The Stewart Copeland Interview

can steuart see himself real fast no I already saw myself I'm just talking okay the shot all so steuart I don't uh do interviews I do conversations yes very sophisticated that's I I realize that because I don't really prepare ever and even though I do have some questions that I want to ask you about uh things that I've thought about for since I got the worst sunburn in my life at Hollander stadium in Rochester watching the police in July of 1983 maybe it was and I'm going to have to interrupt you by your opening statement there got me going I'm afraid that was too inspiring an opening statement I don't do interviews I do conversations you know I don't bang [ __ ] I play music I was just saying to you that the police never broke up according to sting and but yet you have the perfect touched by that you made these five amazing records and then right at the height of your career stop playing who does that it was great that we never saw the other side of the parabola you know the inevitable decline on the other end which uh is very rare because there's usually one more record and we were surrounded by everybody who thought we should make another record of course there was nobody who didn't think it would be a great idea to make another record except for well two guys and looking back I'm very grateful that we actually got as many as Five albums because really it was over after the third album after Zenyatta mondata which was the first time the tension within the band started to appear uh and then when we went to monserat for ghost in the machine our fourth album it was hell on Earth I never thought we'd get to another record because I could see I didn't understand it but I could see it and it wasn't until decades later in band therapy that we figured out what the problem was which was that we make music for different reasons music has a different function in our lives we go about thinking about music in different ways we make it by different means it has you know when we were young and codependent and we needed each other we were inspired by our differences and uh you know when we sting would pull out a song and we'd leap on and he'd say oh gosh you guys like my song cool okay you want to change the [ __ ] up the Rhythm okay you know but then after he'd written a string of hits one after the other and he' learned cuz he was the novice at first andy'd been in every studio in the world i' had recorded a few albums do a thing or two thing it was his first band in a studio properly uh so at first he was very appreciative of our appreciation but then after a while he learned he's a quick study and he by the time of the third album he knew how to not only record an album but how to arrange a pop song Perfectly and the next two albums he's even getting better at it and more affirmed as a hit songwriter and it became less and less easy for him to compromise because he doesn't just write a melody and a lyric he writes the whole damn thing with the drum part everything in a perfect creation that he has in his mind um that's just no fun for the drummer would he bring in demos eventually bring Platinum demos when we when we heard the demo of Every Breath You of don't every little thing she does magic it was a hit yeah it was a hit already um but that's no fun for us so the conflict was that he has it perfect in his mind any deviation from from the perfectit in his mind uh which didn't involve any of my [ __ ] uh was a real problem for him and he struggled with it and the struggle from my end was having somebody with such a implacable play it like this [ __ ] off you play your bass and sing your damn song I got this turn the [ __ ] around that was my perspective but for his perspective the prod the writer of those songs it just became why do these kettin not see the perfect vision that I have what's the matter with you steuart do you not understand genius and believe me I do understand genius but I also got something to say uh so that's the conflict was it's I'm not a good session player even if I had been less egotistical and less accepting of the genius that he brought to us so generously even I'm I don't play anything the same twice I have a I'm a terrible session player I don't remember the arrangement I don't remember what we you know you you want me to what what was that this I don't know I just bang [ __ ] uh and it's just with the best of intentions difficult for us to work together how long do you work on the songs before you record them 20 minutes right I mean you go through them a couple times and then you hit record right well actually uh sting was very clever he would reveal his songs on an as needed basis okay now I'd come to the studio because he he insisted we I you know you better guys better not come empty-handed he had no intention of playing any of our songs he just wanted us at home doing our homework to show and and I did my best I'm not a great songwriter I've you know eak out a career in a career in every other kind of music except for pop songs but I would struggle I'd bring songs that I really thought were really cool and I really wanted them to be on a police record and have my two buddies get into bombs away okay thank youing but working on my songs was no fun because I'm dragging these two guys no you really you want sure whatever you say you know no fun and then sting says I got a song and we all our ears prick and he pulls out [ __ ] you know Message in a Bottle let's play that you know and that was always just just so much more fun creative and easier until the push back came no we're going to play it like this anyway the first album we rehearsed and played and played shows with all those songs the second album we didn't have time for any of that we were touring in fact we didn't even we didn't have a complete deck of songs um and we made some of them up in the studio um or from jams that we did on stage so he would show Andy the chords you know the the fingering and they would have their heads together like that and I'm listening kind of tapping on my knees and then okay let's do a take and we'd do two or three takes and usually end up with the second T and whatever I came up with right then I hard I didn't know what the lyrics were about because he's just mumbling he's playing his bass for the thing and sort of just singing the song as a placeholder so I'm not even playing so he wouldn't even have the lyrics done oh he