Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is drummer and composer Stuart Copeland, who
Speaker 1: has a new book, Police Diaries. Why a book? Why now, Stuart?
Speaker 2: Well, these diaries have been sitting in my drawer right here.
Speaker 2: And I did a book before of all my adventures
Speaker 2: after the police, and I discovered something very surprising, shocking
Speaker 2: in fact, that nobody could care less about my life
Speaker 2: after the police, no matter how amazing the adventures that
Speaker 2: I had with royalty, with fine arts, with world travel,
Speaker 2: you know, arrested a night in jail and Zaire who cares.
Speaker 1: Way wait wait wait wait, wait wait wait, stop for
Speaker 1: a second, tell us about being arrested and spending a
Speaker 1: night in jail and Zayir Well, I was.
Speaker 2: Making a movie, a documentary and kind of on a
Speaker 2: shoe string budget, crossing Africa looking for the origins of
Speaker 2: American music. And by the way, I was looking in
Speaker 2: the wrong place. The origins of American music are New Orleans, Louisiana.
Speaker 2: That's a whole nother rant about the origins of America's
Speaker 2: most important and significant artistic and cultural feature. Another rant. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: I'm there crossing Africa, and I pull into Kinshasa and
Speaker 2: on my way across the Congo River into Brazaville and
Speaker 2: I get out of Kinshasa just fine hit Brazaville and
Speaker 2: the guy says, you haven't got a Zaire and entry
Speaker 2: or exit visa, and that's a problem. And I was
Speaker 2: with my director J. P. Douta, who is like the
Speaker 2: genuine article Indiana Jones, man of the Jungle, and he
Speaker 2: would not reach into his pocket give the guy ten bucks,
Speaker 2: you know. Anyhow, they put us on a boat back
Speaker 2: over to Zaire, back across the crocodile and fested, fast
Speaker 2: flowing Congo River that separates these two halves of Congo.
Speaker 2: And we got back to Kinshasa and a guy's there
Speaker 2: and he's surrounded by people and everybody's you know, there's
Speaker 2: not like a line or stand behind. Everybody's there throwing
Speaker 2: their passports in his face, trying to get his attention.
Speaker 2: And he plucks one, looks at it, Ah, that's a problem,
Speaker 2: hands it back and he sees, you know, us two there,
Speaker 2: the American and the Belgian, and he looks at them
Speaker 2: and my, my, my, Indiana. Joe's started to get a
Speaker 2: little heated and disrespectful even and so suddenly many have
Speaker 2: like that. Suddenly weird dancing cheek to cheek with the
Speaker 2: men with guns and they're frog marching us out of
Speaker 2: the building and handcuffing us to a bench and where
Speaker 2: we go, oh, well this is a fine how do
Speaker 2: you do? Uh? And the waves of humanity and we're
Speaker 2: watching boats come down the Congo River and pulling up
Speaker 2: the port where they pull the convicts off. I'm digressing
Speaker 2: a little bit here, stop me when you're bored anyhow.
Speaker 1: Well you get in jail, how long you're in jail?
Speaker 1: And how do you get out?
Speaker 2: Okay? Overnight? Uh? You know, we're chained to the bench
Speaker 2: and this is all going on eventually, you know, the
Speaker 2: sun goes down and it's getting evening and changing the
Speaker 2: guard and have we been forgotten or what? And I
Speaker 2: can hear this music coming out of the guardhouse and
Speaker 2: I sort of put my note hello, uh beau soir
Speaker 2: uh new song e? See hello? And the guy pokes
Speaker 2: his head obviously a different guy. What are you? What
Speaker 2: are you doing here? Kind of thing? Is it? Well,
Speaker 2: it's all a big mistaken Oh never mind. They took
Speaker 2: us and they took us into a building, kind of
Speaker 2: a building shed. I couldn't even give it the dignity
Speaker 2: of being a proper prison, you know, but they locked
Speaker 2: us up for the night man a few hours later,
Speaker 2: and we saw one white guy go by. You know,
Speaker 2: when you're in Africa, you one thing that strikes you
Speaker 2: about Africa. There are no black people. There are old people,
Speaker 2: young people, tall people, fat people, skinny people, colorful, rich, poor, whatever.
Speaker 2: The blackness just you don't see that anymore until you're
Speaker 2: in that situation. One white guy goes by, you see
Speaker 2: one white person, and that person saw us and notified
Speaker 2: the Belgian ambassador and who showed up with beer for
Speaker 2: the guards and cool things out. We had to spend
Speaker 2: the night because Ahab is going to be back in
Speaker 2: the morning and we don't want to mess with you know. Hey, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was sort of bribery. Took care of it next morning.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry about a little misunderstanding. We were back of
Speaker 2: the boat up to over the bridge, to over the
Speaker 2: river to Brazzaville and spend the next couple of weeks
Speaker 2: in the northern jungles of the Congo up there on
Speaker 2: the Olesso River with the.
Speaker 1: Pygmies, Okay, so this book, did you This isn't in.
Speaker 2: The book I wrote? Then nobody could care less about
Speaker 2: this book. The book that we're talking about is groveling
Speaker 2: in London as starving musicians going nowhere. And this is
Speaker 2: the hungry years when we started to achieve success. You know,
Speaker 2: one arena, one state. They all look alike after a while.
Speaker 2: But that hungry part, when we were in London with
Speaker 2: no hits, no credibility, that's the interesting part of the story.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. Your father was in
Speaker 1: the CIA? Did you know that?
Speaker 2: I assumed it everyone in Beyroot Lebanon if their dad
Speaker 2: wasn't in the CIA or a spy of some kind.
Speaker 2: The kids were bragging on that they were, you know,
Speaker 2: and so it was sort of what bay Root is
Speaker 2: all about. It was kind of a nexus of espionage
Speaker 2: and intrigue in the Middle East. It was a power
Speaker 2: place and everybody's dad was a spot. Isn't yours? And
Speaker 2: one day my brother Miles comes home from schools is dad,
Speaker 2: are you a spine? To which our father replied, who
Speaker 2: wants to know?
Speaker 1: What was his cover?
