Biography
Tears For Fears fans will relish the first new songs written by Orzabal and Smith in some 15 years, including the hotly tipped new first single Closest Thing To Heaven, plus Call Me Mellow, Who Killed Tangerine, Killing With Kindness, Ladybird, and Last Days On Earth. Noted tracks penned by Orzabal include Size Of Sorrow, Quiet Ones, The Devil, and Secret World. Who You Are is credited to Smith and Charlton Pettus, their collaborator and co-producer on the new album.One of the best loved bands to emerge in the post-New Wave era of the early 1980s, Tears For Fears were formed in 1981, after Orzabal and Smith, childhood friends from Bath, made their first recordings as the band Graduate. The pair went on to create TFF, taking their name from the teachings of Arthur Janov, whose primal scream therapy greatly influenced a post-Beatles John Lennon. 1982's eponymous debut single Mad World (successfully covered by Gary Jules late last year) went to No 3 in the UK, and in 1983 hits Change and Pale Shelter, (from their debut album, The Hurting) both went top 5.
In 1985 Tears For Fears released their second album Songs From The Big Chair. Fired by back-to-back hit singles Everybody Wants To Rule the World, Shout and Head Over Heels. Songs From the Big Chair went to No 1 on both the UK and US album charts that summer. The album went on to spend an incredible 81 weeks on the UK chart and 83 weeks on the US chart, where it was certified 5-times platinum. After the transatlantic triumph of 1985's follow-up album Songs From the Big Chair and the exhausting world tour that followed, Orzabal and Smith took a well-earned break. They returned reinvigorated in 1989 with the single, Sowing the Seeds Of Love and the platinum album The Seeds Of Love, which once more saw TFF at the top of the UK album charts. The album included Woman In Chains, which launched the career of guest vocalist Oleta Adams, who was singing in a hotel lounge when Orzabal and Smith discovered her during a US tour. Smith left the band in 1990 to pursue solo projects, and the first of many best-selling TFF compilations were issued that year including Tears Roll Down. Orzabal continued with Tears For Fears, releasing Elemental in 1993, which was essentially a solo album, and Raoul And the Kings Of Spain in 1995, the final TFF album until now. Solo projects from Smith (1993's Soul on Board, and 1998's Mayfield, on his own Zero-Disc label) and Orzabal (2001's Tomcats Screaming Outside) have kept them busy until the time was right to reconvene Tears For Fears for their American comeback in 2004.
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