Oingo Boingo and engineer Michael Frondelli were mixing the album Dead Man’s Party at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles when the room started shaking.

“I said, ‘What happened? Did I do something wrong?’” Frondelli told Mix , recalling the concerned look on everyone’s face. “They said, ‘It’s an earthquake.’”

They worked through it, and Dead Man’s Party became the best’s highest-selling album. Released Oct. 28, 1985, it was eventually certified gold and spawned Oingo Boingo’s only two singles to crack the Billboard Hot 100: “Weird Science” (No. 45), the theme song to the movie and television series of the same name, and “Just Another Day” (No. 85).

Danny Elfman, Oingo Boingo’s founder, lead singer and songwriter, told Synth History he wrote “Weird Science” while driving after getting a call from John Hughes, the film’s writer and director.…