#tff text

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

‘Headliners with Nihal Arthanayake’ podcast (10.11.2024):

H: For both of you, what was the last piece of music that made you cry? CS: Would have been something my daughter recorded, actually. She wrote this song called 'Pillow Punching' and she's talking about being frustrated and there's a line after the chorus that says, 'It's gonna be all right, kid'. And that kind of got me. H: At the risk of being a Poundland psychologist, is that because at her age, when you were her age, no one said that to you? CS: Yeah. No one said that. And the fact that she knows it's going to be all right and she knows it's okay to feel those emotions. She's talking about being frustrated, frustrated, but she knows it's going to be okay. H: Wow. That's actually made me shiver. Roland? RO: Well, I don't really want to say because I'll just break down. H: Then don't. Then don't. RO: Okay, good. H: There's no way I would make you do that. Are either of you on Instagram? RO: I am privately. CS: Yeah. H: Okay. What Instagram reels do you regularly share? with other people on Instagram. So my wife, my wife weirdly at the moment is sending me these kind of short clips from Instagram that other people have put up of how you must always listen to your wife, and how your wife always knows. She's like hinting heavily that I'm a bit useless as a husband. CS: Mine and my family's just tend to be... the stupid, amusing things. H: Dogs running into windows and all that kind of stuff? CS: Well, that's Frances. Frances likes anyone falling over. That's my wife. She likes anyone falling over. You know, running into a wall. Those things amuse her. Diva's is just... she's just... it's just monkeys. Loves, I don't know, monkeys. Yeah, they tend to be funny things, and there was a word for it, and I'd forgotten what it was, and I read an article about it the other day, about when you're sending little things to members of your family, especially kids, to their parents, and it can be anything stupid. It's just their way of saying, 'I'm thinking of you', and it doesn't have to be anything other than that. It's their little kind of, 'I haven't forgotten you'. RO: I don't actually, I don't send reels. But my reel is... it's all boxing. H: Is it? RO: Or Muay Thai. H: Oh, really? My daughter does Muay Thai. RO: It's vicious! You know, it's all about people knocking someone else. CS: Is that say something about you, maybe? RO: I tend to watch it a lot, yes, but I don't quite know why! CS: Do you... RO: It keeps popping up! CS: Do you... When you're watching it, do you get that like...? RO: I do kind of watch what they're doing just in case you never know!

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

Joni Mitchell, Musician, No 86, p. (12.1985):

<...> there’s now a lot of really good music on the airwaves that went to #1; it’s not dumb music. Not only Sting, but what's this little English group now — Tears for Fears. That’s a great album, it’s a very musical album. It's almost like a symphony with a little bit of pop vocal. A lot of musicality there. The fact that it went to #1 thrills me.

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

Classic Pop, Issue 100, p. 49 (01.2026)

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

Roland, Glasgow (11.02.2019):

"Last time we played Glasgow was 2005. And we were secretly recording every show of the tour for personal and private use. Just in case something bad happened. Yeah, you know... And on intense listening, upon intense listening, we worked out that we played the best in Glasgow and the best audience is in Glasgow."

'Naked Lunch' podcast (09.05.2024):

H: <...> any plans for an 'Everybody Loves a Happy Ending' reissue box set? Curt: Hm. Well, there's always, you know, these are kind of questions that I a lot of the time don't get involved with initially until someone tells us we should do one. And then a lot of the time comes from a record company or management. I mean, in this case, actually, 'Everybody Loves a Happy Ending' is an interesting one because we own that. So no, yeah, we own that album right now because the license ran out with the company we were with. So I don't know. We could do because we can do whatever we want with that album. That's the joy. I mean, you know, the joy of working now and where we are now, even with 'The Tipping Point', you know, we've licensed it, but only for a certain amount of time. We'll have ownership of it eventually, which is great.

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

18.08.1976, Bath, England: Curt and Roland went to AC/DC & Motorhead concert together

2013 :

2020:

reviews from the people who attended this gig:

tdpri.com:

ac-dc.net:

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

80sography - 80s music interviews podcast, s02e06 (20.01.2021): Nicky Holland: I think that 'Famous [Last Words]' is just, in some ways, it's quite simple. And the whole Tom Waits bit and asking him to sing it, I'm not quite sure I remember about that. All I remember was that I'd mentioned Tom Waits because of what I've been listening to. And I don't know whether then I played Roland some of it or what. I can't remember... and maybe they did ask him, I can't remember, but I don't know why Roland would have really wanted anyone else to sing it. <...> H: Then Dave Bascombe mentioned that David of Was (Not Was), did a version of it as well. Nicky Holland: I'm really curious as to know why Roland didn't just sing it or why he felt he couldn't sing it, or why he shouldn't sing it, or why shouldn't Curt sing it. And I don't know. H: So you don't know if actually Curt had a go, because I always felt like he could have done the quiet verses and then Roland could have come in with the epic bit at the end. Nicky Holland: In the middle, yeah. But then they would have been the couple. [laughs] H: [laughs] Oh, the tabloids would love that, wouldn't they? Nicky Holland: They would have loved it, yeah. H: This is the... Okay, I'm going to rethink that, actually, as an idea. Nicky Holland: [laughs] H: Would have been the couple. Nicky Holland: [laughs] H: And then listening to the band that made them cry, which is Tears For Fears, right? Nicky Holland: 'Listening to the band that made us cry'. H: And what a perfect way out. Nicky Holland: 'To stay in this real life situation for one last refrain'.