Speaker 2: Cultural at And it was noticed by some that the
Speaker 2: cultural attache had it as basically what I could see
Speaker 2: of what it looks like is cocktail parties, socializing. And
Speaker 2: at these soires thrown by my parents, my very sophisticated
Speaker 2: mother and my fast talking father, there were playwrights and
Speaker 2: poets and such an interesting number of men in uniform
Speaker 2: for some reason. Amongst the poets and playwrights and tenor singers,
Speaker 2: and the deal was is there there were cultivating and
Speaker 2: grooming colonels who might one day be useful.
Speaker 1: Okay, it was billed Beyroot as the Paris of the
Speaker 1: mid East. It ultimately got bobbed out, never recover. What
Speaker 1: was it like when you lived there.
Speaker 2: Well, we felt under privileged. We didn't have TV. In fact,
Speaker 2: TV did arrive while we were there. I was in
Speaker 2: they rooted for ten years, and before that entire I
Speaker 2: left America when I was two months old and didn't
Speaker 2: get back till I was eighteen. So in Beirut, when
Speaker 2: TV arrived in black and white, suddenly there were you know,
Speaker 2: Bayot Skyline had TV antennas everywhere, but the shows were
Speaker 2: in Arabic and French, or in American shows the Virginian
Speaker 2: Bonanza and such dubbed into Arabic and or French with
Speaker 2: subtitles not in English. And so I grew up on
Speaker 2: all these American classic shows in Arabic. And the first
Speaker 2: time I heard Bonanza in English, oh man, those voices
Speaker 2: are all wrong. You know. Has has a high, squeak voice,
Speaker 2: whereas in Arabic he had this low southern Lebanese Palestinian
Speaker 2: kind of voice. It was much more, you know, guttural,
Speaker 2: and much you know, went with that big physical statue
Speaker 2: that he had.
Speaker 1: Okay, so TV comes along, are you therefore addicted because
Speaker 1: it's a new thing. Just watch an occasional program.
Speaker 2: Well, they only had the occasional program. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: you can watch TV all day now. And by the way,
Speaker 2: the first television in our household was from our maid,
Speaker 2: our nurse maid, you know, in what was then called
Speaker 2: the Third World, because they weren't with the Ruskies and
Speaker 2: they went with us during the Cold War, there were
Speaker 2: the people who were unaligned in that part of the world.
Speaker 2: A diplomat's salary could go a very very long way.
Speaker 2: So we lived like naybobs. We had a chauffeur, gardeners, cooks, nannies,
Speaker 2: maids and so on. But the main name Soriat, who
Speaker 2: was alsoinion. She what she got a television and would
Speaker 2: let us watch it if we were good boys and girls.
Speaker 2: So the only discipline that was imposed on the Copeland
Speaker 2: brats was by Soriah using her television, and we would
Speaker 2: be good boys and girls for the duration of the
Speaker 2: Virginian We didn't realize the value of it until later,
Speaker 2: looking back at the time, we felt underprivileged over in America.
Speaker 2: You know, we were in an American community school, the
Speaker 2: American Community School, and people we knew vaguely that over
Speaker 2: on the other side of lands and oceans is this
Speaker 2: shining light on a hill where everything is new, modern
Speaker 2: and clean. But so we aspired to America and we
Speaker 2: dreamed of it being tried to be as American as
Speaker 2: we could be, even though we were all a long
Speaker 2: way from home.
Speaker 1: Okay, would you go back and visit or you were
Speaker 1: just there for the duration?
Speaker 2: I would I have been back to visit the.
Speaker 1: Reverse when you were living in Cairo, When you're living
Speaker 1: in Lebanon, did you come back to the US or
Speaker 1: did you stay in Europe in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: There was one trip that we made back to Woodside.
Speaker 2: You know, basically I was born in a suburb of
Speaker 2: the Cia Woodside, Alexandria, Virginia, and but just young enough
Speaker 2: that I could barely remember it. But no, the rest
Speaker 2: of the time I was there. After Beirut, I went
Speaker 2: to boarding school in England AND's Darkest Somerset until until
Speaker 2: I hit eighteen, actually nineteen, when I got my draft number,
Speaker 2: which was two hundred and eighty six or something, which
Speaker 2: meant that I was safe. I was on the next
Speaker 2: plane over to pick up my college education in California.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how old were you when you left Lebanon?
Speaker 2: Left Lebanon at fourteen?
Speaker 1: Okay, So what's the status of the Beatles in music
Speaker 1: when you're in Lebanon?
Speaker 2: Huge? They landed at Bayroot Airport and I have footage.
Speaker 2: I don't know where this footage came from, but somebody
Speaker 2: got it and sent it to me of my brother
Speaker 2: in a Beatles wig at the Bayroot airport along with
Speaker 2: his girlfriend, her sister and all their friends, squealing at
Speaker 2: the Beatles who arrived on the tarmac, came out of
Speaker 2: the thing kind of waved from the from the airplane
Speaker 2: doorway the top of the stairs, and they had one
Speaker 2: wrong beetle amongst them. I'll have to check the history books,
Speaker 2: but apparently they did a tour of the Far East
Speaker 2: or somewhere with either John or Paul missing and some
Speaker 2: kind of replacement which is weird, which I've never read
Speaker 2: about anywhere else. But there's one wrong beatle amongst them,
Speaker 2: and they were on their way and just stopped off.
Speaker 2: You know, the plane stopped. They didn't get off the plane,
Speaker 2: but it flew through. That was a big event.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when did you start being exposed to music?
Speaker 2: Well, my father was a jazz player and he played
Speaker 2: trumpet until the World War broke out and he joined
Speaker 2: the military and became an intelligence and so on. But
Speaker 2: my I am the youngest of four. My father filled
Speaker 2: the house with musical instruments. There was a big grand piano,
Speaker 2: there was guitars, there was you know, he got me
Speaker 2: started on a trombone, and then I discovered hitting a drum.
Speaker 2: Now this was dramatic because I was a late developer,
Speaker 2: and uh.
Speaker 1: What do you mean you were a laid developer.
Speaker 2: I was the run of the litter. Everyone else, my agent,
Speaker 2: at the age of twelve, was beginning to shave, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, their voices were dropping and you know, they're
Speaker 2: suddenly becoming men. And I was still a squeaky little kid.
Speaker 1: So how was that emotionally?