would have the lyrics done but he's not he's Focus he's focusing on the B I'm I'm going to expose a little trade secret of Singo here all right uh which is that his baselines are so tricky that he has to practice at home singing while playing those [ __ ] up baselines um that are contrary you know if you're going then you can sing but if it's trying to sing that's quite challenging so uh and he hadn't done that yet when we were in the studio so he was not really singing his song so I I never even when we finished the records I never listened to the lyrics I I I don't listen to lyrics I'm a banging [ __ ] guy uh we'd record it right there and whatever I came up with right there spontaneously is on the record forever and ever and ever whereas the other two guys got to spend the next two months honing you know Andy had his Les Paul he had the 68 Les Paul and the 79 Les Paul and the three different stratocasters and The Telecast F and some other guitar you never even heard of and a full Fred a stare of foot pedals he could just while sting and I are in the pool lovingly going through all of his guitarists you know and uh we'd come back and we'd take turns going into the control booth just to beat him up and sting would spend a month or weeks doing perfecting all of his vocals and everything we mostly left him alone because he knew what the [ __ ] he was doing we'd be in there just to shivy him up but mainly he knew what he was doing but it was usually one guy between them I mean the drums went down we all there they're pretending to play and I do the drums um but for the overdubs there would be one one guy in the pool one guy in the control room and one guy playing stuff so he did say to me uh when I asked him I said sting going back to something you said earlier I said sting was it easy to play the bass parts and sing and he said no I had to practice it a lot yeah because there because there uh I discovered this when one summer I went and I did a tour with a band and I had Mark King on bass Adrien blo on guitar and Mark King's drummer on drums and me at the front of the stage singing the [ __ ] and playing the chords and I just go brang and I can sing a song and brang and sing a song but anything like a baseline trying to S it's like God that's really hard and his Bly incred hard and he had to work it and that was his his admission to me and now he's obviously out in the world admitting to the world that the mighty sting actually had to do some homework on that and it's not surprising so on spirits and material world was there a demo of that song first spirits and material world was in a way written by AI okay uh very crude form of it which was that in those years Casio used to make these little keyboard players little keyboard they're that big and you could carry them in your carry-on and you could actually write music and you know they're really cool they the ones they make now are too complex at they have too many too many things on but in those days and they play little rhythm and if you hit a black key it does the minor version of it and if you hit two Black Keys it does it with a seventh okay I want to I want to play the beginning of this because now that I'm thinking I've listened to it a million times spirits in the material world is a CIO riff I okay you're this's blow my mind hold on let's listen to this [Music] oh the Baseline that's stingo yeah but that that that upbeat on it it's it's Casio oh my God so wait did he just L he wrote the song with AIO so was he he was writing it and just singing well he was inspired by it it was it was really inspiring those little riffs that they had on they were really cool yeah now he wrote a lyric of great socio political import yeah y uh that Bas line did not come from Mr Casio okay but the the inspiration insiration of the song came from him doodling on a cassia tell me how the count in is I know you've explained this before but how do you count this one two wrap up bleum one two so it's all upbeats that's what makes it very tough to play it's very few hits no crazy monstrous single stroke rolls or anything but it's very very simple but very very challenging because it's on the knife's edge there's no downbeat it's all up up up up when I play it with the orchestras and there's a keyboard player you know reading his chart they can't get it half the time uh tasset keyboards because they just can't stay up there you know and Andy found that challenging at first e he plays as sleep now but at first it was very typical and even the guitar [Music] song which is all on the down beats that's right that is so challenging and it's you know I've kind of got it together now but it for a long time that was the one oh [ __ ] we got that one I'm going to fall off the you know it's on the knife's edge of disaster so sting shows you the song you have get you get your sounds and then the sounds we've already got the sounds got the sounds okay so then it's just a couple takes and then what and then that's it and that's the drum part that lives hit the pool the combination of them being impatient me being lazy means that we only do a few takes and I'm that's not really good enough that's fine Stewart it's fine it's fine you know it's fine um but but but but now it's fine it's fine okay um so I you know I'm it was very hot in monserat so I jump in the pool while they get themselves organized and when I've cool down I come back and and we would work on all of it we you know from from there on is it true that you would stand on your snare drum to tune it as high as possible no okay you tuned your drums high that sounds really some told me that he would literally lean on the St you tun crank it up as high as possible but I well I yes the tuning up as high as possible is true yeah uh and that's to cut through and you tune your drums more like a jazz drummer you tune your times and things more like a jazz drummer higher pitch so that they have more tone and they actually jump out of the track more when the drummer is tuning his tomtom's by himself cuz every and clears the building oh [ __ ] tomt you know or for the sound check rack one doom doom doom doom doom forever okay what are you [ __ ] doing you got one fader there one t you know how long Doom okay rack two D dum dum dum it's just like the other one you know I don't do that anymore I've paid my Do's I don't have to go doom doom doom anymore right but the thing is that since this is an annoying