version, but she's about thirty
four years old. She specializes as a sort of a
genre bending mandolin player. But it's such a beautiful version.
(26:53):
If you haven't heard it, definitely check it out. But
what are some of your favorite other versions of people
who have covered that song or any of your songs?
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Well, Kurt will will answer you know that question, but
I will say, you know, the beautiful thing about Mad
World and the way that Michael Andern's and Gary Jeels
recorded it has allowed a lot of singers to record
it in that vein and it's just I mean, the
(27:27):
most crazy artists that you would never imagine in a
million years are going to do that song. Someone like that.
You probably didn't know of that Susan Boyle. She won
one of those X Factor contests. I remember it got
near the near the top in Britain and she was
singing semi classically and she's wonderful, and so she recorded
(27:54):
Mad World and I love that version, absolutely love that version.
Another surprise is a a young, really young artist called
Lily Allen who is the daughter of comedian Keep their Hand,
and she's she's got a little bit of a Kockney accent,
just a little bit, and she sings that so beautifully.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah, I think, I mean, as far as recordings go,
certainly the Michael Andrews Gary Jeeles version is of Mad
World is so production wise far more in line with
the lyrical content. And the same goes for Lord's version
that she did for The Hunger Games of Everybody Wants
through all the World. So it's always interesting for us,
you know, for us is when people change them and
(28:36):
make them either a production wise more interesting or be
more in line with the actual lyrical content that we
find kind of more moving, I guess, you know. And
there have been I mean, there was one. I mean,
the guy from twenty one Pilot did it, but just
as an online thing covered Mad World, which was interesting.
(28:58):
You know. There's been a lot of artists have done
our songs over the years. Yeah, and then you get
into the samples as well, and people you know sampling
your music and from you know, The Weekend and Kanye
and Drake that have all sampled. Interestingly, all parts of
The Hurting. The first album wasn't that big?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Can you take us inside? What the creation of songs
from the Big Chair was like? What was that experience like?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Well that that there was a direct link the journey,
uninterrupted journey from finishing The Hurting to recording songs from
the Big Chair. There was no real break, maybe a month,
and it was Dave Bates, as Kurt mentioned, our A
and R man was very keen to follow up Our
(29:51):
success is that simple. Our success was his success. So
we'd had three top five singles from The Hurting, and
so at the time we were also trying to be
incredibly arty. We were going in with all kinds of
new keyboards and technologies and trying to mimic some of
(30:14):
the music that we loved. That ended up in this
sort of bizarre concoction of a song called the Way
You Are, And instead of that being a B side,
which maybe it should have been, that became the next
single because it was like, get out there, guys, put
out material, keep doing it. And at that point Kurt
and I, well, there was a success of it, really,
(30:36):
I mean, it didn't even break the top twenty, and
we'd had three top five hits before then. So it
was a question of like, well, are we doing something wrong.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
You know?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
And so we went directly from the Way You Are
into Mother's Talk. We tried a different producer and we
made Mother's Talk in a sense very similar to the
Way You Are. That didn't work either. Lo and behold
dat Bates said all right, let's get Chris used in again.
We're going to we're going to try a different way
(31:09):
of recording, and that's what happened. So this is by
this time, we're working in a recording studio in someone's
house in Bath called the house was called Forwards, So
we were all working in there, and this was really
Chris's first time, his first foray into Forwards, which is
where we would go on to record songs from the
(31:32):
Big Chair. And so what what Chris did was he
started putting guitars on it because there weren't any. He
started cutting up the arrangement so it was a little
bit shorter, and he started to heavy it up a
little bit, and I I mean, we went along with it,
(31:53):
but I was a little bit shocked by this sudden
lurch towards rock and roll, you know, and away from
the purity of electronica. That's what we were doing. Following that,
there was a month. I was given a month off,
(32:14):
so okay, go and go and write some more songs
for this album. We had some songs lying around again,
like a song like head over Heels, which we didn't
know what to do with rt people that we were,
and I came up with the initial rendition of Shout,
the initial rendition of Everybody Wants to Rule the World,
(32:36):
and a song which sounded like Robert Wyatt, the beautiful
sad voice, cockney voice of this ex drummer of Soft
Machine who had fallen out of a window on that
LSD and could no longer walk, and that kind of stuff.
Very sad. So it was Kurt and I had to
(32:56):
make a video for Mother's Talk. He left Chris Hugh's
producer and our keyboard player Ian Stanley with the song Shock.
We did the video and when we came in to
hear what they'd done, we were shocked. We were absolutely shocked.