Speaker 2: Well, I was squeaky. I was the youngest of the siblings,
Speaker 2: which meant that I was kind of behind anyway. But
Speaker 2: even in my age group at school, somehow I was
Speaker 2: a little bit small or less grown up. Then I
Speaker 2: got on a drum set and suddenly, within a heartbeat,
Speaker 2: I am an eight hundred pounds silver back motherfucker swinging
Speaker 2: through the trees. Kiss my ass, And that, just like
Speaker 2: the power of the drums just suddenly gave me what
Speaker 2: I had been lacking. Fuck shaving. I got this drum
Speaker 2: that I can scare people with.
Speaker 1: And do you ever take any drum lessons?
Speaker 2: Yes, my father as soon as he spotted that. You know,
Speaker 2: any parent can look at their children and you know,
Speaker 2: give them music lessons a song. And the clue is
Speaker 2: that if you have to say, uh, Susan, I think
Speaker 2: it's time for your piano practice, forget, you're wasting your time.
Speaker 2: If it's Susan, will you just shut up for a minute. Okay, there,
Speaker 2: you got a musician in the family, and I was
Speaker 2: that kid. As soon as I got a snare drum
Speaker 2: and I'm banging on morning, day through the night and
Speaker 2: will not shut up. Then my dad, to make matters worse,
Speaker 2: got me the rest of the drum set, and I
Speaker 2: would not shut up on that. And my brother Ian,
Speaker 2: who was my agent when I was twelve, still was
Speaker 2: my agent fifty years later and got me into a band,
Speaker 2: the Black Knights, And we played the High We played
Speaker 2: the American Community School, we played Manor House, the British School,
Speaker 2: we played the British Embassy, Beach Club and other illustrious
Speaker 2: venues across Bay Route.
Speaker 1: And what did you play?
Speaker 2: We played kink songs, We got to get animals, We
Speaker 2: got to get out of this place. House of the
Speaker 2: Rising Sun James Brown. In fact, I still have the
Speaker 2: cold shakes that one song, feel Good Dead, like I
Speaker 2: knew that I would. Okay, I'm getting nervous. That's coming
Speaker 2: up there. Jet dun dun dun dun dun dun dun
Speaker 2: dun dun dun dundun. How many duns are there? And
Speaker 2: I lie awake at night even now trying to count
Speaker 2: them out. But when I was twelve, that was the
Speaker 2: moment of terror in the in the set.
Speaker 1: What was the brand of your first set.
Speaker 2: Uh? It was le Fema uh And I had I
Speaker 2: know that because I had the snare je on my
Speaker 2: cap for a long time. The rest of the drums
Speaker 2: were rented, so but the le Fema was mine. My
Speaker 2: father had already invested in lots of musical instruments, which
Speaker 2: didn't take with my older siblings, so he just rented
Speaker 2: me a drum set until he was sure that, okay,
Speaker 2: this ain't going away, Stuart, would you please stop for
Speaker 2: a second. And that was when I got to London,
Speaker 2: and that drum set was a premiere baby blue pearl
Speaker 2: drum set.
Speaker 1: What brand do you play now?
Speaker 2: I played Tama drums at a certain point. My first
Speaker 2: my first professional record company bought drum set, which was
Speaker 2: a big double Ludwig Perspect's Vistaite monstrosity. Was so cool.
Speaker 2: It didn't sound that great, But I was making ends
Speaker 2: meet in those days by reviewing equipment for music magazines,
Speaker 2: and one of the things that I reviewed was these
Speaker 2: Japanese drums. Now we're talking nineteen seventy six and nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six, Japanese meant cheap. Now it means extremely high tech,
Speaker 2: high quality, you know, advanced engineering. But that was the
Speaker 2: day of the Japanese knockoff. But these Japanese drums, Tama drums,
Speaker 2: were not knockoffs. They were not like Ludwig Drums or
Speaker 2: Rogers or Premiere or any of these American or English brands.
Speaker 2: They were bigger, stronger, higher tech, better material bills, better sounding,
Speaker 2: just superior in every imaginable way. And so I'm reviewing
Speaker 2: these drums for Sounds magazine and I thought, I want
Speaker 2: to get me some of these. And I at that time,
Speaker 2: I was playing in Curved Air, which is a prog
Speaker 2: rock band that had been successful years before I joined.
Speaker 2: I was one of the last rats to jump aboard
Speaker 2: the sinking ship, and I used this credibility to contact
Speaker 2: the importer and say, hey, look, I'm with this big
Speaker 2: band and I might be inclined to use your Tama
Speaker 2: drums that you're importing there. And here's the review, and
Speaker 2: here's all these reviews of the band of how big
Speaker 2: they were before I joined, and hornswoggled the drum set
Speaker 2: out of them, and I got this drum set and
Speaker 2: it showed up and at my first sound check with
Speaker 2: Curved Air with these drums, I pulled them out in
Speaker 2: the stage and the sound engineer comes running down saying,
Speaker 2: oh man, you got to keep these junk get rid
Speaker 2: of those love pigs. Oh man, this you can't imagine
Speaker 2: how much better these sounds. Please please throw away those
Speaker 2: ludwigs and play these Japanese drums. And so I've now
Speaker 2: been playing them for I think it's almost fifty years.
Speaker 1: And have you tried any other brands at this point?
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of, Well, I got buddies who play other drums.
Speaker 2: But you know, last time, I think at the forty
Speaker 2: year mark, they persuaded Tom have persuaded me to go
Speaker 2: down there and give a speech at the Non Music
Speaker 2: Equipment convention, And okay, so I went down There was
Speaker 2: a very short speech actually, but I thought kind of
Speaker 2: hit the point, ladies and gentlemen, forty years thank you.
Speaker 2: Any questions?
Speaker 1: How many drums do you own today?
Speaker 2: Shall we spend a moment counting them? No?
Speaker 1: Well this is audio only, Steward, So you got to describe.
Speaker 2: Okay, just standing here from the microphone here visible right now,
Speaker 2: I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
Speaker 2: I think that's a drum. You'd probably call that a drum.
Speaker 2: Sixteen seventeen timpany. I got two timpany that we'll call
Speaker 2: those drums, even though Timpany players would never call themselves percussionists.
Speaker 2: They're timputtists. But I will count those two timpanies to jo. Okay,
Speaker 2: where was I twenty seventeen? Many? That's how many drums
Speaker 2: I have. Many.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to boarding school, everybody. I know what
Speaker 1: the English boarding school has a bad tale to tell?
Speaker 1: Was it culture shock? What was it like leaving Lebanon
Speaker 1: going to boarding school in England?