exercise and has cleared the stage of all other musicians uh it's done without other musicians so by itself those TomTom sound monstrous do do boom okay count the band in you know they don't cut through right they have huge power depth Majesty on their own but they don't cut through and so tune them up high and without the PA they go bing bing pong but you put them through a 5 billion watt PA and they go bang boom you know they cut through let's go back to the first record roxand now when I interviewed sting I said he told me that he thought that the police had a very short window of time when you could have been successful that roxan you the first couple singles didn't do well then then some DJ started playing rock well no then Clark Kent had a hit Clark Kent had a hit I'm glad you brought that up talk about Clark Kent for a second well the police started out I called sting up in new Newcastle and said I got this banned MH uh and uh come on down to London it's all going on and gave him the the gab you know my convincing certitude and grandio schemes um and he came down okay [ __ ] I better get a guitarist I told him I had a band I and so Henry pavani was there and we start out on these crap songs that I wrote which were songs of utility they were written specifically for the punk genre uh because that was the only scene in town was the punk scene and um so I wrote all these crap punk songs I never I'm not a singer I don't know you know I never thought of that I just bang stuff and but I had I knew three chords and like that's all you needed for punk rock right so we started out with those until Andy joined and then Sting's ears pricked up and you know with Andy's great vocabulary that's when Sting's musicality began to assert itself and the Miracle as I discovered when I was compiling my Diaries to make a book out of them was that we stuck together for about a year and a half with no songs sting and I stuck together with my crap songs and him having to sing the well yell it was basically baselines with yelling uh in these Punk clubs but how you know how we survived that period of non-music I don't know well we had a bond our our playing we just fit together we lit each other up musically just from playing regardless of the material that's what kept us together so uh I had some songs that were too dumb even even for that you know I am the neatest thing that ever and so I went and recorded them myself sorry St Studio oh no I'm sorry Clark Kent this mysterious figure of unknown identity produced this music in there where he played all the instruments his godamn self piano guitar bass drums even on the microphone now this is a guy who in all of his 4,000 years in the cosmos has never sung a note he doesn't even sing in planet ziron where he grew up he doesn't even sing in the shower you know not in the car not ever anywhere um got on a mic to sing these songs and um by some miracle and by the way the police had been going for maybe two years at this point okay this is 1978 we started in 76 and rock sand had come out sank Without a Trace can't stand losing you disappeared Without a Trace there's a reason for that which is we were over in Germany um doing a gig over there uh non-p police thing yeah then so but by some miracle the BBC decided to pick up Clark Kenton play this dumb song don't care then you know they there was a secret identity nobody knew who Clark Kent was people thought it might be Frank Zappa David Bowie uh suie Quattro I don't know uh and um had a hit in fact Clark Kent went on BBC top of the pops National TV and uh because he didn't want to appear as one solo guy you know I think Clark Kent very similar to me actually in many many ways um not a not a solo guy I'm a I'm a band guy you know I like to be in a band I don't want to be one guy standing there it's Bor you know so Clark Kent brought along some friends of mine Andy and sting and Kim Turner and Floren Pilkington you know all in weird masks and gorilla masks uh to play this song on top of the pops and that was the first time any of the three blonde heads were on national TV was as Clark Kent's backing band it does bring Joy uh to my life I am a small man with small perspectives uh and uh and a small person like me does derive Joy from seeing old stingo Ming Clark Kent's Baseline so then how did Rock sand take off the Record Company had signed the police to do singles on a single by single basis and then Clark Kent came along which I released on my own label yeah Clark Kent I mean uh cryptone Records in green vinyl and it was getting played and I said I can't you know it's going to dis appear and so I took it to A&M uh and said look we're getting airplan they picked it up had it in the shops by Thursday um and so it's now a real record on a real record label with actual product being delivered to stores so that you can make you can actually achieve a chart position which it did you need a chart position to continue on um and uh so Clark Kent had this mini mini micro hit and A&M as a result of that signed the police album let's get an album out of this team it's insane okay so so roxan comes out then or becomes a huge hit well we need to sing the Praises of the record company here because they would not well it doesn't happen anymore it used to in the old times more but particularly ANM was a particularly loyal wait miles was managing you guys at the time right not yet okay miles didn't manage us until until roxan when he heard roxan in the studio this is a story that told and retold yeah when we played him all of our crap songs about half of which were mine at the time and he's going yeah yeah next next next and then we had the last one which we thought he would hate because it was like a ballad kind of thing it was sort of like not R Lama Punk we got we got one more and you know um he heard that he my God that's it he immediately tore off all of his clothes and buck necked ran down the the High Street in Leatherhead shouting Eureka um and he took it to the record company and that's when he became our manager because he could see because before then it was kind of like he had all these other bands he didn't want to appear appear nepotistic but he let me use his phones he let me use his Rolodex I he I used all kinds of resources that he had but he wasn't now was this the final version of roxan that he heard so this was this this version and he heard that he knew it was a hit and then he became your