Wrote songs at a château

The band spent the next year as tax exiles , writing songs at a château in France where The Tube with Jools Holland filmed a documentary with the band in May 1983 before they flew to Montserrat and then Sydney to record and mix their third album. During the summer, they returned to the UK to perform two concerts, the first on 20 July in front of the Prince and Princess of Wales at the Dominion Theatre , and the second, a charity concert at Aston Villa’s home ground . The band were under pressure to follow up the success of Rio , and the recording process took over six months as different band members went through bouts of perfectionism and insecurity. A newly decadent lifestyle and substance abuse issues for some members added complications. In the documentary film Extraordinary World , filmed a decade later, Rhodes described the effect on their sound as “barely controlled hysteria, scratching beneath the surface”.