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. It was a great school actually, and
Speaker 2: I know that's weird. You're not supposed to enjoy school,
Speaker 2: but I did. And I was the American kid, But
Speaker 2: that's okay, uh. I enjoyed it. It was way out
Speaker 2: in Somerset, and I had a group of friends and
Speaker 2: kind of enjoyed boarding school. It's co ed and it
Speaker 2: had an amazing sports program that had horses. I was
Speaker 2: able to. I learned how to ride horses. Never saw
Speaker 2: that coming, and I became quite devoted to horses, and
Speaker 2: I still am, although I don't I traded all my
Speaker 2: horses and for children, but I played polo there, which
Speaker 2: came in handy when I was a rock star in
Speaker 2: the countryside.
Speaker 1: Okay, And were you playing in bands in boarding school?
Speaker 2: Kind of sort of like we'd get together and give
Speaker 2: her think up a cool name for the band and
Speaker 2: learn how to play Proud Mary. And the school wasn't hiring,
Speaker 2: so we didn't play any gigs and we'd have to
Speaker 2: hornswoggle somewhere to congregate to play when we'd get complaints
Speaker 2: about the noise. I didn't last. I didn't start. I
Speaker 2: played in bands in Bay Route when I was twelve.
Speaker 2: But you know, in a way, when I came back
Speaker 2: to this, you know, the first world, if you like,
Speaker 2: I regressed my life. I went back to being a
Speaker 2: twelve thirteen, fourteen fifteen, however old I was, whereas in
Speaker 2: buried I was master of the universe. My brother, who
Speaker 2: was a couple of years older, was stealing motorcycles and
Speaker 2: we were you know, it was great coming back to
Speaker 2: the world where you're not allowed to cross the street
Speaker 2: without a until a machine tells you it's okay, and
Speaker 2: if you're busting for a leak, you can't just like
Speaker 2: pull behind a bush and unzip all kinds of constraints
Speaker 2: on free life, you know, sidewalks or an imposition. And
Speaker 2: so I felt kind of constrained by the civilized, developed world,
Speaker 2: but somehow managed to acclimate.
Speaker 1: And you obviously speak English, and it's interesting without an accent,
Speaker 1: never having grown up in the US. But do you
Speaker 1: also speak.
Speaker 2: When I first got to England, I didn't realize that
Speaker 2: half the words in my vocabulary were not English, because
Speaker 2: everybody in cities like that, well we spoke Araba, franglaise,
Speaker 2: which is Arabic, French and English. And I didn't know
Speaker 2: that half the words were Arabic. And I got teased
Speaker 2: about that a little bit. And well, by being the
Speaker 2: American kid, that made me strangely very patriotic. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact. God, now, yes I am American, kiss
Speaker 2: my ass.
Speaker 1: And you're in boarding school with the boys. What about
Speaker 1: the girls?
Speaker 2: Oh there were girls.
Speaker 1: It was co ed.
Speaker 2: Oh really, Oh yeah, yeah. It was a very advanced
Speaker 2: modern boarding school. It was it was a kind of
Speaker 2: a new concept at the time. It was like the
Speaker 2: New Age. It was a new version of boarding school.
Speaker 2: It wasn't Eton and Harrow and Stowe and Rugby. It
Speaker 2: was the new face of education and It had a
Speaker 2: very It had a robin hood policy where Elizabeth Taylor's
Speaker 2: kids were there, and the potentates of Africa, the Saudi
Speaker 2: princes were there, and they paid the bills while interesting kids,
Speaker 2: which was I guess me, had a reduced rate, so
Speaker 2: they had, you know, it was a very interesting student body.
Speaker 2: And they poached sports stars from other schools, so we
Speaker 2: had the top under twenty one tennis players and so on.
Speaker 2: It was pretty cool concept of a school, but it
Speaker 2: was not like the old fashioned boarding schools. It was
Speaker 2: very modern education system and co ed right there. But
Speaker 2: you know, the rules were if you know, a private
Speaker 2: assignation would be you could get expelled for a private assignation,
Speaker 2: which is just if you're alone in a room with
Speaker 2: a member of the opposite sex.
Speaker 1: Well, that didn't need stop you did it. No, So
Speaker 1: how did you end up going to college in the US?
Speaker 2: Well, at first I went to American College in England
Speaker 2: because of the Vietnam War, and I was Draft board
Speaker 2: one hundred, which means that Colorado and Arizona they have
Speaker 2: a quota of how many eighteen year olds they had
Speaker 2: to send to the army for the Vietnam War. The
Speaker 2: draft no escape, whether you were a senator's son or
Speaker 2: whatever you're going. And they had a lottery system where
Speaker 2: every date of the year, three hundred and sixty five days,
Speaker 2: every birthday, they're all thrown into a bat hat and
Speaker 2: they pull them out one by one. You get a number. Okay,
Speaker 2: January seventeenth, that's one, September fourteen that's two, and whatever, whatever,
Speaker 2: And every birth date gets a number. And usually the
Speaker 2: you know, in every state, Colorado would be drafting up
Speaker 2: to you know, one hundred and fifty or something like that.
Speaker 2: If you were below one hundred, you're getting drafted. Get
Speaker 2: over it. And so I but draft Board one hundred,
Speaker 2: which was expatriates Americans living abroad who turned eighteen outside
Speaker 2: of America, that draft board had a quota of zero.
Speaker 2: So as long as I stayed outside of America, I
Speaker 2: was absolutely legally safe from the draft. At the minute
Speaker 2: I set foot in America, I'd have to reregister in
Speaker 2: whatever state that might be, and I was not prepared
Speaker 2: to do that until I got my extremely high draft number,
Speaker 2: which meant I was safe. So I showed up here
Speaker 2: in California, Point Loma, San Diego, which turned out to
Speaker 2: have the best surf on the West Coast, and all
Speaker 2: my buddies were surfers in California. Here I come.
Speaker 1: So you went and graduated where Berkeley.
Speaker 2: I didn't graduate, though I went. I did four years
Speaker 2: of college. In fact, I did four years in three
Speaker 2: and a half years. And I was all ready to
Speaker 2: come back next September to do underwater basket weaving, and
Speaker 2: I had like three more credits to do. But as
Speaker 2: I did every summer, I went back to London and
Speaker 2: roadied for bands, and this time I went and played
Speaker 2: in a band and it turned into a thing. And
Speaker 2: suddenly I'm in a professional band touring Europe. And I
Speaker 2: want to go back to Berkeley maybe next year or never.