I mean, Chris had heavy totally heavied up the drum part.
(33:18):
He'd added the bass drum and snare drum from the
samples of When the Levee Breaks by John Bonham. Ian
had added on top of the bass, very very simple song.
These flutes fell like flute sounds, and it was not
like the Hurting. It didn't have that fragility. It was bombastic.
(33:41):
It was in your face, and I was thinking, well,
it sounds brilliant. That can we get away with it?
Because at that point in time, it was like it
was obvious what to do. It needed heavy rock guitars,
it needed a guitar solo, and it was like we
felt guilty. We felt guilty for abandoning in that sort
(34:05):
of fragility that we had that was shown on the Hurting.
So that's how it started.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
We felt a little dirty. But during the process, I mean,
the interesting thing we look back now, Well, suddenly, if
I look back now and listen to the Hurting, I think,
as far as a recording goes, it doesn't stand up
as well. And I say that purely because of just
(34:31):
it seems like a very small and insular record, which
it was kind of intended to be. I guess, So
you know, I maybe I just don't relate to it
as much now as obviously I did then. But what
this allowed us to do once we accepted, you know,
the things that Chris was suggesting and maybe Ian was
suggesting and you know we ended up playing the parts,
(34:54):
was take the shackles off to a certain degree, was
to just basically, you know, why not put heavy metal
guitar on? Why not have a guitar? So why not
make the drums huge? You don't have to sit back
and be so meek and mild mannered. You can go
out there and just be as bombastic as you want
and you know, be a rock band. And it took
(35:17):
us a little while to accept that, but once we did,
there's a certain freedom in that, you know, and that freedom,
to a great accident, is continued on till today, where
now we really don't kind of worry that much about
what we're doing, you know, because anything kind of goes musically,
anything should go. So if we haven't done something before
(35:40):
but are doing it, you know on this track, we
don't have that same you know, can we do that?
It's like, yes, you can do anything you want.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
So where will twenty twenty five take you? Beyond obviously
playing the Vegas shows. What's in the future.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
Well, I'm sure we will continue to play live because
it's such fun and our show now, I mean when
we played in Vegas, we were playing to a two
hour show for the first time in our life. Oh
my god. You know, it doesn't really compare to McCartney
or Bruce Springsteen, but you know, two hours for tears
(36:17):
for pears. We need to sit down afterwards, and it
didn't feel like it because it's also smooth, it's beautifully
the new songs are, you know, tucked in with the
old songs. It's great and even the Tipping Point has
now become a classic. So we'll continue to do that.
But and I also continue to look at songwriting and
(36:37):
see where we're going with that. I mean, obviously we're
getting older. I still think that there's an album in
us that is probably a little bit more experimental because
we don't have to prove anything anymore. We can do
that live and we've already done it with the Tipping Point.
(37:00):
But I would like to see us venture into music
that we've never touched before for the first time.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
No, and we're I think we're on the same page
with that, you know, it's and that's just kind of
you know, which which to a certain degree sums us up.
You know, that's us sort of being bored now with that,
you know, it's we've done that. What's what can now
inspire me to really like get excited again? Like, doing
(37:32):
the same thing again is not going to excite us.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
We won't do it as well, We won't do it well.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It won't mean as much, you know, because it was
of the time, and it won't get us excited, you know.
And and I think that, you know, the one thing
we've we've always done is unless we're excited about doing
something and feel passionate about it, we don't do it. Uh,
And I think that's just the way we are, which
(37:57):
again is you know, you're looking at that outlier comparison again.
You know, we don't go and record music just for
the sake of recording music. It's got to mean something
to us. And whether that means you know, lyrically, and
it normally has to be a combination of both, but
lyrically thematically and or production, you know, the way an
(38:19):
album sounds, what you're using to make these songs into
a recording. So yeah, you know, it'll take a while
for us, probably searching and fumbling around in the dark.
But but I feel that if the desire is there,
we have the talent to be able to do it.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You guys, I'm just so appreciative that you took the
time to be on Taking a Walk. Thank you so much,
Kurtin Roland, very much, thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Thanks thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking
a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your
friends and follow us so you never miss an episode.
Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Simon was talking about, you know, the era we grew
up in, and he just he looked at me and
he said, we never knew what to make of you,
and that kind of, you know, sort of summed us up.
