Curt Smith

“I think Roland read 'Primal Scream' first and then gave it to me. This was, I think, even prior to 'The Graduate' days. We both got heavily into and it offered a lot of questions about how screwed up our home life was.”

“We've always been slammed by most of the British press. They probably hate us because we're too normal and incredibly honest.”

“More than anything else, being famous just didn't agree with me.”

“You know, if you ever listen to your voice on an answering machine everyone thinks we sound dreadful. That's sort of the way I think when I hear myself speak.”

“Me and Roland used to fight a lot.”

“Mad World' was easy for me to sing because I could relate to Roland's lyrics. We were both the middle of three sons and had been brought up by single mothers with absent fathers.”

“You find it hard to deal with certain things and as you get older it becomes easier.”

“I think a truly fantastic video is worth it. We spend so much time on the music, it only makes sense to have a really well-done visual translation of that music.”

“I normally don't do interviews on the road.”

“I think when you finish an album, you tend to have your favorites, where a lot of the time are not the singles.”

“Normally doing an album you go from track to track and go, 'Let's not work on this one today, let's go work on the other one,' and I think you tend to get more self-indulgent that way.”

“The first album is dark and introspective - tailor made for England.”

“The only formula we have when we work together is that we both have to have a product we can endorse when we finish. Something we both like. It's a matter of compromise. In the end what you get is what both of us can agree on. In that comes Tears for Fears. I don't know what the mix or magic is, that's just what it is.”

“I think what we find fascinating and interesting is when people take our music and turn it into emotionally something else. And weirdly, Lorde's version of 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World,' the production really goes with the lyric more than our version does, because our version, albeit the lyric is dark, the music is quite uplifting.”

“The synth helped us in that it meant you didn't have to be a traditional four-piece band and basically, you didn't have to work too hard.”

“Solo, you don't have compromise. It gets back to what's great when you're a musician.”

“I have two kids and they were by no means blank slates. One is exactly like me, one is exactly like my wife.”

“We rushed to finish the album when 'Mad World' became a hit. The pressure was on and it stopped being as enjoyable as it had been; in the end, it wasn't enjoyable at all.”

“Songwriting I think, or any art form, the inspiration comes from your personal life or it can be from politics or region you live in.”

“To be honest, I've been back to Atlanta a couple of times, I can't remember what for. One for a big conference, a radio conference. I feel like it's a vibrant place. It has a vibrant music scene.”