Speaker 2: And I never did make it back there.
Speaker 1: And would your parents say about that?
Speaker 2: Well, I was launched into life happening, that's the main thing.
Speaker 2: And I didn't really give it any thought until years
Speaker 2: later when I wrote to UC Berkeley and said, any
Speaker 2: chance I could do those last couple of courses, just
Speaker 2: to cross the T dot THEI. And they said, well,
Speaker 2: that major doesn't exist anymore, and there's several other courses,
Speaker 2: and no, you can't do a correspondence course from LA
Speaker 2: you'd have to come up here and well, okay, I'll
Speaker 2: a word myself a degree in life with my seven
Speaker 2: kids and whatever I've small achievements I've made in a
Speaker 2: life later for that, but I would like to go
Speaker 2: back there and teach one day.
Speaker 1: Did your seven kids go to college?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm graduated from UC Berkeley.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you're there for three and a half years,
Speaker 1: how involved are you in music? And are you playing
Speaker 1: the drums? What's going on?
Speaker 2: Well? The United States International University, which had a campus
Speaker 2: in England, one in Nairobi, another one in Mexico City,
Speaker 2: Steamboat Springs, and put Loma, California with the best surf
Speaker 2: on the West Coast. I was there for two years
Speaker 2: and then and majoring in music. But then when I
Speaker 2: went to Berkeley, you know, applied to Berkeley. In those days,
Speaker 2: they had over capacity. It's hard for people to imagine now,
Speaker 2: but I just notified them of the blessing of my
Speaker 2: decision to attend their university, to which they had more
Speaker 2: capacity than they had students. In that era, I was
Speaker 2: at the end of the Baby boom, and all the
Speaker 2: all the institutions were built for the Baby boom and
Speaker 2: they were running out of babies by the time I
Speaker 2: came along, so it was easy to get into college.
Speaker 2: But so I go to the music school there and
Speaker 2: they gave me a test and I failed that test
Speaker 2: miserably because I'm not a penist. I was playing drums,
Speaker 2: and I knew three chords on the guitar and was
Speaker 2: dedicated to music and so on. But they declined me
Speaker 2: at the music school, so I went and studied public
Speaker 2: policy and communications, communications and public policy instead, And looking back,
Speaker 2: I think if they had accepted me, I would probably
Speaker 2: be the timpanist with the Ohio Symphony now. But since
Speaker 2: they didn't, and the stuff that I needed to know
Speaker 2: about being a musician I already knew from my first
Speaker 2: All I needed was, you know, music theory, one oh one.
Speaker 2: That's all you really need. The rest is God given.
Speaker 2: It's talent, it's gift, it's imagination. And so what I
Speaker 2: did learn was how media works, how promotion works, how
Speaker 2: to communicate, you know, how to manipulate the zeitgeist, and
Speaker 2: so that came in very handy. I could use all that.
Speaker 2: That's what my career. Everyone else in that major, by
Speaker 2: the way, was going to be a politician. Or in advertising.
Speaker 1: So did you play in bands in Berkeley?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did, you know, just jatting with people, not
Speaker 2: playing show we you know, played the occasional kegger with buddies.
Speaker 2: And in fact, one of my buddies in Berkeley. Uh,
Speaker 2: did a recording. Got a lacker printed up two hundred
Speaker 2: copies of an actual record designed the art himself, called
Speaker 2: the Grand Zilch of Ozone, and released this record. Most
Speaker 2: of them ended up moldering in his you know, garage. Uh.
Speaker 2: But years later they were discovered and people have been
Speaker 2: making it. This is like a lost relic, you know,
Speaker 2: the Grand Zilch of Ozone, which is barely recognizable as music.
Speaker 2: But yep, that's me on there banging stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to your seven kids. You're a household
Speaker 1: name in the music world. You certainly made money during
Speaker 1: your life. How do you deal with kids and make
Speaker 1: sure they have their own life? Or do you support them?
Speaker 1: How do you wrestle with all that?
Speaker 2: Well, each one of them needs different wrestling and different
Speaker 2: encouragement and different you know, different. They're all different. They
Speaker 2: just come out of the box completely different. Even if
Speaker 2: they grow up in the same environment, they're different. And
Speaker 2: what works for the goose, does not work for the gander.
Speaker 2: And so I don't have a single formula for how
Speaker 2: to raise successful children. My father did, or rather, he
Speaker 2: had all kinds of books on the subject, and he
Speaker 2: was determined and it was kind of the beginnings of
Speaker 2: pop psychology. And he had all these books lying around
Speaker 2: the house, you know, how to raise a genius, and
Speaker 2: ten Steps to Personal Power and all this cool stuff,
Speaker 2: and I kind of absorb those. I don't know how
Speaker 2: much use they were. But the kids just have found
Speaker 2: their own destiny, and you do your best to encourage
Speaker 2: what they're good at. And you know, like my father
Speaker 2: did when he spotted that I could actually was interested in,
Speaker 2: he just put every resource in my path to make
Speaker 2: it happen. And of my seven, only one of them
Speaker 2: was born with the actual handful of gifts that it
Speaker 2: takes to be a musician. And of course he does
Speaker 2: something else for a living. He runs a post production
Speaker 2: facility that he invented.
Speaker 1: So if they're in their twenties and thirties and they
Speaker 1: call you for money, what do you say.
Speaker 2: They haven't really, no, they're all gainfully employed. My youngest,
Speaker 2: he just graduated a few years ago. From Northwestern and
Speaker 2: she was offered, you know, a six figure salary straight
Speaker 2: out of college as a wolf on Wall Street, kicking
Speaker 2: aid and taking names, you know, all six foot tall
Speaker 2: of her. And she doesn't need money. She's my retirement policy.
Speaker 1: Huh okay. So you're talking about your father and your brothers,
Speaker 1: you're all very entrepreneurial. Where did that come from?
Speaker 2: Well, my father was not entrepreneurial at all. He was
Speaker 2: good at skuld duggery and the social society, but no
Speaker 2: kind of businessman really. Later on when he left government employee,
Speaker 2: this is what all the agents would do. By the way,
Speaker 2: they would work for Uncle Sam, get their credibility going.