We weren't really influenced by a scene as such, because
there was none, so we were kind of outlies. No
one really knew where we fit in and or died
(00:21):
we to be honest.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to another episode of the Taking a Walk podcast
hosted by Buzz Night. Today, Buzz is thrilled to be
joined by two legendary musicians, Roland Orzebelle and Kurt Smith
from the iconic band Tears for Fears. These two childhood
friends from Bath, England have been making music together for
over forty years, crafting some of the most memorable songs
(00:46):
of the eighties. From their early days in the new
wave scene to their massive global success with hits like
Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Shout, Tears for
Fears has left an indelible mark on pop music. After
a period apart in the nineteen nineties, Roland and Kurt
reunited in two thousand and have continued to create music together,
(01:07):
including the Tipping Point released in twenty twenty two, and
they have two new projects to discuss, their new album,
Songs for a Nervous Planet and their concert film called
Tears for Fears Live a Tipping Point Film. Here's buzz
night with Tears for Fears on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, Roland and Kurt, thanks for being on the Taking
a Walk podcast. It's really an honor to talk to
you big fans for a long time. Thank you so much,
and congratulations. You got some great things going on. Songs
for a Nervous Planet, which is fantastic, four new tracks
which we'll talk about, and Tears for Fears Live a
(01:48):
Tipping Point film as well, So congrats on that. What's
become of you guys, You've become so ambitious.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
We always were. I agree, I'm teasing. It's a blessing
and a curse. And I think that you know, the
ambition we showed when we were kids, when we were young,
hampered us in the way that we couldn't match our
(02:20):
idols in any way. So all the records we listened to,
we were too inexperienced and too young to be able
to copy that stuff. But in the meantime, in the
process we came up with something individually individual, so should
I say, And that initially was that it is for
fierce sound.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
You've had so many there's so many influences that are
part of the sound. What role did the Beatles play
in that influence? They had to have played some.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Raw, I would say early on, not that much. I mean,
it wasn't really until later. No, I think our earliest influences.
I mean, you know, we started myself and Roland. When
we first started playing, it's like a heavy metal band,
you know, so we were listening to Blois, to Cult
and Black Sabbath and people like that. Then we became
(03:13):
a sort of power pop band that was into the
sort of mod scene. When the Specialism of Madness came along,
and then when we kind of got tired of that band.
It was a time when their recordings were starting to
get a lot deeper. You know, technology was coming along,
so the first drum machine came along, Synthesizers were far
(03:35):
more common, and we were listening to people like Talking
Heads and Peter Gabriel and David Bowie and and I
think those were bigger influences on us when we started.
I think it was in retrospect that we went back
to the Beatles because we were just just that little
bit too young when in their heyday.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I will I will say this though. I remember when
I was a teenager and we had a but the
first band we had, and I remember trying to learn
a Blue Oyster Cull song on the guitar, and our
mutual friend Paul Noble used to bombard me with like
(04:16):
albums from you know, Uriah Heap and Budgy and things
like that. But he also had a vinyl copy of
Sergeant Pepper's and to be honest with you, I just
thought it was way superior than the rest of the
stuff we were listening to. So although it didn't influence
(04:39):
me at the time, it definitely stayed with me.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I actually remember playing in my bedroom the vinyl white album.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Wow, Yeah there you go.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
So, I mean, I remember listening to them, but I
don't think they were that big an influence on what
we did. May have been subconscious, but certainly not the time.
I don't think that. Now.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Roland, when you first met Kurk, did you think he
was a bit of a ruffian?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I did. Again, got to go back to our mutual
friend Paul Noble and I was actually living outside of
Bath at the time, in a town called Kansham, and
I stay with Paul Noble sometimes and one morning he said,
let's well, let's go across and meet my other friend
who lives in the Snowhill Flats in Bath. So it's
(05:29):
a council blocks, but they're made out of bath stone,
so they well, they still look like cancel blocks, but
they're a little they're a little bit prettier. And so
we went up the stairs and knocked on the door
of the flat and eventually Kirk came to the door,
but he wasn't allowed out because he pushed someone down
(05:49):
the stairs. Now this sounds very violent. It may have
been a small mis demeanor. We don't know. But I
at the time was, you know, a very good student,
and I was very concerned about getting good results and
hanging out with the right people. And I honestly thought
that this guy was a Worfian.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Kert, How do you feel thinking about that now?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't really think about
it that much. I gotta say, to be honest, all
those things for me when I was dead age and
I used to get in trouble a lot was just
attention seeking, you know, and then music came along and
replaced it as a way to get attention. And then
(06:35):
of course, you know, you can zoom on a bunch
of years and be careful what you wish for too
much attention, Yeah, and then you go, oh, I've got
to disappear in there. So I think it was, you know,
I mean, the trouble I got in wasn't exactly major.
