LORDE’S cover of Everybody Wants to Rule the World last year for the

soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire underlined Tears for Fears’

enduring influence.

Like Mad World, covered by Gary Jules for the Donnie Darko soundtrack and

which topped the Christmas singles charts in 2003, it proved once again that

great songwriting is timeless.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World was a huge hit from Tears for Fears’ second

album Songs from the Big Chair, which sold ten million copies.

The single gave Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith their first Billboard Hot 100

chart-topper in the US, won them a Brit Award and scooped Orzabal the first

of two Ivor Novello Awards for his songwriting.

The second came in 2004 after Jules’ cover of Mad World became 2003’s

biggest-selling single.

When we meet in a London hotel, Orzabal proudly says: “It is always

flattering when people come along and do exceptional cover versions.

“When I first heard the Lorde version, I was immediately blown away. Like Gary

Jules’ cover, it was another version which shocked me.

“I’d never imagined the song being done in that way. She turned an up and

summery song into a dark, brooding and menacing track.

“She made the title and the words sound ominous and it sounded extremely

filmic. My kids then played me her hits. Her cover exposed the song and

Tears for Fears to a new audience.’”

Now Songs from the Big Chair is being re-released as a six-disc super-deluxe

box set that includes remixes, B-sides, previously unreleased tracks and two

DVDs.

It coincides with the album’s 30th anniversary.

The band are as popular and influential as ever and have just finished a

sell-out US tour. After our chat Orzabal is due to fly to Los Angeles, where

Smith now lives, to perform live on US comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night

talk show.

He says: “Our success story was really focused in America in the Eighties and

it’s been the gift that keeps on giving ever since.”

Songs from the Big Chair was their eagerly awaited follow-up to

platinum-selling The Hurting. Their debut album’s surprise success piled

pressure on the duo, who were friends as teens growing up in Bath, to repeat

the magic.

Orzabal says: “We’d had loads of time with The Hurting but with this album

there was a rush to get everything done. I was given a month off to write

the rest of Songs from the Big Chair. I had no idea at the time whether it

was going to be any good.”

Its name is a reference to the “big chair” of a psychiatrist in 1976 drama

film Sybil. And the album tackled some suitably dark subjects.

Mothers Talk was inspired by Raymond Briggs’ tale about the horrors of nuclear

war, When the Wind Blows, while the catchy Shout is a protest song.

Orzabal says: “We managed to combine quite a lot of melancholy and

introversion with a pop image.”

He suggests Tears for Fears had little in common with other bands they

encountered on the road, such as Depeche Mode, another UK export who made it

big in the US.

He says: “There was a little bit of mistrust from bands around that time. But

when we were doing Top of the Pops with Depeche Mode you could have swapped

both bands’ members and no one would have noticed!

“I remember being in make-up before the show with (Depeche Mode

songwriter and keyboard player) Martin Gore and the two of us had this

ridiculous eye make-up. I remember looking at him, thinking: ‘God, he’s got

more eye-liner on than me!’”

The album had so much more to it than the singles, such as brooding track The

Working Hour.

I Believe was meant for Robert Wyatt and is dedicated to the singer in the

album’s liner notes. But while touring Songs from the Big Chair, cracks in

the band started to appear.

Orzabal says: “We toured Big Chair so much it broke us in many ways. It was

the beginning of the end because we didn’t come back with another album for

four years (until 1989’s The Seeds of Love).

“If the whole experience had been a little shorter we would have come

back much quicker.

“The friction was there for a long time before Curt left.” Smith quit the band

in 1991 and moved to New York. They didn’t speak for almost a decade.

Orzabal says: “It was a time in our lives when we were doing different

things.

“I was having a family and Curt had been through a divorce and moved to the

US.

“We’d just had enough of each other. It was a bad career move — but then

neither of us were very good careerists.”

Orzabal made two more albums as Tears for Fears. He says: “It wasn’t something

I planned on doing. I already had another band name but the record company

made keeping it part of the deal. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

In 2004 they reunited for the album Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, released

the following year. Orzabal says: “It was a record we had to make to mend

that broken relationship.

“Curt got in touch through our accountant! We owned property together and are

always tied legally and financially. We met and spoke on the phone and found

we’d had different experiences for the past nine years. Curt also had a bit

of an American accent, which I gave him stick for… but only later.”

This year Orzabal published his first novel, Sex, Drugs and Opera.Now he and

Curt are writing music together again, hoping to release a new album.

He says: “We’ve never been in this position before where we have more songs

than we need for a new album.

“It’s about having an album which feels like it’s something that will enhance

our legacy.

“For me, it is all about playing live. When you walk on stage people know who

you are and know the material. But you’re no different to a band starting

out.”

With a number of US shows in the diary, will we see Tears for Fears in the UK

soon?

Orzabal says: “We’ve had offers but they have to be right. I like going to my

local supermarket and not being noticed. It is really nice to go away and be

a rock star and go home and be a dad.

“But yes, we’d love to play in the UK again. It’s where we’re from and we

know there are a lot of people dying to hear us again.”

– The re-issue of Songs From The Big Chair is out now.