Speaker 2: Then they would take a job. They would quit and
Speaker 2: take the same job. But now you're working for Aramco,
Speaker 2: the oil companies, doing the same job, the same manipulation,
Speaker 2: the same negotiating and navigating through the political wins of
Speaker 2: the Middle East, you know, the same basically the same
Speaker 2: job only but for oil companies. For Uncle Sam, they
Speaker 2: make a load of money. Then they go back to
Speaker 2: work for Uncle Sam again where they make less money,
Speaker 2: but would get in with who decision makers are within
Speaker 2: the American as system. And he did that. He was
Speaker 2: mostly private. By the time I was in my teens
Speaker 2: and saw what he was doing. He ended up in
Speaker 2: England as a talking head. Whenever there'd be a flare
Speaker 2: up in the Middle East, they'd call Old Miles Copeland
Speaker 2: and say, well, what do you think? Well, and he
Speaker 2: didn't care about what was happening. He just wanted to
Speaker 2: throw bombs and he would he would have some formulation
Speaker 2: that would just get the most tongues wagging and the
Speaker 2: most glorious outrage inspired. You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so was your father inherently your reverend?
Speaker 2: Yes, one time there was a huha in England about
Speaker 2: the American embassy. Was somebody American was caught spying on England,
Speaker 2: on our other friends. Okay, can you believe it? America
Speaker 2: is spying on its own friends? And so they get
Speaker 2: Old Miles Copeland on the screen to ask him, is
Speaker 2: this true? Could this be true that the American is
Speaker 2: spying on England? He says, of course it's true. What
Speaker 2: do you think You're some third world country that nobody cares.
Speaker 2: You're one of our most important allies. Of course we're
Speaker 2: spying on you. By the way, you're not spying on us.
Speaker 2: Call your MP he loved that stuff.
Speaker 1: But go back to you. Why why are the three
Speaker 1: of you so entrepreneurial. There must be something in the
Speaker 1: water or something, the upbringing.
Speaker 2: Hunger, greed, materialism, you know, usual stuff. I'm not. I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not not an entrepreneur at all. I just
Speaker 2: bang stuff. I like to make music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but for me, so you're the drummer. The drummer
Speaker 1: is always the business guy. Yeah, you learned the band.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's because you can't send the singer in to
Speaker 2: collect from the club owner. You know, you want the
Speaker 2: band to get paid, you send in the drummer with
Speaker 2: his knuckles dragging. Give us money now.
Speaker 1: Okay, So during the summer when you're in college, you're
Speaker 1: going to the UK and you're roadying. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I would roady for bands that Miles managed or
Speaker 2: Ian was the agent of, and like Wishbone Ash. You know,
Speaker 2: you show me a back line drum set and three
Speaker 2: amps and I can you know an afford transit van.
Speaker 2: I'll get that sucker loaded right up in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2: You know I've got all the skill. Basically, I'm a
Speaker 2: glorified roady, very proud of my roadying skills. Even today
Speaker 2: in my studio, I do all my own wiring and
Speaker 2: everything because I'm a gearhead like that. And then I
Speaker 2: started tour managing, and I tour managed Joe Armor Trading
Speaker 2: across America for three months.
Speaker 1: You know, not everybody is as sophisticated as we are.
Speaker 1: Tell us what a tour manager does.
Speaker 2: The tour manager gets the artist out of the hotel
Speaker 2: into the bus, out of the bus, onto the stage,
Speaker 2: off the stage, back into the bus, out of the bus,
Speaker 2: back into the hotel, in whatever condition. And that's the job.
Speaker 2: The roadie has the same job, but not for the artist,
Speaker 2: for the gear gets the gear out of the truck,
Speaker 2: onto the stage, sets it up, off the stage, back
Speaker 2: into the truck. Much simpler job.
Speaker 1: But as little sleep as the musicians get. Traditionally, the
Speaker 1: tour manager gets even less.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a trap many tour managers. You know,
Speaker 2: high attrition rate on tour managers because they're right next
Speaker 2: to the artists, and the artists can go to bed trashed,
Speaker 2: wake up at three o'clock in the afternoon in time
Speaker 2: to stagger on stage and be brilliant for an hour
Speaker 2: and a half and then stagger back off stage, the
Speaker 2: tour manager is living along that, and many think that
Speaker 2: they too can live like that and be drinking and
Speaker 2: carousing till late. And you know, no, they've got to
Speaker 2: be They've got to be up talk, you know, talking
Speaker 2: to New York at nine o'clock in the morning, and
Speaker 2: they got to be booking those flights, and they got
Speaker 2: to be making you know, they got plates in the
Speaker 2: air to deal with. And many a tour manager forgets
Speaker 2: that they are not a talent can go and live
Speaker 2: their dissolute lifestyle. Term managers got to get up in
Speaker 2: the morning.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you spend three and a half years in Berkeley,
Speaker 1: you come to the UK and then you get in
Speaker 1: a band. How does that happen?
Speaker 2: The band in question was a violin player named Daryl
Speaker 2: Way who was starting a new band. And I came
Speaker 2: over and we jammed and hey, let's do a band.
Speaker 2: And we got a band together. We played a couple
Speaker 2: of shows. We were called Stark Naked and the car Thieves,
Speaker 2: which was my brother Ian's Vietnam band. Cool name, and
Speaker 2: so we were just about to hit the big time,
Speaker 2: or we thought we were. When curved Air, his previous band,
Speaker 2: had a tax bill and so they figured, okay, well
Speaker 2: they would the band would reunite for one tour to
Speaker 2: pay off their tax bill and that would be that.
Speaker 2: And okay, well that's me back on the street. Okay,
Speaker 2: well wait a minute. I pull out my briefcase and
Speaker 2: appointed myself tour manager of Curved Air, which I was,
Speaker 2: and I was tour manager for a little while. But
Speaker 2: the tour was a big success. The audiences raved, the
Speaker 2: you know, the reviews were great. It was all wonderfulness.
Speaker 2: But two of the guys, including the drummer, decided to
Speaker 2: go back to their lives and didn't want to carry on,
Speaker 2: which left the band in need of a drummer. I
Speaker 2: know a guy, and so did their leader, the violin player,
Speaker 2: and so I became. I went from being the tour
Speaker 2: manager of Curved Air to being the drummer in Curved
Speaker 2: Air and as I did many times in my life,
Speaker 2: going from behind the camera to in front of the
Speaker 2: camera and then back behind the camera and back and forth.
Speaker 1: Okay, when was the dream, if ever to be a
Speaker 1: successful musician?