I mean I used to get in fights, yes, and
steal things, but all for attention because I was I
actually before I met Roland earlier. In yes, I probably
(07:00):
stopped by how I met Round. I also was always
like kind of top of my class at school, certainly
all the way through junior school in the beginning of
senior school. But I didn't get me the attention I wanted,
even though I was being really good. So then I
went the other way and decided to be as bad
as I could to see if that got me the attention.
And it actually did get me attention, just not particularly
(07:23):
the right kind of attention.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
You mentioned Urya Heap earlier, and you ya, Heap I
think is just celebrated there.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Fifty fourth year as a band, Mick Bach is still
out and about and I understand they're bigger than ever
in certain parts of Europe. I think Australia they're They're
pretty massive. When you look back at a band like
that and their legacy and the fact that they're still
(07:53):
out cranking, what do you guys think of that?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Well, there's hope for us yet, you know. I mean, well,
I don't know what it's like to be a member
of your ayah heap. We can only guess. But I
will say this that I find it a lot more
comfortable being an older musician than I did when I
(08:18):
started as a young with The Snapper. I think that
for both of us, the experience we've had, the lives
that we have lived, make it far easier for us
to talk about what we're doing and what we're up to,
what we're feeling. And I think again, a little bit
(08:40):
of the problem we had when we began was we
had a theory about how to live, but we didn't
have the experience to back it up.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I mean, we had the concept of a plane, We
had the concept.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And now, yeah, you guys can finish each other's sentences,
which is pretty amazing. Did you stay in close touch
during those what seventeen years that you were apart as
a band.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Yeah, well we weren't apart. I mean, this is the
Missnoma or you know, the misunderstanding. We never stopped playing
live to begin with. I mean we were a little
bit disappointed, well to say the least, with the success
of Everybody Loves a Happy Ending. But roughly at the
(09:31):
same time the song mad World was covered by Michael
Andrews and Gary Jules and went to number one in England.
So on one hand again it was this you know,
huge split between our past music and what we were trying
to do in the present. Our past music we were
becoming more and more legendary, and we found that out
(09:54):
we were playing live. We always played live. I kept
the house in la We would come across for the summer.
I'd say to Kurt, why don't we go and play
a few shows up on the West coast, only about
eight and it was all for fun, and it was
also for a little bit of pocket money. Meanwhile, we
started to get a reputation for playing live, and we
(10:18):
started to play festivals as well, and that you have
a mixed range of ages, and we also found that
a lot of the audience knew the earlier stuff. So
it was a very very different experience for us. And
we were although we were kind of didn't look like
we were doing anything, we were actually gaining momentum. There
(10:42):
was a form, there was some kind of ground swell
going on that was slowly propelling us during those times.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And when you look at the meaning of some of
the songs when you first created the songs, when you
first came out as a band, and you think of
the meaning of those songs and how it impacts people, Now,
how does that strike you that maybe, you know, when
you just you know, everyone wants to rule the world
(11:12):
as an example, you know, is in today's world feels
more impactful than ever, How does that make you, guys feel?
And do you agree?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well, I think that's definitely true. I mean, you know,
the more things change, the more they stay the same.
There's definitely a truth to that. So I think that
if you, you know, talk about the kind of well,
oh you have the kind of subject matter that we have,
it tends to transcend eras and a case in point,
as Ronan was mentioned, we do festivals and we played
(11:47):
a festival called bonn a roue, and they're primarily sort
of eighteen to probably mid twenty, mid to late twenties.
That's that's the audience. That's the audience range. There really
are not that many older people there, and so we
weren't expecting that much, you know, because we were sort
of the elder statesmen that were playing on the bill,
and I was looking at the audience while we were playing,
(12:08):
and pretty much most of the front sort of ten
rows were singing every lyric but every lyric to songs
from the Hurting, which was not big in America. I mean,
it wasn't a big hit in America. It was sort
of well received in New York and LA and maybe
Boston because of certain radio stations, but not certainly not
in Middle America. And then you realize they relate to
(12:30):
that album because they are the age we were when
we made that album. So those feelings are eternal, I
mean in the sense that each generation goes through them.