manager that's right how long before the song took off after that I seem to have a recollection there were three there was Kenan losing you so lonely and roxan the the three quasi regish ones that were those three singles and they were released one after the other and sank out of trace and then released again and I somehow have a memory that it was a third release of roxan and no in fact it was K stand losing you just after my Clark Kent hit um can't stand losing you got the airplay and and Clark Kent disappeared in the nick of time actually I have to say that that stingo was very supportive of Clark Kent and it's a weird dynamic that we didn't understand at the time but do understand now when he started you know I've written this book with all my Diaries and I've got the set lists which are in my handwriting and my crap songs and then at a certain point the set list is in his handwriting and there are a lot more of his songs and one by one his songs are on the list and mine are not on the list but in fact that made me feel secure and happy and comfortable because all the time I was dragging him and talking it up talking it up the first words he said to me were keep talking when I asked him the question look I'm calling from London I'm interested in you not your band and he said keep talking okay free agent this I can make something work here um but that's also what I had to do for the next year keep talking and keep talking up our prospects we got this happening like and just all the time and it was me blowing all the wind in the sails but when he started to take over the band and his songs that meant that he's now committed and the more leader and I'm a youngest sibling you know I'm happy with my older brother to take charge you know I'm happy to be a passenger just let me on the team and when he started to take charge I began to breathe you know because now he's committed and these are his songs and and and so we actually did have a conversation when Clark Kent was busting out he said you know I said to him look you know I'm having and he was very complimentary I now realize because it meant that he could just you take it over completely uh which he did to my great benefit okay so your brother's 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 whose decision is it the labels how did you decide things back then uh miles just uh offering brotherly advice yep 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 going to 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'd 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 in 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 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 know uh I never listened 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 cuz 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 sh minor or whatever the [ __ ] they were talking about to each other Musical and uh between the two of them 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 them 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 Phil like on um Wrapped Around Your Finger un 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 chorus 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 worst casual to you 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 syn one the one that goes okay now that's a a pattern yeah 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 let me play that so that people [Music] know it's always slower than I think it is my memory of the song is much faster than that probably CU I used to speed up every night one bre one flow you will know synr is very demanding this song has to be it's not it all has to be right every eth note every 16th note has to be hard every and same on the base too that base it's not just his right hand [ __ ] the S it's the left hand dampening the string he playing Stato cuz he's killing the notes stopping them with his left hand as [Music] well there so much just the Baseline there so you got so much stuff going on within that [Applause] and by the way son of a [ __ ] was playing he was playing with a pleum in those days too then he switched over to using his fingers because that's what the Jazz cats do and was that during the we 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 song 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 Damned then several other crap English punk bands for 2 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 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 cuz he didn't want anyone in the band to know that he actually gave a [ __ ] about his instrument and was 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 critics the critics wrote us off as Carpet Baggers which was true but the the players would come and cop our chops right 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 he 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 what was the Jean rousel French Canadian musician and um they created this track in the studio that was like a a hit and um his arm was twisted probably by Miles okay who would have heard the song yep he wouldn't have played it for Andy and me yeah uh because he had Miles 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 oh 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 uh 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 box drum box yeah yeah and so we tried the punk version we tried the reggae version we tried this 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 with 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 he's standing and uh that was one take right there uh with him standing over me saying okay chorus you know and him kind of flagging the changes and me in a you know over caffeinated Grump um to demonstrate this ain't going to work uh and it kind of did now it actually starts with you [Music] here well he had a account in [Music] okayed to the feelings I for in my heart this doesn't quite work on stage like this we had to Mo to make it work on [Music] stage slam folks love that [ __ ] there's one drum fill in here one of the choruses when there's two CH together that people kill me if I don't play it just like that and I don't play anything the same ever no there's so many drum hooks in this song but that one drum hook I actually try and play that because Jeff my tech tells me dude please please please one of the ones at the end [Music] [Music] right oh you have to play that that is such a h and that's the only one that I play