Speaker 2: Remember that story of meeting twelve Yeah, and it was
Speaker 2: Jane McRoberts, all fifteen years old of her and at
Speaker 2: the British Embassy Beach Club, and I'm playing we got
Speaker 2: to get out out of this place or whatever, and
Speaker 2: she and I'm twelve and she's fifteen, and she's dancing
Speaker 2: to my beat. And I'm thinking, oh, Lord, thank you
Speaker 2: for this gift that I can induce this fifteen year
Speaker 2: old goddess to be grooving to my beat.
Speaker 1: Where is she today?
Speaker 2: She's in Arizona. Actually, you know, we kept in touch
Speaker 2: like every ten years or something. She's got four kids
Speaker 2: and you know whatever. Whatever, he's probably a grandmother by now.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get bidden by the bug. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of diversion. You go to boarding school, you
Speaker 1: don't play out in band. You go to Berkeley, you
Speaker 1: don't play out in bands. You're roady.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, Wait a minute, there's one one other,
Speaker 2: one other epiphany there that I sense where you're going
Speaker 2: with this here. Yes, and I may be wrong, but
Speaker 2: there was another epiphany. The music part, not just the
Speaker 2: banging stuff part, not just the eight hundred pounds silver
Speaker 2: back part, not just the power rush, not just the
Speaker 2: sex of inspiring a young girl to move in a
Speaker 2: sexually suggestive mat which music does, by the way, only
Speaker 2: music is the only art form which usurps motor control
Speaker 2: of your body and makes it perfectly okay for you
Speaker 2: to thrust your pudenda in public. Anyhow, it turned out
Speaker 2: that there was more to music than that which you
Speaker 2: would think would be enough. But in boarding school, the Sunday,
Speaker 2: the Christmas service every year was in Wells Cathedral, this
Speaker 2: gigantic Gothic cathedral. Actually it's two cathedrals stuck together, huge,
Speaker 2: beautiful with a stained glass winter and everything. And the
Speaker 2: Christmas service is a thousand students, parents, teachers, voices raised
Speaker 2: and Christmas carols and the you know in the and
Speaker 2: acchoir and the huge organ church organ. I mean that
Speaker 2: is a musical thing. And I'm in the orchestra school orchestra.
Speaker 2: But I only had one song to play, which was
Speaker 2: Drummer Boy or something Dun dut dun dune, Dun dun
Speaker 2: dun dune Da da da dun dune you know that one? Uh?
Speaker 1: That was my only little drummer voice.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, uh. And so I was a nervous, twitchy
Speaker 2: kid and mister Fox, you know, annoyed with me, just
Speaker 2: rattling and you know, waiting for my moment could then
Speaker 2: go there and he kicked me out of the You know,
Speaker 2: the church is the long part is full of the
Speaker 2: thousand voices raised in song. One of the wings of
Speaker 2: the cross is the band, the orchestra. That's me uh.
Speaker 2: And the other huge part of the church was another cathedral,
Speaker 2: stuck two together, and so I was banished alone to
Speaker 2: that other part, flood lit from the outside with the
Speaker 2: stained glass windows in a thousand voices raised in song,
Speaker 2: the beautiful Christmas carols. That just oh, just the heart
Speaker 2: soaring with the you know, I'm right now, I'm sixteen,
Speaker 2: and I can't even absorb this amount of aesthetic excellence,
Speaker 2: this beauty, this emotion, this power. Oh I'm not religious remotely,
Speaker 2: but man, just lit up by that music and the
Speaker 2: visuals and everything alone in that thing that was. That
Speaker 2: was a moment. Then came the time, Okay, I'm called
Speaker 2: back to the stage and okay, we're playing that song now,
Speaker 2: Copeland to your station, and I'm there and I'm just
Speaker 2: in the still, you know, after the last hymn, the
Speaker 2: echo echoing through the cathedral and you can hear people
Speaker 2: straining in their seats waiting for the next wave of
Speaker 2: the Shaman's wand and that shaman is me and I
Speaker 2: raising my stick and mister Fox is looking at me,
Speaker 2: and it comes down dun dundune, and the thing builds
Speaker 2: and I'm the helmsman of this gigantic ship of music. Ah.
Speaker 2: I still get the chills today thinking about how fried
Speaker 2: my little brain was by that moment and that stuck
Speaker 2: and through all the rock and roll, all the good times,
Speaker 2: all the hanging around, that depth of the power of
Speaker 2: music is something I still take very seriously.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're in curved air the drummer, how does
Speaker 1: that play out?
Speaker 2: Well, it was a time of change. We were the
Speaker 2: end of the hippie boom. I was two years too
Speaker 2: young to be a real hippie. It was rancid by then.
Speaker 2: You know, the waves had washed and we were swirling
Speaker 2: in the subs on the back side and it was
Speaker 2: kind of over. But I was playing in this prog
Speaker 2: rock group and it was doing okay, but it was
Speaker 2: kind of you know, the music industry was a locked door.
Speaker 2: And then suddenly one of the sex pistols on national
Speaker 2: TV said fuck, and the tabloid newspapers erupted in glorious
Speaker 2: fury of absolute exaltation, of rage, and thus was born
Speaker 2: the sex Pistols and the punk revolution. New you know,
Speaker 2: short hair not long hair, sniffing, glue not smoking pot,
Speaker 2: hate and war rather than love and peace. It was
Speaker 2: a whole new hairdoo, same music, by the way, same
Speaker 2: EA and D chords on guitar, bass and drums, not
Speaker 2: a little faster okay, and the lyrics are mostly shouted
Speaker 2: rather than sunk, and there shall be no guitar solos.
Speaker 2: But it was a new order, a new world. And
Speaker 2: these clubs started opening up in London, new bands. All
Speaker 2: the old media radio one who could care what's getting airplay,
Speaker 2: It's what's happening in the clubs. And that's where the
Speaker 2: Police was born. In that world. I decided I wanted
Speaker 2: a band in that world, and so I needed to
Speaker 2: find me a guitarist and a bass player, one of
Speaker 2: whom needs to sing.
Speaker 1: Okay, before you get the people say don't quit your
Speaker 1: job until you have another one. You're in curve there
Speaker 1: and you say, fuck, this is going to end. I
Speaker 1: got to get a new thing, or does it end?
Speaker 1: And then you say, well I got to get a
Speaker 1: new thing.
