Police drummer Stewart Copeland had it all, but his songs were "crap"
Before he’d even met Sting and Andy Summers, drummer Stewart Copeland knew exactly what kind of band he would eventually form, he says.
Stewart Copeland is the founding member of The Police, the British rock band he formed in 1977 with Sting and Andy Summers.
“I had a manifesto, I had the name, the look, the format, everything. All I didn't have was the killer songs.”
Those songs would come courtesy of bass player Sting and guitarist Summers, and the band would go on to be one of the biggest in the world in the late 1970s and 1980s.
“I did have songs, but they were crap. I only knew four chords, which is one more than you need for punk. And our brief was to be a punk band, albeit fake punk band.
Stewart Copeland brings tales form 50 years in rock n Roll to New Zealand next year.
Kai R Joachim
“I honestly can't imagine how Sting stuck it out with my crap songs until Andy joined, and he started to write some decent songs”, he tells RNZ’s Afternoons.
The Police went on to conquer the world selling over 75 million records in a career that lasted from 1977 until they split at the peak of their success in 1984.
They had a sometimes-fractious studio relationship, Copeland says, which at times descended into “fisticuffs”.
“That clash was our secret sauce, because Sting and I we're both musicians, but we approach music from completely different angles.”
Copeland, now 73, has a wealth of such stories from 50 years in rock ‘n’ roll and he’s bringing his one man spoken word show, Have I Said Too Much? The Police, Hollywood & Other adventures to New Zealand in January next year.
Copeland was drumming in prog band Curved Air when he met Sting in Newcastle in the North of England. He persuaded Sting to join him in London and form a power trio; they just lacked a guitarist. They met him playing studio sessions in London, Summers was a seasoned pro at that stage, Copeland says.
"Sting and I were the hot rhythm section in London at that time. That's how we survived by doing sessions playing actual music.
“So, in walks Andy Summers, the legend, the man himself, triple scale guitar player. Triple scale means they pay Sting and I one session fee, and they pay him three times because he's triple scale - Mr Fancy.”
Sting, he says, was at the end of his tether with the distinct lack of success he and Copeland were having and set his heart on Summers joining the band.
“He's like, we got to get that guy. I'm going, Sting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. We got to get that guy, but we're not going to get him because he's triple scale. And we're a starving punk band going nowhere.”
Later he bumped into Summers on the London underground.
“He pulls me into a coffee store. Hey, Stewart, let's have a coffee. Then he sits me down.
“Then he says, okay, now, Stewart, you and that bass player, I think you've really got something. But you need me in the group. And I accept.”
The Police at the height of their success in the 1980s.
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‘Roxanne’, the song that launched their career came to Sting while they were playing in Paris, Copeland says.
“I was hanging out with Generation X, you know, Billy Idol's band? And we went off in one direction in town, and it was all a little bit too raucous for Stingo.
“So, he wandered off into the streets of Moulin Rouge and came upon these hookers selling their bodies in the night.
“And he just kind of empathised with them and thought, what's it like to be that woman? What's it like to be that person? And he came up with this idea. It was actually a bossanova until I screwed it up.”
Since the band split, bar a reunion in 2007 for a record-breaking world tour, Copeland has forged a career composing soundtracks for Hollywood movies Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumblefish and Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and Talk Radio among them.
Now the band are on the best of terms, he says.
“We don't need each other so, we get along really well. And since we had band therapy, we understand what our differences are all about. They're not about ego. They're not about jealousy. They're not about Satan worship.
"And so as long as we're not playing music together, we get along really well because of the shared adventures that we had. It's kind of a sibling relationship.”
Stewart Copeland’s one-man show is playing the Opera House, Wellington 20 January and the Bruce Mason Centre, 21 January.