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

'Naked Lunch' podcast (09.05.2024): H: I actually met Roland briefly when you were apart, like at some like album release party. CS: Right. H: And it's fascinating because I, again, knowing Hall & Oates, it's like the tensions that can exist make artists overlook the most obvious thing, which is from Lennon and McCartney, Bacharach/David, when there are people who, artists who, when they blend have something that neither can do on their own. CS: Without question. H: And literally vocally, like the insanity of the Tears for Fears was like... Roland is extremely talented. It's fascinating. And a lot of, I think, when I think of some of the torment of that is at the heart of some of the art, I think that's so much him. I will say that it is as a music critic, I'll put my music critic hat on. It's insane to think that you could, the two voices, literally the blending of the two voices like Lennon and McCartney. It's like you don't get 'A Day In the Life' if you don't have those two people, and you don't, like when... so he had one song during the time you were not in the group. He put out, I think two albums, studio albums. CS: Yeah. H: There's one I really liked called 'Break It Down Again'. CS: Which we play! H: I think you guys still do it. CS: And I, and I like that song too. H: But when I listened to it, because it's the only song without you I listened to when I was getting ready to come over here, I was thinking like, 'I like it because he recreated you'. CS: Me singing that one bit. H: Exactly! I said, 'Oh my God! There's that bit!' CS: Which live I sing! H: Yes, but it wasn't you. CS: No. H: And that must have been, I don't know if that's a little annoying... H2: They got a sound alike? H: Well... CS: No, he just impersonates my voice effectively, you know. Yeah, I mean, what's interesting when you're talking about, you know, things like duos like that and the friction is what creates it or, you know, when someone asked me to explain, you know, where does the Tears for Fears sound come from, it's the stuff we can agree on. That's it. It's as simple as that. If I hate it, we don't do it. If he hates it, we don't do it. If we can both agree on it, we'll do it. So it's the balance, it's that bit in the middle where we meet that creates something that we now, in our dotage, uh, we now appreciate. You know we, we appreciate it more now than we ever did growing up. H: So was it that rule that we've learned through other duos that... H2: We actually have... H: ...the most passionate wins. H2: ...either positively or negatively will win. CS: Wins. Yeah, generally that's true. Yeah. H: That's the only way to a true partnership right? CS: Yeah, um, yeah, I mean, as you get older, I think, it's more... You realise it's more compromise than anything, 'cause we're way past the sort of 'Who wants to be the alpha dog?' phase. We're way past that. We've now got to the phase, which I'm very grateful for, making 'The Tipping Point' album. And it really happened during this album, for the first time, I think, really, where we really had an appreciation of what we both bring to it. H: Yeah, CS: And appreciated each other. And, um, it's taken us till we're 60 years old to get there, but what the hey! H: Listen, as long as you end up there it really doesn't matter! CS: Yeah.

[acupofbritishearlgrey]

'Naked Lunch' podcast (09.05.2024):

C: Yeah, it was... 'Cause we have and still do have this sort of property together we own in England. It's an industrial property, and we bought it for some tax dodge years ago. I mean, not illegal, completely legal. But we still own it. And there was some paper, we had to do something about it. And he sent me a fax, and these faxes were going back and forth, and I said, 'Wouldn't this be easy just to do over the phone?' So we spoke on the phone, which was sort of interesting. He'd had kids by then, I hadn't yet. I think Frances might have just become pregnant with Diva, I think, at the time.

C: 10 years. He thought it was weird because I had an American accent according to him after living in...

C: Yeah. And then next thing I know... he had a manager at the time who was in LA, and I got a phone call out of the blue, and he... the manager wanted to meet with me and he asked me, you know, he said, 'What do you think about working with Roland again? Would you be into it?'

C: Yeah.

C: It was very civil. Yeah, because what... to be honest there was so much water under the bridge and we didn't really... you know.

C: Yeah. I know. Well, yeah, talk to my wife about that. Boy, can she hold a grudge? But... My initial reaction was 'No', because I'm happy and content now, and my memory of that was not good. But then I thought about it for a while, and I thought about the conversation we had, and I thought, 'It seemed okay'. So I said, 'Well, why don't we just get together' — this is all via his manager — 'and just see what happens. Just write a song or two and see if we... if it clicks or if anything happens'. And then the first thing we wrote was this song called 'Closest Thing to Heaven', which I still love to this day, which was on 'ELAHE'. And we realised, 'Oh yeah, there is something different about when we work together than when we work separately.'

C: Well, we first had dinner, 'cause we were literally sort of tippy toeing into it again. So I said, you know, I actually said, 'Let's just go out to dinner first and just, you know, talk and see what that...' you know. And the dinner was pleasant, it was nice. I think we were over the grudges and everything else. It was just kind of like we were older, more mature. As I said, he had a family. I was about to start one. I'd been settled with Frances for 10 years. I'd lived in New York for 10 years, which changes you immensely.

C: No. Just... Talking about what happened in the 10 years, what are you been doing?

C: We didn't really have to, 'cause both of us... we know each other very well.

C: We're incredibly different people. I mean very different. But we know how each other works. I mean quite intimately. And it's not something we need to kind of talk about. Since then we've done interviews like this and discussed those things, and the fact that it was hard for us at that age. We were both 25-26 making TSOL. You know, a pissing contest, effectively, because, you know, we're trying to find out who we are as individuals, not as this guy from this band. So we're both desperately trying to be, you know, have our say. And in the end, I was like, 'Screw it'. And off I went, 'cause I just didn't feel it was worth it.

C: Yeah!

C: No, I mean, there were teething problems when we got back together, without question. There were times we disagreed.

C: Not like that, but there was still some of that left. I would say during TTP was the time that all of that left where we were kind of, you know, actually listened to each other. As opposed to try to impose our will on the other one.