Stewart Copeland Opens Up About Sting’s Songwriting

okay so your brother is managing the band your brother miles is managing the band is Miles saying these are the songs I think we should do or is it who decision is the labels how did you decide things back then uh miles just uh offering brotherly advice y uh he was very generous in that way um he just couldn't appear to be promoting his brother rather than Chelsea and squeeze and all these other bands that he had going on and he just said well that's crap uh that's crap but it has you know it's Brey and it has I don't give a who's who's that I don't care it's crap uh no one's GNA like that um and so he got rid of tracks and then the Gap soon to be filled by Superior material coming from one Gordon summer uh and he never told us what tracks we should put on but he was very good at picking the hit the single now that should be the single and he was in dispute very often with not just the police but with the Bengals with the Goos with you know all of the different groups what's the single and they would insist on their version and he didn't pick a fight because that would be their excuse to not promote it so they' let them have the choice of the first single whatever would happen but then his he gets the second choice and that would be the hit many times that happened he had better ears than the record company okay so let the label do their thing so that they're happy because if you argue with them they'll shove your record well not so much shelv it is that's well you didn't listen to us yeah you know just kind of gives them an excuse a get out out you know whereas if you go with their idea they're more committed to making that work Stuart you don't know any of the police lyrics I do now uh I never listen to them the day you know I'm just banging the and all I ever see is the back of his head if I see the front of his head that's not a good thing no because he's you usually turning around to yell at me for something uh and so um I prefer the back of his head when we're on stage um that means systems are go we're all good um and so no I never listen to lyrics but years later I took some of those songs and orchestrated them and created a show called police deranged for orchestra where I have three Soul Sisters on the mic singing the lyrics and to organize them and to do the arrangements I discovered two things Andy was a with those voicings the chords and the stuff that he you know I saw them with their heads together mumbling F minor or whatever the they were talking about to each other Musical and between the two of those guitar parts have such harmonic complexity yes and Andy did do the voicing um which is big part of it so I came to really appreciate Andy's contribution musically but also I had my nose rubbed in those lyrics oh that's what he's singing about that's kind of cool I get it I never I never really bothered with them at the time but years later I did have to come to the realization and don't tell him I said this but that fucker's a genius I used to say about your drumming that you are the master of the non-fill fill like on um Wrapped Around Your Finger on Wrapped Around Your Finger when it goes into like the first course flam and that's it a lot of times you'll use just the simplest thing to announce the chorus or not or not in that song particularly I didn't know anything where's the verse where's the course I don't know they're just grooving away there and then it's some you know something's changed and so I think I'd do that flam one bar late and then we cut the tape to put it in the right place but I mean I didn't know the song that's the one the the worst casualty of me not knowing what's what are we doing here and I'm just playing something and there was this synthesizer dear de I didn't and and what I could make out of the lyric I you know I I didn't get it um at the time that's my least favorite of all the songs he wrote did you play with clicks ever no ever oh well actually no um defining the click more broadly uh some of the songs had a synthesizer pattern okay uh such as synchronicity whichever I forget synchronicity one the one that goes okay now that's a a pattern in a loop so we played to that okay and what was that synthesis by the way no we did a bunch of takes not with that okay which didn't work okay um and so we ended up doing it to the loop I'd like to take a second to talk to you about this channel this is actually Rick Bato 2 I've had it since the beginning of my main Channel and many of you are not subscribed as a matter of fact 87% of the people that watch this channel regularly are not subscribed so I encourage you to hit the Subscribe button on this channel and on my main Channel this will help me get even more of my dream guests and help continue to grow both channels thank you switched over to using his fingers because that's what the Jazz cats do and was that during the Poli had conversations about this you didn't like the sound of it right I preferred his pleum yeah and it's so uncool and it's so like white trash to use a pleum on bass very punk rock though very yeah a lot of you know song certain s you know bring on the night you cannot play that with your fingers you wrote the song and I'm telling you you can you you know that's a plum against the going up and down on the string you know this just doesn't cut it I want to ask you about every little thing she does is Magic there's a story that goes with that right there was a there was argument or what I I don't know this story but I want to know this story is this a demo that you're playing with yes uh sting probably wanted to keep that for a solo album or something it was it was at that time it was his most obvious hit song okay and I recall the first iteration of it was actually in a bus in 1970 early 1978 on the way down to the Mont de Maron Punk festival and we're on a bus with the Clash the dam and several other crap English punk bands for two days on a bus from London down to south of France to play this Festival down there what the heck of a story right there but he had this this couplet every little thing she does is magic it was sort of like a rebellion he the back of the bus with all these snarly punks and the only one he got along with was actually Paul simonon who and they were talking about bass technique you know out of earshot of uh the rest of the Clash you know because he didn't want anyone in the band to know that he actually gave a about his instrument and was talking to sting about if should your fingers be in that position oh really you know cuz all three of us had chops right and all three of us would have you know the Young Musicians would were bigger fans of the band than the the critics wrote us off as carpet beggers which was true but the the players would come and cop our chops uh and uh Paul and stingo bonded over Bas technique you know but anyhow he so he had that hook back in 1978 but his problem was as I remember him saying that what are your rhymes with magic uh pelagic uh and he figured out a way of using tragic tragic yes you know which is sort of a doesn't fit you know my life with you would be tragic is like still one of his best songs he ever wrote yeah so the song was kind of in the background forever yeah and one time uh in a hius or gap between albums he went off to Montreal and he ran into this keyboard player uh the Jean rousel French Canadian musician and um they created this track in the studio that was like a hit and um his arm was twisted probably by Miles okay who would have heard the song yeah he wouldn't have played it for Andy and me yeah because he had mes said no you put that on a police album come on pull it out pull it out and he pulls it out and we go that's a hit and we tried every which way to polici FY it because you know of course it's a hit like that but that's not the point U we're a man and so we tried to wait did it have demo drums on it or something like program had everything on it yeah okay not drum drum drum boxum box yeah yeah and so we tried the punk version we tried the reggae version we tried this but none of them everything that we did to pfy it made it less of a hit and finally um one morning uh caffeinated uh okay mother just just play me your demo just play me your demo and I'll show you how playing like a click which would amount to be playing when a click just just run your demo down you can stand here tell me when the chorus is coming up so we're both grumpy and we you know we've just been arguing okay like that and he played down this song every little thing she does is and he's standing and uh that was one take right there uh with him standing over me saying okay corus you know and him kind of flagging the changes and me in a you know over caffeinated Grump um to demonstrate how this ain't going to work uh and it kind of did

Channel: Rick Beato 2

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Id: 11WAYqWevmY

Length: 9min 19sec (559 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024