Music like Roland Orzabal

Roland Orzabal (born 22 August 1961) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as a co-founder of Tears for Fears, of which he is the main songwriter and joint vocalist, but he has also achieved success as a producer of other artists including Oleta Adams and Emiliana Torrini. In 2014, Orzabal published his first novel.

Orzabal was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire. Initially raised in Havant, his family later moved to Bath where he attended Culverhay School and became a member of the Zenith Youth Theatre Company.

Orzabal's mother is English and his father (George Orzabal de la Quintana) is from Paris, France, of Spanish-Basque descent. Roland's grandfather, Arturo Orzabal de la Quintana, was from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and son of emigrants from the Basque Country. Orzabal was named Raoul for the first two weeks after his birth, but this was changed to Roland to anglicise the name as the family was living in England. When Orzabal was three years old, his father had a nervous breakdown which left him semi-bedridden for a large portion of Orzabal's childhood. His father decided to run an entertainment business with his mother, a dancer, resulting in different entertainers often hanging around Orzabal's home. He describes his childhood as "unorthodox," and it inspired various Tears for Fears songs, particularly on The Hurting.