They go through their teen years, they go through their
early twenties trying to discover themselves, they go through their
hyper political era where they think that they know more
than everyone else, and so these songs still resonate with
(12:53):
all those age groups.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I absolutely love that. I love what you've done with
this album, the hybrid nature with awesome live performance, which
feels to me that it's all live, that nothing's been
touched up to my ears. And then you've got the
four new tracks. Can you talk about the new tracks
(13:18):
and the creation and that collaboration and has anything in
your guys process changed with that collaboration for those new songs.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Well, we had. First of all, we had a lot
of songs that could have been on the tipping point,
so there was a backlog. It would have been very
easy to make another album. The problem with that would
have been, well, what's the narrative and are people ready
(13:50):
for another Fears album? Because you know, there was a
seventeen year gap for us before the tipping point, and
I actually think that that's one of the reasons why
it got so much attention. But we we wanted to
put out a live album. Inevitably, the record company wanted
(14:11):
an extra track, two extra tracks. Possibly. What we didn't
want to do was promote a live album and only
talk about the past. We were also on a roll
following the tipping point. We were so confident about our
ability in the studio to come up with new stuff,
(14:32):
making sound good, make the production beautiful, and so when
it came it was actually right at the beginning of
this year we were going to record maybe one or
two songs, but getting together with Kurt and Charton in
Charlton's studio where we recorded the Tipping Point and everybody
(14:53):
loved to have the ending. The tunes started coming quickly
and we'd come in one and it wasn't quite right.
We'd come in the next day and we'd have different
bits and it was all very, very easy. And the
other thing that had changed radically was the Tipping Point.
There is a very sad album. It was done through
(15:15):
quite a tragic time and also done with an extremely
difficult process for Kerk and me. Whereas the extra tracks,
the four extra tracks for songs sort of Nervous Planet
were a joy to record. They're not tragic. I've been
married now for yet again for more than four years,
(15:37):
and a couple of those songs are they love you know,
there's songs about my wife now, so it's a very
very different atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, they're beautiful songs. And then say goodbye to mom
and Dad.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I mean, what.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
A Touching, you know, beautiful beautiful song and Astronaut as well,
and Emily said, and just really wonderful music. How when
you are performing those songs now live, how how are
(16:12):
they being received?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Well, we've just done We've only played them three times live. Now,
we've just done three shows in Vegas, so it's hard
to tell. Having said that, they were received incredibly well
for those three shows, and pretty much most of the
audience knew them. But my guess is, you know, because
we're doing three shows in Vegas, these are hardcore fans.
I mean they're flying in from places all over the
(16:36):
world to come see us play because it's the only
shows were playing this year, so they knew all the
new songs. And but you know, you have a feeling
when you go play them live how they fit in
and how well they're gonna be received, because you get
to the point where you realize that if you think
they fit in well, you think they're good, that's going
(16:57):
to translate to an audience. I think that we've got
at the stage of our careers now where we have
far more confidence in the knowledge that if we think
something's good, our audience is going to think it's good.
You know, we know our audience, I believe, and.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I do want to highlight you've got twenty twenty five
dates that'll be out there in Vegas at the Fontom Blue.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yes, I love saying that Funtom Blue.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I think they just say Quantum Blue.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Well, let's say Vansom Blue. I do you know it
depends that that's only room service. I'm talking about that.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So I want to talk about Malcolm Gladwell and what
he means to you, to you chaps obviously, because The
Tipping Point is, you know, an incredibly important book, and
Outliers as well. And let's go back to Outliers for
a second, because I think I believe you guys are
(17:59):
an example of Outliers. You've played I'm sure God knows
more than ten thousand hours together, and that represents how
your sound is so amazing, you know these days. But
can you talk about what Malcolm's work means and do
(18:19):
you guys know him?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
To be honest with you, we both read a lot
of books, but those are two we have not read it.
