Everybody wanted to rule the world in the 1980s, but it was Tears for Fears who came nearest to dominating synthpop - and in those days that was surprisingly hard. Curt Smith tells Brian Boyd how the Belfast Agreement brought the band back together

THE Belfast Agreement has taken many twists and turns since the Irish and British governments signed it into force on April 10th, 1998. Nobody, whether from the DUP or Sinn Féin, could possibly have known that the Agreement's most bizarre consequence would be the reformation of Tears For Fears. I'm sure Jeffrey Donaldson is thrilled by this exclusive politico-musical piece of news.

"It was one of the things Roland [ Orzabal] mentioned to me in the phone call to suggest getting the band together again," says Curt Smith. "I wasn't sure about the whole thing because of all that had happened between us, but then he said: 'Look, if the Catholics and Protestants can sit in an Irish Assembly together, then surely we can make a record' and that was the clincher."

The band are well aware of (and well unhappy at) suggestions that they reformed on the back of Gary Jules taking Mad World to number one in 2003. The truth is they had been back together well before the Donnie Darko soundtrack was released. Their old record company pushed out a Greatest Hits album after the Jules hit, making it all look like cash-in time for the duo. "Between Gary Jules and the Greatest Hits, it looks like it's been timed a certain way," says Smith. "But that all happened at a time when we were preparing to come back with a brand new album and suddenly the past comes flooding back. We were actually hoping everyone had forgotten about us so we could start afresh but that wasn't allowed to happen." Incidentally, both Smith and Orzabal think that Gary Jules's version of their song is "far better" than their own.

The pair met as teenagers in Bath - Orzabal overheard Smith singing along to Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear The Reaper and asked him did he want to be in a band. Both had had unhappy childhoods and there were skirmishes with the law before first going through a folk phase, then a ska phase (in a band called Graduate, who had a minor hit with Elvis Should Play Ska).

They took their name from the theories of Arthur Janov (a psychotherapist who has given two bands their name). Janov formulated a "Primal Scream" theory that held that childhood insecurities could be resolved by screaming/crying. Something which makes a lot of sense if you ever wondered why Tears For Fears had such glum lyrics.

It was the advances in synth technology, which Smith says, really allowed the band to take off. "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," he says.

Arriving at a time when Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen were bringing bags full of angst into the Top Of The Pops studio, Tears For Fears quickly made an impression with their own weird brand of Janov pop. Mad World had been written in a small flat above a pizza shop in Bath.

It's strange to remember now, given that the band are usually glossed over/ignored in all those I Love The 1980s television nostalgia-fests, but during that decade they were routinely having number one singles and albums on both sides of the Atlantic - easily outselling their more flamboyant rivals.

"We were never invited into that particular club of groups," says Smith. "Around that time we got a lot of people saying to us: 'you've just sold 10 million records and you've just played live in front of 20,000 people, why are you still so miserable?' and stuff like that. We found it very difficult. We just weren't a hip band. I mean we recorded our second album in Bath at a time when everyone else was recording in New York or Los Angeles."

That album, 1985's Songs From The Big Chair, sold gazillions and contained two of their best known songs - Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Shout. The latter song was distinguished by a video that features a close-up of Orzabal's face and weirdly gigantic teeth. It's very scary - I still have to hide behind the couch whenever it comes on.

The rot set in when it took them four years to record the follow up, Seeds Of Love (a four-year gap may be standard now, but in the 1980s it was a lifetime). Smith says that the main problem lay in Orzabal's desire to get away from a synth sound. Orzabal had also begun writing songs about Jung's shadow theory - not good news for a band selling out enormodomes in the US midwest.

"The sessions for that album had been really, really difficult and the world tour after it was hellish," says Smith. "I had decided that I was going to leave the band after our last date in Knebworth. I went to live in New York and released a solo album that I now know was very bad. Roland kept on with the Tears For Fears name. It was a bad split." Such a bad split that Orzabal had a number of digs at Smith in the lyrics on the first post-Smith Tears For Fears album.

"We barely talked for years and years," says Smith. "And if we did talk, it would only be about legal band matters. For me, I didn't want to be famous and there was a desire to be me and not 'that guy from the band' so I was happy to see it all go."

A friend brought them together in October 2000 and the talks about talks started. "People had suggested reforming over the years and we always said no, we were never going to get back together again, for a promoter for example. It had to come from us. It hadn't ended well, so when it came to naming our first new album after getting back together again, we decided to call it Everybody Loves A Happy Ending. First, just to get the word 'happy' into a Tears For Fears album title and second from the feeling that if our career had been a film, we both would have wanted to go back and re-shoot what had happened at the end of our first time together."

The new album is surprisingly good - and certainly a lot better than what either of them has managed as a solo artist since the split. "It sounds good and we're much happier now," says Smith. "We're not as petulant as we used to be - or at least not all the time."

Everybody Loves a Happy Ending is on the Gut label. Tears For Fears play Vicar St, Dublin on April 23rd and 24th