That's an excellent story. It's hard not to feel a touch of hope when one reads about that epic a standup character.
By the way, I've read through this whole thread with a certain... Bemusement. I work in magazines, myself. Long have I wanted to submit something to Bass Player, but I realized one day that I'd let my subscription lapse nearly a half decade ago now, and I rarely pick it up at the newsstand, either. A couple of years ago, I realized that was a sign and moved on. I haven't even thought about submitting something to them since... Hellz, I don't even know.
Me, neither! Although the cast and crew are all new, so maybe they'd treat you better than they did me.
I went back through my floppy disks that had been packed away in a drawer since the late 90s, and found
another article that was killed. This time I can't remember the explanation. My mind is a total blank. I think the editor was just having fun by this point, grooving on my impotent rage.
My brother told me something about me that took me years to accept: "People like to hurt you, because you can't hide it. When they cut you, you bleed." It was truer back then, but I'm not the same guy I was in 1998. My advice to everyone these days is don't f*ck with me. Seriously. You have no idea what I'm capable of now.
Killing this article was another gratuitously cruel thing to do to a fine musician, especially since the point of the piece was to celebrate his professional rebirth. He gave me a great interview and invited me to an excellent show. Not only a gentleman, but someone who hadn't given in to anger and bitterness. I'm filled with shame that the article never ran. Here it is, for your reading pleasure.
Curt Smith
No Tears Here
In 1985-86, you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing Tears for Fears' "Shout," "Head Over Heels," or "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The duo had memorable videos--the millions of paper airplanes in 1983's "Pale Shelter," for example-- and an instantly recognizable sound, a mighty synth-pop thunder that produced monster hits, one of the last being 1989's "Sowing the Seeds of Love." Tears for Fears (the name was taken from psychologist Arthur Janov's book on primal scream therapy) consisted of bassist Curt Smith and guitarist Roland Orzabal, school chums from Bath, England. Both were born in 1961 and they first collaborated in 1979, as members of the short-lived quintet Graduate. In 1990, after much success and some disappointments, the pair split up, apparently with considerable acrimony. Smith departed after a final tour and Orzabal carried TFF on by himself.
These days, Curt Smith fronts Mayfield, whose eponymous debut was released earlier this year on his own label Zerodisc. Encyclopedias of pop music always mention Smith's "teen-idol looks" and his supposed status as Orzabal's second banana, but they rarely describe his sophisticated, highly original style on the bass, a laid-back yet motile approach that is amazingly expressive. Mayfield brilliantly showcases this ability, "Sorry Town," "Reach Out," and "Mother England" alone being worth the price of admission. The record retains some of the flavor of Tears and the songs tend to be mid-tempo rather than blistering, but it's clear that Smith is currently in a different musical place, one that emphasizes guitar, bass, and drums more than sequencer.
Curt Smith says much in his life has been simplified and pared down, including his music, his equipment, and his career. Fittingly, he himself appears much slimmer. Not diminished, but wiry and spare. He looks pretty tough, actually, which he probably is, having once ruled the pop world, disappeared for a while, endured publicly flung brickbats from his ex-partner, and then come back with a new take on it all. Very few musicians could survive such a wild ride, much less grow artistically and retain their sense of humor. Curt Smith has done all three.
Do you have a preference between stringed and electronic instruments?
No. I think they all have their place. Also, any preference I have will change. During the Tears time, my interest was in technology because everything was new. When I started writing for this record, I wrote on acoustic guitar and was more interested in the singer/songwriter aspect. Because of that, I felt the record would be more suitable for a band, so I formed one and we played everything live before ever recording it. So right now, I'm not necessarily into technology because I'm loving playing live. I think as a result, Mayfield sounds much more organic than Tears for Fears.
Do you do all your writing on acoustic guitar?
At the moment, yes. It's not the way I used to do it. With Tears, music was very much a studio creation, in that we'd always start with a drum machine or a sequencer. Prior to
The Hurting, we wrote on acoustic because we had no money, but once we got equipment, that was it. Then everything was created in the studio.
How did you decide to start writing on guitar?
It was a natural process. I decided to stop playing and writing for a while, because I was so disillusioned with the industry. I wasn't getting joy out of it anymore. I think music should always be something you have a passion for, but it'd become just my job. So I consciously stopped and decided that I'd only ever pick up a guitar again if I felt I just had to. I wasn't going to allow it to just be my job again. After a while, I had an acoustic guitar in my apartment, I had this idea for a song, so I started writing and it's gone on from there.
How does bass fit into your songwriting process?
The songwriting process for me is almost always based on melody. I don't record anything when I'm writing, so my gauge of something being good or not is if I remember it the next day. It has to have a good melody to really stick in my head. I end up singing that melody and using the acoustic guitar for chords, and I think of bass as pinning down the low end while being melodic itself. I don't think a lot of players really consider bass a melodic instrument, but it can be. In a song like "What Are We Fighting For," the bass starts out holding down the low end, but when you get to the 3/4 sections, it starts to swim. There's a whole different melody going.
