SECRET POLICE
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◄ 'Punky-Reggae Party' : Thank You The Clash ! ►
Gert : Let’s talk about Miles now, was it always easy to have your own brother as the manager of The Police and did that change your relationship with him ?
Stewart Copeland : What it meant was that I continue to have relationship. Most brothers and sisiters they become adults and they don’t see so much of their seedlings anymore, but because my brothers Miles and Ian are in the same bussiness, we see a lot of each other. So it somehow changed the relationship as much as maintained it.
Gert : When you were young was your elder brother and idol for you ? it is often the case
Stewart Copeland : Mostly Ian. Miles was too far away in age. I’m the youngest and the next brother up, Ian, he was always my big idol. He was the big motorcycle thief in Beruit; “leader of the pack”.
Gert : At the beginning of The Police, it was really your band : you were the drummer, the manager, the record company ! You even did promote the band with different techniques, funny ones sometimes...
Stewart Copeland : All kinds of things we did, I used to write letters to the newspapers, we used to spray the name around the city but The Police in 1977-78 were very un-hip because the critics knew that I have played in Curved Air, which was absolutely the opposite of punk. They knew that just only a few weeks before I had long hair. And they knew that The Police were basically fake punks, which we were it’s true. You know, Sting came from a jazz band and we just cut our hairs and played punk music just as a way of gaining in to this new scene. And what was excited about this new scene was the wild enthusiasm of the audience. Punk music didn’t do that much for us but it was a flag of convenience.
Gert : But there was one real punk in the band : the french Henri Padovani.
Stewart Copeland : Yeah, so we fired him ! He has done very well in a bussiness since, I don’t know if you know, he worked for Miles, he has run his europeen section. He’s living a very good life, he lives in Paris and I think it worked out very well for him. I’m still in touch with him.
Gert : You have told on a radio show that you were the first in the band do discover Bob Marley’s music and that Sting became fond of the song ‘Lively Up Yourself’ after borrowing your LPs for a christmas party.
Stewart Copeland : That’s right.
Gert : Did you decide all together to include this new sound in your music at this very moment ?
Stewart Copeland : No, we stole the idea from The Clash ! Well from all the other punk groups, because at the punk clubs they would play punk music, but you can’t play that kind of music all night without everybody getting headache, even punks. So they had to like have some variety of energy levels, but they is no such things as mellow punk, and they would alternate the punk music with reggae, particularly dub reggae. This guided all the punk band thinking “damn, we should try to play that stuff”. But none were very good at it. The clash were not very good at it. They did have the idea first, to try that, but we just were better at it than anyone else ! We were better just about everything than anyone else because we were real musicians. The Clash, The Damned, The Sex Pistols and all of those groups had great charisma and a great enthusiasm, which is pretty much what rock & roll is all about, but we could actually play our instruments very well. There was an edge as far as being able to play things, but in fact it was bad for us, for our image, because everyone could see we were too clever, we were 2 years older than all the real punks, and too professional. So the critics didn’t like us, but all the members of the bands, Dave Vanion (?), Steve Jazz, these guys would all come to our gigs to learn ! We were the only band that actually had lick. So they would all steal lick from us but the critics hated us.
Gert : What was the first reggae-look-alike song you did ?
Stewart Copeland : So lonely and then Roxanne and I Can’t Stand Losing You, those three came at about the same time.
Gert : My opinion is that you are mostly responsible of the real Police sound...
Stewart Copeland : Of course, yes !
Gert : and people should aknowledge it.
Stewart Copeland : yeah, they should...
Gert : I mean, nowadays, when Sting plays Police songs with his guitarist Dominic Miller, who can in a way be considered as an Andy Summers clone, this doesn’t sounds like The Police ! Something is still missing. Do you agree with me ?
Stewart Copeland : I do agree and I would prefer if Sting plays... cause when Sting plays Roxanne by himself with his acoustic guitar, it’s beautiful ! Sting plays better guitar than either Dominic Miller or Andy Summers. And it’s not because of his chop. Andy’s got the chops but Sting’s got the unique atmosphere. He can pretty much pick up any instrument and make beautiful music out of it. It’s a talent thing.
