Back From the Brink

Overcoming their personal and creative obstacles of the last several years, Tears for Fears reemerge with a new album The Tipping Point

- By David Chiu, Photography by Frank Ockenfels

There was a time when The Tipping Point, Tears for Fears' first new studio album since 2004, might have never gotten made. For almost a decade, the British rock duo of guitarist/singer Roland Orzabal and bassist/singer Curt Smith had been trying to painstakingly piece together a record that matched their high standards, which initially proved difficult amid creative blocks, false starts and a personal tragedy. Even as they had been touring over the years, Smith and Orzabal didn't want to coast on their past triumphs. “At a certain point, over the last seven years, [we] thought that day would never happen, Orzabal tells Newsweek about finishing a new record. “But it did, and it took a while to get there. It was worth the wait. The fact that it's a piece of work that we can both be proud of is very gratifying."

"We definitely had hit that point," says Smith about potentially shelving the album during the impasse. “We started the process and we needed to finish it, and also for us to go play live. The live work was getting a little tedious because of the lack of new material. We've gone through so much... we should have things to write about.”