Does singing one melody and playing another at the same time come naturally to you?
Not really. I write bass parts by listening to the music and fitting another melody around everything else. It's kind of like syncopation, your left hand doing one thing and your right doing another. In my case it's my hands doing one thing and my voice doing another. It took me a while to learn how to do it. I used to write all these nice bass parts, and then it was like, "Oh, sh*t! They've got nothing to do with the vocals!" The way I get around it is I just play all the parts until they become second nature and I don't have to think about them. In the beginning, when I'm learning to do them, I try to get into that syncopation because the vocals and the bass are always two different rhythms as well as melodies. Once that becomes natural, I don't think about it anymore and to some degree completely separate the two.
Have you had any formal musical training?
No, I dropped out of music. When I was at school, the musical training consisted purely of classical and nothing else. In my adolescence I found that boring as hell. I really think they should include more modern music as well to make it more interesting for kids. Later on, of course, it was like, "Oh God, I wish I were trained!" There are times when I'm searching for things I wish I knew. But I basically picked things up by ear. Working with other musicians, seeing bands live, you're always like,"Wow, what's that chord?" Then you go home and do it yourself.
You seem to prefer writing mid-tempo things.
Yeah, I do. I never really think about it. It just happens to be the way I write. I've tried writing uptempo things and always fail abysmally. It just doesn't feel natural. Why? I don't know, and I try not to think too much about it. I'm way past the years where I'd think, "Oh God, we really need an up-tempo track!" I just play the stuff I enjoy.
Are you strictly a pick-using bass player?
I use both a pick and my fingers, depending on how warm I want it to be. Live, because I'm singing and because of the cross-rhythms and everything else, I find it much easier to play with a pick. In the studio, I go between the two, though I play a lot more with my fingers. It's just a rounder, warmer, sound.
Do you make a distinction between live and studio playing?
Yeah. I used to try playing exactly the same way live as I did in the studio, and it always made life more complicated. For me, timing-- keeping the tempo spot-on-- is much easier if I have a pick. In the studio, I don't have that problem because I'm not singing, I'm just laying down bass tracks and can concentrate on that. Live, I try and make it so that I'm relaxed. If I'm trying to do too much or if I'm thinking too much about everything around me, I can't give a heartfelt performance.
So when you're up there with your bass and your pick, singing and playing two different melodies, where's your mind?
My mind is always on the lyrics. Once I've written and learned the bass part and the melody and I know them and am very happy with them, then it's all about how much passion I can put into the performance. It's about really meaning it at the time.
Can a bass melody evoke emotions, too?
I think so. Everything in a piece of music should back up the emotion you're trying to get across. The music is your backdrop, and if the backdrop is garish and you're trying to say something intimate, it's not going to work.
Would it be fair to say that as a musician, you're more interested in getting emotions across than rocking out?
Without doubt that would be true. Sometimes live, depending on the night, I enjoy playing so much that I tend to lose some of the more intimate moments, purely because it's a band and it's loud. But my preference is the emotional content of a song. My reason for writing music is not to be in a rock-and-roll band, it's wanting to get something out of my system.
There was a period when Tears for Fears was everywhere, and these days you're playing in small clubs. Has that been a hard transition to make?
Not at all. I actually prefer it. I think it has less to do with the size of the place--though I personally love the intimacy of smaller venues--than it does with who you're with and what you're doing. I've not had this much fun playing live since I was eighteen. I did a tour with Tears in 1990, which was in front of fifteen to a hundred thousand people in South America, and my ex-partner and I weren't even talking to each other. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. It all depends on what you call success. Success to me is if I'm really passionate and enjoy what I'm doing, and the rest is, "Whatever!”
You said you hadn't played for a while because you were disillusioned, but looking at the state of the music industry today--
I'll be more disillusioned? [Laughs.] Well, that's why I formed my own label. I don't have to deal with all that. I'm doing this for me, not for success. I've had the success. I'm doing this because I want to, because I have a passion for it, and because I feel I have to.
So success isn't your goal in playing again.
Right. I'm not that stupid. [Laughs.]
EQUIPMENT
"I was recently asked to draw a diagram of my bass set-up, and I was sent a bunch of examples. They were all very complicated, with tons and tons of speakers and preamps and amps and loads of effects. So I drew mine, and it was my Warwick 4-string Thumb bass through a tuner into a Hartke 1 x 15 combo. That's all! I also have a Warwick fretless 5-string that I use in the studio. I guess my lack of equipment has to do with how organic the band's sound is. I'm really into the simplicity of everything right now."
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Listen to what a great song "Sorry Town" is. What a shame
Bass Player did this to him. I'm so sorry, Curt. You deserved better.
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P.S. I doubt my articles would've been killed if I looked back then the way I look now.