I was aware many moons ago of the title The
Tipping Point, but I think you know I used it
sort of personally for me and it was a tipping
(18:44):
point for me, and it was a turning point, and
it was also a huge turning point for Kurt and
I when we made that album.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think the tipping point had two
different meanings to the extent that, you know, it had
one meaning for the song, and it had one meaning
for an album title, which had a far greater and
a bigger, a bigger, deeper meaning. As to your point
about outliers, yeah, I mean, I think that interestingly. You know,
obviously you read a lot about outliers when you go
(19:13):
through a political season, you know, because you get all
these sort of polls of everything in the outliers are
the ones that kind of are just a little strange,
and we don't quite know if that means anything or
doesn't mean anything. And I think and I think that
pretty much sums us up. You know, we're kind of
somewhere on the outside, you know. And it was interesting
(19:33):
that I and I mentioned this to Roland recently and
I'd gone out to dinner in La My wife used
to work for John Taylor from Duran, Duran's ex, John
Taylor's wife, and we went out to dinner with John,
his wife and Simon Lebon, and Simon was talking about,
(19:54):
you know, the era we grew up in, and he
just he looked at me and he said, we never
knew what to make of you. You and that kind
of you know, sort of summed us up really because
we were we weren't in the scene. We weren't from Manchester, London, Birmingham,
any major scene. We were from this little town Bath
That's where we kind of grew where I was born,
(20:14):
where we grew up, where we started playing music. We
weren't really influenced by a scene as such, because there
was none, so we were kind of outlies. No one
really knew where we fit in, and nor did we
to be honest. But I think that's in the long
run a good thing because we tend to transcend those
(20:36):
trends that tend to you know, be cyclical or move on,
you know, they move on to something new. We've just
to managed to continue this sort of even level of
success throughout the years. That has enabled us to keep
playing and keep recording also and also helped us retain
a private life, which is incredibly important. You know, Wh're
(20:57):
not people that walk down the street and get ready,
is that much We're just not and we've never been
those people.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
How difficult, though, was it being so young when success
first came into your lives?
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Yeah, very very difficult. Well it was, yeah, it was,
But to be honest with you, our first album, The Hurting,
was difficult. It shouldn't have been, but for some reason
it was. I mean when we went in to record, well,
first of all, we had a fake start with The Hurting.
(21:43):
We tried to record it with a producer called Mike Howlett,
who was famous for producing orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
and other synthesizer duo from the time, and we had
our own way of doing things. We were actually using
a lot of live drums, which was not de rigueur
(22:05):
at all because you had the success of Human League
and the Dare and Dare with them with the lind
drum machine. So Mike tried to actually make us sound
a bit more like that, and that didn't go very
down very well with myself and Kurt. So the next
person we used was a producer called Chris Hughes, and
(22:26):
we had a meeting with him, and it all went
very very well, and we ended up in a recording
studio to record a song called Mad World, and it
was just great fun. And Chris's production technique was additive,
so he didn't change anything other than he would use
(22:46):
a part and he would take a simple part and
put it on piano. He would take another simple part
and put it on brass, you know. So it was
all a wonderful experience for Kurt and me. That's why
we went in to the studio with him to record
The Hurting. But the problem with that is that I
don't know whether it was us or whether it was
(23:08):
the producer and engineer, but we just started to analyze
virtually every aspect of that album, the high hatted part,
the simple part. We would all four of us have
a cute discuss things for hours.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
There was far far more talking and arguing than there
was doing exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
So what happened with that, I mean, you know, they
were tough times that we were working late. Well, we
were working at some point all the way through the
night that was at Air Studios, and we would see
Paul McCartney walk in fresh as a daisy at about
nine o'clock in the morning. It already got his kids up,
(23:49):
done the school run, got on the train, and it
was just so by the time, by the time we
were on top of the pops and we had a
top five hit with Mad World, we were just kind
of a little bit sick of it all, you know,
that's the problem. And so the difficulty was really in
the studio, and the difficulty came from us being inexperienced,
(24:13):
and it wasn't until our mid to late twenties when
we took over. We took the reins and said, okay,
that's enough, we are now going to produce these albums,
which resulted in the Seat of Love.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, and I don't think you know, during the hurting
it was necessarily anyone's fault. It was just the situation
we were dealing with Chris and Ross, who were both
Chris especially quite intellectual, and we were budding intellects at
that point in time, and we're very sure of ourselves.
(24:49):
So the arguments were really there were pissing matches, that's
all they were. It was just, you know, who could
outwit someone else or you know, prove their point more
than someone else. And it was all about the argument
and the discussion than the actual recording, and we'd have
to have all of that sort of sorted out before
(25:10):
someone won. And it was a question of winning, and
it was basically myself and Roland versus Chris and Ross
and then the record company Dave Baits and our guy
would come in and blow everything up and so then
we'd have to sort of, you know, start all over again.
It was just a very difficult time emotionally, so uh,
(25:31):
you know, especially to put people. You know, if I
look back at it now and if I look, you know,
and my kids are older than now than we were,
then Rowland's the same, oh much older, yeah, much old,
you know, and my kids, you know, I'm again thinking, well,
they're not particularly mature yet, you know. I mean, they
they're fantastic and wonderful, but they still got a lot
(25:53):
to learn. And I'm like, but we and we were
put in that situation, like you know, from my eldest
four years five years younger than my artist is now.
So it's you know, if I could think of how
my children would have dealt with that at the age
of twenty, I have no idea it probably would have.