like the record everything else you get what you get I was once talking to Neil p and expressing my envy that he has the air drummers you know in a rush gig every drum Philly does the arms come up and everybody in the arena plays the air drum right along with him I said dude come on I want that how do you get how how did how do you get that he said well you got to play it the same way every night and so they know it and they can play along with you I go okay I guess I will have to forego that pleasure because I ain't playing it the same way every night you did one pass on that and that's the drum take on this that's the well so many of the tracks yeah there was another track uh murdered by numbers this one here at least when I played it in one take I had played the song this way that way you know I sort of knew the structure of the song at least cuz that didn't change whether we did it fast slow whatever it was always Verse Chorus in that same kind of running order of events um Murder By Numbers arose one evening after dinner and we're uh doing our dessert and Andy pulls out his guitar and he's playing his Jazz chords uh and uh Doris loves a Singo loves Jazz chorus chords and his ears prick up and he say you know I've got a I got a lyric that might fit that and so he goes and gets out his book and the two of them they're at the end of the table you know uh jazz jazz and things got this lyrics uh and they're working on it like that oh let's do a take so they walk downstairs where the dining room is a separate building and they walk downstairs back into the main studio and my drums are at the other end of the dining room because the sound was really good in there this big cavernous wooden Hall and the drums were down the other end so I walk over the drums and I'm sort of got what they were doing and I because I knew that they're gonna want me you know and so I got to I had to I had to circumvent that I I have to get there for I'm playing this Rhythm like that still trying to figure out like that they arrive meanwhile they arrive down in the studio and I'm already coming through the speakers because I'm all miked up and it's all there and they Hugh hits record on the machine and the machine kicks I'm already playing I'm already in progress and um the tape's going around and they just pick it up and play the song down then we play the whole and that is the record that's the take that's the take that's the record and then he of course he spent six months redoing the vocals and everything else but the the back backing track I possibly even some of the guitar and bass 2 might be from that original pass when you guys mixed records back then how long would you take to do it and how much input would you have would you sit there and and listen down to mixes was the band there interested in stuff like that by the time we got to the mix I think we didn't struggle over the mix because Andy and sting both like to hear big drums yeah um and as long as you could hear Sting's lyric and Andy had such a complexity of there's only three of us yeah so none of us felt like we were being under miixed or you know we we mixing was the easiest part but um before animation uh automation ride uh used to be a manual process where you've spent your time putting all filling all the tracks with stuff there's the the the mix where okay the bass is this this loud gets the drums are that loud and we get everything sort of sounding right like that but then when it comes to the guitar Soul the guitar needs to go up a little bit right um and in the chorus the drums a little bit like okay we go back drums need to come back a little bit for the verse or the first part of the thing we establishing the rift drum but you know there's there's Chang who would do that would you actually be involved the band does that okay there's four of us there's you're standing's the engineer yeah and three guys in the band yeah and I get the guitar faders Andy gets the drum faders and somebody else gets the you know not you know so nobody gets their own faders okay you know for that drum feel yeah no let's have the guitarist do the drum faders and have the drummer do the guitar faders you know for the for the solo yes I I can hear Andy Andy you can hear it for some Reon you know I don't recall any big battles over the mix years later there was a big battle over the mix which was when we tried to redo one of our songs out of the blue sting had this crazy idea to re-record all of our hits now that we now that he sings better now and you've got better technology let's let's do them all right this time sure whatever I think we'd even broken up by that point um and I don't know where that idea came from wait was this in ' 86 with don't stand so close to me yeah don't stand so close to me uh you broken your arm or something the week previously a few days before we were going to go in the studio I was in a game Polo game My Horse did a somersault uh I was obliged to Dismount landing on my shoulder and uh broke a collarbone so I couldn't actually physically play so I had my falite music computer yep and stingo had his s clavio sin clavia music computer right next to each other in the studio The Duel of the computer and it had to be programmed cuz I couldn't play so I had to program it and we had the hu a two we fight I can't believe it how can two weeks go by where he wouldn't come in the studio if I was in there and I'm coming in so dude you know uh and uh when I'd leave the studio he would exchange the sample of my snare drum for some store-bought fatback crap you know and we went back and forth over the sample of the snare Dr sample and I did and I to this day maintain that okay that's my instrument I shall choose which sample of my instrument we will use on this record and you could choose your base sample you know or play it your damn self whatever but this tiny little patch here uh I it wasn't so much that it was my patch it say that's a crap standard sound that reduces the police to sounding like [ __ ] every other band I mean it was a really boring sound and from his point of view it had less cut and therefore conflicted with the purity of his vocal sound it was less intrusive but my life is about intrusion my purpose on the planet is to intrude uh and so there's this philosophical difference I suppose which dignifies this stupid argument over which snare drum sample we're going to use um he thinks he prevailed and I'm positive I