{"id":2075270,"date":"2026-08-03T17:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2075270"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:27:18","slug":"roland-orzabal-shares-what-tears-for-fears-bandmate-curt-smith-thinks-of-his-astrology-influenced-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2075270","title":{"rendered":"Roland Orzabal Shares What Tears for Fears Bandmate Curt Smith Thinks of His Astrology-Influenced Memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n\tThanks to being half of Tears For Fears, Roland Orzabal has certainly had a life and career to shout about. But doing that himself was not really on his bingo card.<\/p>\n
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\n\tOrzabal \u2014 whose Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death and Tears For Fears <\/em>(Dey Street) publishes on Aug. 4 \u2014 had no desire to write a memoir. He\u2019d written a novel, 2014\u2019s Sex, Drugs & Opera,<\/em> and was, in fact, shopping another one, Truthwall<\/em>, when his literary agent Mark Gottlieb broached the autobiography idea.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cEvery time he took (the new novel) to a publisher, they would say, \u2018What about a memoir?’\u201d the British-born Orzabal, 64, tells Billboard<\/em> via Zoom from his current home on the south coast of Massachusetts. \u201cSo he said, \u2018Have you ever thought about writing a memoir?\u2019 And I said, \u2018No, I haven\u2019t.\u2019 But I always wanted to write about astrology because I\u2019ve been studying it for 40 years, and I always wanted to write about metaphysics, my philosophy, my take on life, my understanding of the human condition. So I thought maybe I could combine the two and explain my life astrologically \u2014 along with Tears For Fears, obviously. And Mark said to me, \u2018Just write three or four chapters and leave it with me.’\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe result is a 268-page tome that Orzabal further subtitled An Astrological Memoir<\/em>, with a foreword dubbed \u201cWarning: This Book Contains Astrology\u201d to explain his fascination and introduce the concept. Welcome To Your Life <\/em>makes plenty of references to star patterns and Zodiac signs in explaining some of the events in Orzabal\u2019s life, but he worked hard to make sure that never interferes with the narrative readers come for.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMy initial feeling was to weave it in like a tapestry,\u201d Orzabal explains, but his publisher, Carrie Thornton, instead recommended he \u201cput it in as interstitials at the end of a chapter, so people can read the story and ignore the astrology. I understand that completely. The astrology is another layer of explanation, and once I attempted it a few times I thought, \u2018Yeah, this is brilliant.\u2019 I spread it throughout the book, so it becomes more understandable, and if someone doesn\u2019t want to get into it, it\u2019s easy enough to skip it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\tLet It All Out\t<\/h2>\n
\n\tHis bandmate Curt Smith apparently felt that way when Orzabal sent him an early edition of the memoir. \u201cHe texted me or emailed me and he\u2019s just finished it, and he was in tears, so I thought that was a good sign,\u201d Orzabal recalls. \u201cAnd then I said to him, \u2018What do you think of the astrology?\u2019 and he said, \u2018Oh, I didn\u2019t read that,\u2019 or \u2018I didn\u2019t understand it.\u2019 [Laughs] So there you go. Curt hasn\u2019t seen (the book) since, but I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll find it more accessible now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welcome To Your Life<\/em> offers a deep and earnest dive into Orzabal\u2019s life, from a difficult upbringing (his parents divorced when Orzabal was a teen) through his youth in Bath, England and his developing passion for arts. He and Smith met during their early teens and formed a band called Graduate, which released one album and broke up, leading to Tears For Fears. The two developed a deep interest in psychologist Arthur Janov and his primal scream therapy, which informed songs on Tears for Fears\u2019 1983 debut The Hurting <\/em>and 1985\u2019s Billboard 200-topping Songs From the Big Chair,<\/em> which spawned two Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe were young and evangelical,\u201d Orzabal says. \u201cWe believed (primal scream) to be the absolute truth\u2026So no one ever understood us. We weren\u2019t ever understood by journalists \u2019cause we started off, as it says in the book, talking about Janov. The Hurting <\/em>was a good body of work, and it bled into the massive success of Songs From the Big Chair<\/em>. Then the thing that inspired us, that made us completely different to every other band, was forgotten \u2014 which is fine.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSo in (the book), I wanted to fully explain that, because it was very much what set Curt and I apart from the music scene. There\u2019s a chapter called \u2018A Process of Becoming,\u2019 which is the story of primal therapy. It\u2019s a lovely story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welcome To Your Life<\/em> also delves into the dynamics of the Orzabal-Smith relationship and their 1991 split, with Orzabal retaining the band name and recording two more TFF albums as well as a solo album, Tomcats Screaming Outside<\/em>, in 2001, before they reunited around the same time. Despite disagreements, particularly over management during the late \u201880s, Orzabal says he had no desire to make Smith a villain at any point of the story.