There were needed a lot of therapy for that one.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You were probably too impacted by the mighty Python argument
clinic bit. You just felt like you had to do
your own version of it, you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Know, it felt like that on certain days.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, yeah, you mentioned Mad World. I just recently discovered
this version by an artist named Sierra Hall. I don't
know if you've caught that version, but she's about thirty
four years old. She specializes as a sort of a
genre bending mandolin player. But it's such a beautiful version.
(26:53):
If you haven't heard it, definitely check it out. But
what are some of your favorite other versions of people
who have covered that song or any of your songs?
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Well, Kurt will will answer you know that question, but
I will say, you know, the beautiful thing about Mad
World and the way that Michael Andern's and Gary Jeels
recorded it has allowed a lot of singers to record
it in that vein and it's just I mean, the
(27:27):
most crazy artists that you would never imagine in a
million years are going to do that song. Someone like that.
You probably didn't know of that Susan Boyle. She won
one of those X Factor contests. I remember it got
near the near the top in Britain and she was
singing semi classically and she's wonderful, and so she recorded
(27:54):
Mad World and I love that version, absolutely love that version.
Another surprise is a a young, really young artist called
Lily Allen who is the daughter of comedian Keep their Hand,
and she's she's got a little bit of a Kockney accent,
just a little bit, and she sings that so beautifully.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah, I think, I mean, as far as recordings go,
certainly the Michael Andrews Gary Jeeles version is of Mad
World is so production wise far more in line with
the lyrical content. And the same goes for Lord's version
that she did for The Hunger Games of Everybody Wants
through all the World. So it's always interesting for us,
you know, for us is when people change them and
(28:36):
make them either a production wise more interesting or be
more in line with the actual lyrical content that we
find kind of more moving, I guess, you know. And
there have been I mean, there was one. I mean,
the guy from twenty one Pilot did it, but just
as an online thing covered Mad World, which was interesting.
(28:58):
You know. There's been a lot of artists have done
our songs over the years. Yeah, and then you get
into the samples as well, and people you know sampling
your music and from you know, The Weekend and Kanye
and Drake that have all sampled. Interestingly, all parts of
The Hurting. The first album wasn't that big?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Can you take us inside? What the creation of songs
from the Big Chair was like? What was that experience like?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Well that that there was a direct link the journey,
uninterrupted journey from finishing The Hurting to recording songs from
the Big Chair. There was no real break, maybe a month,
and it was Dave Bates, as Kurt mentioned, our A
and R man was very keen to follow up Our
(29:51):
success is that simple. Our success was his success. So
we'd had three top five singles from The Hurting, and
so at the time we were also trying to be
incredibly arty. We were going in with all kinds of
new keyboards and technologies and trying to mimic some of
(30:14):
the music that we loved. That ended up in this
sort of bizarre concoction of a song called the Way
You Are, And instead of that being a B side,
which maybe it should have been, that became the next
single because it was like, get out there, guys, put
out material, keep doing it. And at that point Kurt
and I, well, there was a success of it, really,
(30:36):
I mean, it didn't even break the top twenty, and
we'd had three top five hits before then. So it
was a question of like, well, are we doing something wrong.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
You know?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
And so we went directly from the Way You Are
into Mother's Talk. We tried a different producer and we
made Mother's Talk in a sense very similar to the
Way You Are. That didn't work either. Lo and behold
dat Bates said all right, let's get Chris used in again.
We're going to we're going to try a different way
(31:09):
of recording, and that's what happened. So this is by
this time, we're working in a recording studio in someone's
house in Bath called the house was called Forwards, So
we were all working in there, and this was really
Chris's first time, his first foray into Forwards, which is
where we would go on to record songs from the
(31:32):
Big Chair. And so what what Chris did was he
started putting guitars on it because there weren't any. He
started cutting up the arrangement so it was a little
bit shorter, and he started to heavy it up a
little bit, and I I mean, we went along with it,
(31:53):
but I was a little bit shocked by this sudden
lurch towards rock and roll, you know, and away from
the purity of electronica. That's what we were doing. Following that,
there was a month. I was given a month off,
(32:14):
so okay, go and go and write some more songs
for this album. We had some songs lying around again,
like a song like head over Heels, which we didn't
know what to do with rt people that we were,
and I came up with the initial rendition of Shout,
the initial rendition of Everybody Wants to Rule the World,
(32:36):
and a song which sounded like Robert Wyatt, the beautiful
sad voice, cockney voice of this ex drummer of Soft
Machine who had fallen out of a window on that
LSD and could no longer walk, and that kind of stuff.