Gert : Coming back to Bob Marley for a second, what do you think about his music today ? Do you still love it ?
Stewart Copeland : Yes I do. I don’t listen to it as much as I did back then, but I still have great respect for him.
Gert : Have you ever met him ?
Stewart Copeland : Yes I did, well I mean not really... after the show, in his dressing room. You meet out so many people in show bussiness, but it’s not a real meeting, you know ? “I love your music” and so on, it doesn’t really count. I’m not really impressed by music celebrities, for me, to meet Madeleine Alwbright would be more exciting than meeting Bob Marley. He had a huge charisma but also people like that, paricularly reggae guys are on their own plane. With Marley it was sort of like meeting the Pope, he was onto his own thing, you know... It was not like : “hey Bob, what’s going on, man ?”. I kind of not like that with him.
Gert : In the early years of The Police, I know that you played support to a famous reggae band, Steel Pulse. What did they think about your music at that time ?
Stewart Copeland : Hum..... Well they never said anything bad about it. I know that whenever I run into Sly and Robbie, we get along great. But that doesn’t mean anything. It could be just as easy behind my back they say “ah, they rip us all off. But we didn’t rip them off completely ! We were inspired... The people that we riped off were The Clash.that had the idea of doing reggae. But Roxanne is not Reggae. We didn’t get those licks from anybody, we came up with that arrangement. The rythm is not a reggae rythm really. We just changed the rythm back to front. So I think the reason why we got such respect from the reggae players is because we didn’t just do it like them. We added something to it as well. Now there’s a couple of reggae tribute album to The Police and they are all playng in !
Gert : Did you enjoy those 2 reggae Police tribute albums (Reggatta Mondatta 1 & 2 – Ark 21) ?
Stewart Copeland : I prefer the Police versions actually. But the spanish tribute album (Outlandos d’Americas) is very good ! Those are really cool arrangements. And I have never even heard of any of these artists but that was more interesting to me. Andy Summers and I were going to do a tour with those guys and I’m glad it didn’t work because it would have looked kind of strange.
Gert : Was this tour your idea or Miles one ?
Stewart Copeland : I always want to tour. Sting and Andy are always touring so it does have no appeal for them. Playing Police songs without Sting, I don’t care, I didn’t then. I think now looking back it would have look bad. But I don’t really care about that , you know. I just like to play and as long that it’s a big stage, and I got to go back to nice hotels, and travelling on nice style... that’s all I care about, you know. I’m trying to tell Sting now that we should do a Police tour and give all the money away and spill the hospitals, or schools or something like that. The reason why I like doing those kind of shows or want to do a police tour is not because I need the money, it’s just because it’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s a great band.
Gert : And many people wait for that moment for so many years !
Stewart Copeland : Sting feels that it would be a cop-out, that people would think we are just doing it for the money, they would desperate or something... That’s not it at all, I’m desperate to play with the band because I’m too lazy to form a new band. I’m too busy, I’ve got a really good career going on.
There is two very distinctive aspects in a reunion tour. One is that the fans love it ! The critics – and that what the musicians care about – say it’s wrong. Elton John once said to Sting “what do you want to do that for ?” ; those are the peers you know ! No one would say to Mick Jagger “what do you want to do that for?” because there is nothing else he could do. Sting is very different to Mick Jagger. There is nothing else Jagger could do. He has done solo albums it has disappear without a trace. Sting is a substencial artist on his own and he doesn’t need anybody. So there is no artistic reason for Sting to play with The Police.
Gert : That’s maybe why he didn’t say publicly that he was leaving the band, because he wasn’t sure that he was going to be succesful on his own ?
Stewart Copeland : No, he was not afraid. When we broke up The Police I thought “ok, let’s take two years off”, and I was wrong about that ! For Sting it was finished. He worked like a son of a bitch to make is own career happen. He worked much harder than he ever did in The Police cause he had to do it all. That’s where that stands.
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