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHad I written the book in the \u201890s, he\u2019d definitely be (a villain),\u201d says Orzabal, who also writes candidly about his late first wife Caroline\u2019s struggle with depression, substance abuse, dementia and cirrhosis before her passing in 2017. (He remarried in 2020 and has a one-year-old daughter in addition to two adult sons from his first marriage.) \u201cWe had a bit of money after Big Chair<\/em>, and even after The Hurting.<\/em> I think Curt realized the change of status quite hugely; he recognized he was a pop star, and I didn\u2019t. He bought a massive house in the south of Bath and he lived the life of the nouveau riche<\/em>. I had other priorities.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe thing is, (Smith) is a very good partner, and we have a very good balance and I don\u2019t necessarily want that to end. He\u2019s seen me through some very, very bad times and some ugly times, and he\u2019s one of these people that doesn\u2019t panic. And we are in our mid-sixties \u2014 he\u2019s 65, I\u2019m about to be 65 [on Aug. 22]. I think the relationships you have that have lasted decades, albeit with their ups and downs, become so precious as we get closer to the D-Day, so you appreciate them that much more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\tHead Over Heels\t<\/h2>\n
\n\tRather than feeling like a rock star in TFF, Orzabal says now that, \u201cI always felt like I was part of something. I never felt that I was the center of it. There are some moments I describe in the book\u2026like in the Big Chair<\/em> days we were in Orange County and we had helicopters coming over the brow of the hill, shining lights on people and \u2018Listen\u2019 was playing on the PA and I just thought, \u2018This is incredible \u2014 not because of me, but because I\u2019m part of something which has taken off like this.\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI still don\u2019t think about (stardom), really at all, which is a good thing. The other day I was in the garden center here and I\u2019m cashing out with some plants and a woman said, \u2018I\u2019m a big fan.\u2019 And I thought, \u2018Of the plants?\u2019 I forget, because I\u2019m thinking about other things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOrzabal is nevertheless hopeful that Welcome To Your Life <\/em>will shine a bit of light on some of the overlooked music, especially the two non-Smith TFF albums and his solo effort \u2014 perhaps even back to Graduate. \u201cI hope that people will go and listen to anything, really,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I read Bono\u2019s book (Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story<\/em>) he mentions a lot of songs that I really didn\u2019t know about, so I went back and listened to them as a point of reference, just to make myself more knowledgeable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welcome To Your Life<\/em> has its rock star moments, however. One anecdote shares that the late Joe Strummer admonished Orzabal that he \u201cowes me a fiver\u201d because the phrase \u201ceverybody wants to rule the world\u201d appears in the Clash\u2019s 1980 song \u201cCharlie Don\u2019t Surf\u201d; Orzabal signed a ten-pound note and gave it to Strummer, which he writes \u201cmade the great man smile.\u201d In another, Orzabal recalls his luggage being accidentally taken by Michael Jackson\u2019s handlers after a Concorde flight to London. \u201cHe had a very large guy who\u2019s picking up these sort of rock n\u2019 roll black bags,\u201d Orzabal says, \u201cand I was too frightened to go up to him. But my manager didn\u2019t have the same fear, and we got it back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\tLife Ahead\t<\/h2>\n
\n\tOrzabal and Smith\u2019s last TFF studio album,The Tipping Point,<\/em> came out in 2022, and they included four more new songs on the 2024 live album Songs For a Nervous Planet. <\/em>The group did a residency last fall at the BleauLive Theater in Las Vegas, but it currently has no plans for recording or touring.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been recording songs,\u201d says Orzabal, who plans to shop the Truthwall<\/em> novel again after Welcome To Your Life <\/em>runs its course. \u201cI recorded about eight last year, and I\u2019ll probably write another eight and record them and see where they are. Our lives are quite different at the moment: Curt\u2019s coming into land, and mine\u2019s just taken off. I\u2019ve just had a baby. I\u2019ve been married again for six years, but it still feels very new. At the moment we\u2019re on different paths, but at some point there\u2019ll be an intersection, no doubt about it. I would say this book might have an impact \u2014 I don\u2019t know \u2014 and then we\u2019ll see how the dust settles before we start another project. And there\u2019s some talk, I believe, of some big shows in 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tears-for-fears-2022-press-cr-emith-rath-orzabal-1800-billboard.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard Thanks to being half of Tears For Fears, Roland Orzabal has certainly had a life and career to shout about. But doing that himself was not really on his bingo card. Related Tears for Fears Is on a Creative High: \u2018We Still Have a Desire to Get\u00a0Better\u2019 Fans Choose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-2075270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2075270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2075270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2075270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2075270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Tears](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Tears-for-Fears-cr-Chapman-Baehler-press-2024-billboard-1548.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Ariana](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2255448169-e1781221098211.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
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