Very sad. So it was Kurt and I had to
(32:56):
make a video for Mother's Talk. He left Chris Hugh's
producer and our keyboard player Ian Stanley with the song Shock.
We did the video and when we came in to
hear what they'd done, we were shocked. We were absolutely shocked.
I mean, Chris had heavy totally heavied up the drum part.
(33:18):
He'd added the bass drum and snare drum from the
samples of When the Levee Breaks by John Bonham. Ian
had added on top of the bass, very very simple song.
These flutes fell like flute sounds, and it was not
like the Hurting. It didn't have that fragility. It was bombastic.
(33:41):
It was in your face, and I was thinking, well,
it sounds brilliant. That can we get away with it?
Because at that point in time, it was like it
was obvious what to do. It needed heavy rock guitars,
it needed a guitar solo, and it was like we
felt guilty. We felt guilty for abandoning in that sort
(34:05):
of fragility that we had that was shown on the Hurting.
So that's how it started.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
We felt a little dirty. But during the process, I mean,
the interesting thing we look back now, Well, suddenly, if
I look back now and listen to the Hurting, I think,
as far as a recording goes, it doesn't stand up
as well. And I say that purely because of just
(34:31):
it seems like a very small and insular record, which
it was kind of intended to be. I guess, So
you know, I maybe I just don't relate to it
as much now as obviously I did then. But what
this allowed us to do once we accepted, you know,
the things that Chris was suggesting and maybe Ian was
suggesting and you know we ended up playing the parts,
(34:54):
was take the shackles off to a certain degree, was
to just basically, you know, why not put heavy metal
guitar on? Why not have a guitar? So why not
make the drums huge? You don't have to sit back
and be so meek and mild mannered. You can go
out there and just be as bombastic as you want
and you know, be a rock band. And it took
(35:17):
us a little while to accept that, but once we did,
there's a certain freedom in that, you know, and that freedom,
to a great accident, is continued on till today, where
now we really don't kind of worry that much about
what we're doing, you know, because anything kind of goes musically,
anything should go. So if we haven't done something before
(35:40):
but are doing it, you know on this track, we
don't have that same you know, can we do that?
It's like, yes, you can do anything you want.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
So where will twenty twenty five take you? Beyond obviously
playing the Vegas shows. What's in the future.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
Well, I'm sure we will continue to play live because
it's such fun and our show now, I mean when
we played in Vegas, we were playing to a two
hour show for the first time in our life. Oh
my god. You know, it doesn't really compare to McCartney
or Bruce Springsteen, but you know, two hours for tears
(36:17):
for pears. We need to sit down afterwards, and it
didn't feel like it because it's also smooth, it's beautifully
the new songs are, you know, tucked in with the
old songs. It's great and even the Tipping Point has
now become a classic. So we'll continue to do that.
But and I also continue to look at songwriting and
(36:37):
see where we're going with that. I mean, obviously we're
getting older. I still think that there's an album in
us that is probably a little bit more experimental because
we don't have to prove anything anymore. We can do
that live and we've already done it with the Tipping Point.
(37:00):
But I would like to see us venture into music
that we've never touched before for the first time.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
No, and we're I think we're on the same page
with that, you know, it's and that's just kind of
you know, which which to a certain degree sums us up.
You know, that's us sort of being bored now with that,
you know, it's we've done that. What's what can now
inspire me to really like get excited again? Like, doing
(37:32):
the same thing again is not going to excite us.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
We won't do it as well, We won't do it well.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It won't mean as much, you know, because it was
of the time, and it won't get us excited, you know.
And and I think that, you know, the one thing
we've we've always done is unless we're excited about doing
something and feel passionate about it, we don't do it. Uh,
And I think that's just the way we are, which
(37:57):
again is you know, you're looking at that outlier comparison again.
You know, we don't go and record music just for
the sake of recording music. It's got to mean something
to us. And whether that means you know, lyrically, and
it normally has to be a combination of both, but
lyrically thematically and or production, you know, the way an
(38:19):
album sounds, what you're using to make these songs into
a recording. So yeah, you know, it'll take a while
for us, probably searching and fumbling around in the dark.
But but I feel that if the desire is there,
we have the talent to be able to do it.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You guys, I'm just so appreciative that you took the
time to be on Taking a Walk. Thank you so much,
Kurtin Roland, very much, thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Thanks thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking
a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your
friends and follow us so you never miss an episode.
Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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