prevailed I tell you why I know I prevailed CU I've got the protool session right over there I that track and play it for you if you like that's the only song you did then of this idea of well it all fell apart we were at each other's throats and and uh and it came okay well now we got to mix it and two week you know and he would say I'm not going down to Ste Stuart's goingon to well I'm going to be there okay did you and sting have fist fights like we used to hear about never never never never never there was one unfortunate this one you must have oh no no we did have fights but not in Anger only when we were laughing and I broke his rib one time when we were laughing so hard uh this is on stage at sha Stadium we're digressing from the story there but yeah [ __ ] it let's digress so we're there on at sha Stadium which for an English band is very symbolic England conquers America just like it's like the Beatles Beatles yeah uh let's not mention Jeth rall and all the other English bands that played there them the police and the Beatles uh and so we're there and all the British Paparazzi are there and it's a big day for England England once again conquers America and so uh your soundcheck and we're all having a great time and we're there you know like the monkeys were taking pictures and and sting you know I'm holding my New York sting grabs my New York Times like [ __ ] give me so we end up in a tug of war with my New York Times and we're fighting give me G down finally you know I finally had to apply a knee to his chest to get my [ __ ] newspaper back godamn it uh and we're both laughing hysterically by the way and they oh [ __ ] [ __ ] cop godamn it you always overdo it uh ouch ouch ouch okay and I got my paperback it was kind unreadable by by this time I got this tattered rag uh and um we played one of the best shows we ever played that night uh just the stars were out Joan Jet came out and killed it uh I forget you know the other bands it was just a magic night just building to Crescendo um next day he's still feeling something like that and he gets an x-ray and he's got a herline crack in his rib my God so the legend that we used to fight all the time one time sting [ __ ] Brook Stewart's rib wait a minute it was the other way round I broke his rib for one thing I wish they would get these [ __ ] wrong M okay no we never fought uh in in inest okay so steuart hold on we had psychological weapons that were much more devastating I've seen the I've seen arguments on on you know Instagram or whatever with you and S about stuff there's one recorded argument which was in the documentary that went with our reunion tour mhm uh where and we're we're laughing it's a joke we're having fun you know those two would always gang up on me and they'd have to because there's [ __ ] two of them and they're little guy you know what are they G they need two of them to gang up on me and uh our our rep Ry is always the same sort of thing that I just bang [ __ ] and they're actual musicians and they condescend to turn around to me and say F SHP Miner Stuart I know you don't know what I'm talking about but you know and um that's just our Jam okay Hugh padum when you start working with him so you you did the first three records with Nigel gray then you did the last two records with with Hugh what was the difference when you went to Hugh to do those last two records what was the what was the idea in doing that and changing Nigel was going through a tough period of his life MH and was not quite uh in focus and Miles persuaded us to upgrade to an engineer who really knew his stuff had recorded Genesis and all these hits with just a Immaculate sound and we thought you know that would be kind of cool to have that Immaculate sound and so we went into the studio with um with h padum and indeed he knows where to put the microphone that guy and just suddenly our sound had more Sparkle and more pres there are those who say they preferred the earlier sound that's always going to be the case it's inevitable uh but he really did get an extra Sonic Dimension out of the band I feel badly for what the police did to that poor guy I mean he's a gentleman himself he's used to working with calm di musicians who know what they're doing and are respectful of each other Genesis are the best people you know they're just good quality human beings unlike our unlike our band three [ __ ] um and he had to he just it was hard for him to just be in the room with all this stuff and for us it's just a normal you know it's it's a normal Tuesday um and so that was tough for him but he did get a really great sound out of us okay so is there anything specific that you that he did differently that you I mean you know things about micing for example you have microphones all over the place I'm looking under here I see microphones everywhere and yeah every square yard of this room there's microphones everywhere did you know anything I open a template hit record and every square foot is in record did you know a lot about record recording even though he had made many records back then yeah okay what did he do differently couple things okay uh he introduced us to the Ambient sound okay which is where you have two nyans at the other end of the big wooden room and by the way it was his idea to get the drums out of a booth yeah where it's just sterile and then you add stuff to it he said let's have a sound that has its stuff already in inherent and so he put the drums up in the dining room this w where did you do synchronicity where was that this is in monserat in monserat okay on the air studios in monserat yeah and he had this idea of putting the drums up there now couple things one is for band cohesion it was hell right for sound it was fantastic but that's what that's what Hugh's thing was about sound you know it's not on his job descriptions act not as part of his contract to be dealing with three [ __ ] at each other's throats that wasn't supposed to be his problem but it's what he was was faced with so his perfectly sensible idea of putting the drums where they sound best meant that I'm up there alone and I've got a TV monitor focused on the control room okay and all I can see I can't hear what they're saying I can just see Guy guys how is that take let's do another one uh any any nothing okay and um rolling and I so I had no contact with the other two guys who were kind of Faking it anyway because they knew they were going to redo their parts uh so that did not help the atmosphere but that was a sacrifice that was made to get a great sound which we indeed got a great sound from having the drums up there but it was weird um for me and it just cut me off from the band um and so they could Grumble you know a common police scenario is two of the guys bitching about the third guy who's not present any combination you like it's either sting and me going on at Andy or Andy and me going on at sting or those two of course got plenty to say about that [ __ ] on the drums when you would finish a record like that record for example would you listen down to it all in the studio or would you realize that this was this masterpiece these records were were great or or do you just not have any perspective because you're involved I'm pretty sure that even though we fought like hell to make the records that we all were pretty proud of them yeah that even stingo didn't get what he conceived of and his original idea of the song uh I think he was happy enough with the result uh I was you know I didn't get everything I wanted and if I had it probably wouldn't have been as good do you ever listen back and do can you remember these things if you listen to these songs when I play them do you remember the um some of them not all of them on this song whose idea was it to have the delay on the high hat mine okay um one day in New York we got a phone call guys the money has dropped you are now three very wealthy young men we were in New York City we went straight down to 57th Street to Manny's music store and bought everything in the store including that Strater that Roland that uh um so literally things in this room you bought in that day yeah one of them was that Roland space Echo does it still work uh probably I I've out I've got there's an app for that they do they have those and but I love looking at it dub reggae was a thing on the punk circuit M little digression here Don lets who was a DJ had to play chill at at the punk clubs but there's no chilled Punk doesn't exist exist you know it's it's a can't um so he would play hostile dub reggae which was chill but suitably hostile and what dub is is where they would have a perfectly good track but then suddenly they would take out the drums and it's just the guitar chick chick chick chick and then they'd have a snare ja with a rever you know with a delay line on it an echo and they would play do all kinds of trick with tracks opening up and then cutting out and just to take all the drums or all the drums come in for one beat with an echo on it b b b and they would have these rhythms created by The Echoes and which is great to listen to but obviously you can't do that live um well that day at Manny's our gig that night was on Long Island a place called My Father's Place it was the sound check from hell where we've all got our new toys in the crew trying to get a sound out think but Sting's got his Taurus pedals and Andy's got his gizm matronics uh and we're all playing with our new toys and I had my echo box and you know the drums I already had my drum all all the toys that I bought were not drum toys they were guitar Toys MH including the space Echo but I got Jeff give me give me give me a microphone let me put this on the snare Dr see if I can do some Dub here you know B and I found that I could create Rhythm playing on the Echo and I would create all kinds of rhythms from the Echo and then we put it on the kick and you create these cool rhythms playing against the echo on Kick and snare and high hand uh so we were doing that live quite a bit by the second album uh like track like um rard a Blanc yeah uh starts off with that echo on the snare drum yeah yeah or walking on the moon how's that delay line delay line is a technical word for an Echo yeah um single repeat Echo and um so that's where it came from was came from that afternoon at Manny's uh and we figured and we did it live a lot um and in the studio so that's where the echo in Walking on the Moon came from so Stuart when you get that when you get that call that you have this money to do that this is interesting that you and you happen to be in New York we been in Mak Georgia we would have bought a lot of peans and that's just things like that turn into to ideas on records that money money money solves everything what did that idea for walking on the movie money are there any parts you listen to now or if something comes on you just kind of accept the songs as they are or is there anything that ever bugs you Message in a Bottle okay the end of Message in a Bottle you see Andy was quality control okay he would say say we're all having fine time and say nope not good enough what the [ __ ] it's not good enough okay and we would dig deeper and sure enough come up with something better and um but Andy must have been out on the pool when I added the overdubs at the end of Message in a Bottle perfectly good outro sting used to love to sing from for my taste they went on too long you know sending out an SOS sending out sending out sending out and I'm taking it higher and I only go so much higher so I figured I'll add like these crashes and things you you know on top of a perfectly good drum thing they suck they totally the track's going great Until the End fade out there where these crap overdubs ruin the track and where was where was Andy when I needed it no they don't really ruin the track because you've the the track the the whole body of the track you have until then well I don't listen to the rest of the track I'm only listening to my [ __ ] okay anything else that bothers you if I like the song better I would redo Wrapped Around Your Finger but I you what don't you like about that song It's a Beautiful song Oh I take it personally okay because now I am the master well [ __ ] off [ __ ] and I say this with great love and admiration in my heart before you had left the police you had started film scoring right isn't that true no God the difference going from the rat pit yeah to the loving Embrace of Francis Ford Copa rumblefish is that I went straight from Toronto we were mixing whichever album it was yeah and just this toxic atmosphere that we created amongst ourselves um you know the police was like a Prada suit made out of razor blades okay um and to escape from there to go over to San Rafael California well actually up to you know Napa Valley where he had his house and you know to meet with Francis and get started on the ideas for this music and then go into a studio there by myself and just play music for the love of music no negotiation no insult no that's crap no anything and then Francis would come down and say that's really great carry on and oh man just the beautiful musical atmosphere I had forgotten the love of Music in a way you know playing on stage with those two guys was always an uplift cuz they're [ __ ] you know and in the studio different story because there's no audience there's no live adrenaline it's you know it's just but the inspiration of working on my first film score in contrast with working on a police record meant that I was easily persuadable that there was a better life outside this band where do you come up with new ideas you've been you've been film scoring for years no I haven't actually I've been not film scoring for almost 20 years is that right yeah I do the same job uh for a lot less pay it's called Opera I've written seven operas okay uh one of which is a hit in Italy uh it's going back up got three more Productions of it and that's a hit getting a second production of something is a a hit and before that for the deuts National Theater very pucka for the Royal Opera that's what I do now which is music telling a story which is as I did as film composing but I haven't got Jeffrey kenberg breathing down my neck and uh I love directors hate Studios um and that rat race of the film composing world I am so gone from that now the business model of Opera is to lose money to do cool isn't that the business model of the music business nowadays I don't know what the they don't have a business model and I'm my heart bleeds for those record companies uh but it's about doing something really cool and interesting and for for me an opera theater an opera company is a building where that has a stage and a pit for an or and they have an orchestra sitting there and all these singers they have all these resources of talent and build you know hard stuff like the building the stage the lights just for the purpose of doing something really cool and telling a story with music now there's a style of music that goes along with Opera which is a is a turn off for many people I myself have drunk the Kool-Aid uh so I I love that Opera style but really it's not about the style that exists it's not about Pini and Verde and Vagner it's about those resources which I can use to create my own version of Opera um and use those resources so that's where I live and work these days uh it's uh the pay is nearly as good as film composing in fact I don't know take off a couple of zeros at least but that's not the point uh the point is to be doing something really rewarding and cool with people who are everybody who has a has a say in this is in the room there isn't some studio somewhere and how many times have I been scoring a film with the director I get along great with directors I love directors you know the film composer is a Craftsman not an artist the Craftsman serves the artistic vision of the director love it Oliver Stone Francis Copo whatever whoever it is they're always really interesting people love it it's the studio who comes down says no we've decided that this isn't a war movie it's it's a ro it's a romantic comedy uh okay and the director's going I don't know what to say man but they the bosses want you know and um that's very common and it it really the the work I always love the work but the business of it was just you know Soul destroying when you did the police reunion what was it 2007 2008 7 s and8 when you walked off stage was there was there a moment after the last show that you knew okay this is the last time I'll be on stage with the police did you think that or no or do you think that there that you guys will ever be on stage again playing the last few shows stingo and I would count we we'd meet up okay how many how many more 12 more you know how many more hours and minutes are we stuck with each other on stage and we were getting because we had on good well that time right by that time I I was able to reassure him dude we're not making an album yeah I know that everyone around us is hoping we'll make an I know that that's that you haven't got songs for the police and you if you have songs they're not for you know dude I will buy your album but let's give ourselves a day off here so you don't need to worry about that we're good we got to play until this show here and we're fine let's just enjoy it and he did and he loosened up I loosened up we you know we still had those things that drove him nuts you know in the middle of the set but they didn't bother him so much because he knew that it was we we both knew it's finite and we would count count down the hours and minutes till the last show and coming off stage Madison Square Garden after our last show it was just the warmest heart you know we just it was a wonderful thing we' done it we achieved it sting you're a [ __ ] have a great life well steuart if there was ever a band that had a perfect career minus all the arguments and everything to me it was I've see these other bands that get along so well you know fish God they're all great friends rush they hang out together that hey you know you know Getty what are you doing tonight let's let's grab a movie that is so not police world but you guys made these amazing records in this short period of time and you got out at the top and there's that's got to be satisfying it is it is because we can all be proud of what we did and we all good lives without all that and we get along fine we send each other dumb Instagram Clips well I've now interviewed all three members of the police and this has um really been amazing I really appreciate you making the time today Stuart this is fantastic thank you so much well thanks for listening

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 1,264,988

Keywords: rick beato, everything music, rick, beato, music, music theory, music production, education, stewart copeland, andy summers, sting, the police, synchronicity, ghost in the machine, zenyatta mondatta, outlandos d'amour, Reggatta de blanc, Wrapped around your finger, message in a bottle, roxanne, casio, Spirits in the material world, walking on the moon, murder by numbers, rumble fish, francis ford coppola, Klark kent, every breath you take, Bombs away, miss gradenko

Id: XIJkRhd1CTY

Length: 62min 16sec (3736 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 27 2024