Speaker 2: Well they both happened, they overlapped. I don't my diaries
Speaker 2: don't tell what happened. There's the last Curved Air date,
Speaker 2: which is whatever it was, and then no further mention
Speaker 2: of Curved Air. I was already dabbling with this new
Speaker 2: band of mine, and I don't even recall, I don't
Speaker 2: make any mention in my diary of the Curved Air's demise.
Speaker 2: I think it was an We didn't break up, it
Speaker 2: was just there weren't any more dates. And you know,
Speaker 2: without us even knowing it, we all kind of had
Speaker 2: jumped ship where the ship had vanished under our feet. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: I was on a new mission with my new band,
Speaker 2: the Police.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you need money. What are you living on?
Speaker 2: I had money saved up from Curved Air, which I
Speaker 2: was able to stretch a long way. Uh. And also
Speaker 2: I did sessions. I did a journalism on the side,
Speaker 2: reviewing equipment and just made ends meet. And then when
Speaker 2: then when I met Sting, when he moved down to London,
Speaker 2: and he was a complete stranger. Long story, you'll have
Speaker 2: to read the book. He calls me up from a
Speaker 2: phone booth, doown So.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait, let's go way way way way back
Speaker 1: before Curve Deer ends. Are you the guy who's in
Speaker 1: the clubs every night? Are you making this like a
Speaker 1: science project? Let me find out everything about this scene.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, absolutely, But Curved There is still going and
Speaker 2: I'm already scheming that I want to do it yourself
Speaker 2: banned this thing because Curvedir everything we did put us
Speaker 2: deeper in debt to the man. We do a photo
Speaker 2: session where you know, comes off the top, We do
Speaker 2: a gig, costs money. We got three roadies, light show pa,
Speaker 2: all this stuff going on, and we never saw the
Speaker 2: money them. All money all went to the bosses and
Speaker 2: we got a salary, and I was done with that.
Speaker 2: I wanted our own band, you know, where I'm in
Speaker 2: charge of the money and what gets spent. Of course
Speaker 2: there wasn't any money to spend, but I was going
Speaker 2: to do the spending my goddamn self. And so I
Speaker 2: was already hatching this scheme. And one night Curved Air
Speaker 2: was had a night off in Newcastle and the local
Speaker 2: journalist Phil Suckcliffe took us to see the local hot
Speaker 2: cool jazz band which is called Last Exit, and they
Speaker 2: had rather a useful looking bass player whom I need
Speaker 2: a base either. The guitarist basically needs to sing and
Speaker 2: there's a guy playing pretty big, good bass and he's
Speaker 2: singing too. Check and let's check. Yep, he's got an amp.
Speaker 2: Very important, but better than any of that was the
Speaker 2: obvious charisma of the guy, just this charisma flashing out
Speaker 2: of every pore. And I looked at that guy and
Speaker 2: I said, now there is a meal ticket. And so
Speaker 2: a few weeks later I called that that journalist and said, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, philk, can you give me that guy and
Speaker 2: the last Mexican, the bass player, can you give me
Speaker 2: a number? And I start telling you about this cool
Speaker 2: new thing happening in London, this punk thing, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's all great, would say. But as soon as the
Speaker 2: word punk came out of my mouth, this is from me,
Speaker 2: I was sort of and I could sense the temperature
Speaker 2: had dropped thirty degrees. And he said, no, I'm not
Speaker 2: giving you his number. You're gonna lure the you know,
Speaker 2: the star of our finest art band down to the
Speaker 2: pit of Satan in London for a punk Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: You know, because for anybody who had a job, any
Speaker 2: adult in the music industry or entertainment, for them, punk
Speaker 2: was the Antichrist. It was the barbarians at the gate.
Speaker 2: It was the destruction of everything that is beautiful and
Speaker 2: sacred and pure, and you know the very mentioned would
Speaker 2: cause fistfights, you know. And so he wouldn't give me
Speaker 2: the number. I hung up, and I'm kind of well,
Speaker 2: what's the matter with that guy? And then walking around
Speaker 2: in sirt will find me. I thought of a much
Speaker 2: more persuasive h tank on it, you know, much better
Speaker 2: persuasion for Phil, you know, and I call him back up.
Speaker 2: You know, basically I was going to say, give me
Speaker 2: a fucking number. Okay, uh, you know, I would have
Speaker 2: thought that would be much more persuasive. But he didn't
Speaker 2: pick up. His girlfriend did, and oh, hello, hi Stewart,
Speaker 2: I'm in curved Aaron, I was, you know, I was
Speaker 2: talking to Phil, and I says, is there anything I
Speaker 2: can help you with the house? You know that bass
Speaker 2: player in the last X Oh sting, Yeah, I'm looking
Speaker 2: for his number? Hang on a tick and she goes
Speaker 2: and gets Phil's phone booking seven four three, nine, one
Speaker 2: eight five two.
Speaker 1: Any wait, just be did you make that up? Was
Speaker 1: that the real number?
Speaker 2: Oh? You can call that today? He still picks up. Okay,
Speaker 2: just kidding, Okay, the it's in the diary. It's in
Speaker 2: the book. You can see it. Actually he had two
Speaker 2: or three different numbers at the time. That was a
Speaker 2: number of Newcastle, and he had a couple of different
Speaker 2: numbers in London. And I'm several from you know anyway.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you got the number, then you call them.
Speaker 2: One minute later I hear that voice that we are
Speaker 2: now also familiar with. Keep talking, and uh those two
Speaker 2: words were very important. Keep talking. And because I started
Speaker 2: out with I'm interested in you, not your band, I'm
Speaker 2: down here in London getting something together. And are you
Speaker 2: a free agent? Keep talking? Okay? Okay? So I kept talking,
Speaker 2: and I bent his ears with my grandiose schemes and
Speaker 2: convincing certitude, and basically spent the next two years talking happening.
Speaker 2: We got a photo session, we got a review coming up,
Speaker 2: we got gigs, we got you know, basic guy to
Speaker 2: keep talking because when you know, when he got down
Speaker 2: to London, everybody was after him. And and I look
Speaker 2: back and I wonder how did I hold on? How
Speaker 2: did the police survive with everything going on around? You know? Anyway,
Speaker 2: I tell you how we survived and why, because a
Speaker 2: few weeks later, my phone rings. It's me. I'm downstairs
Speaker 2: in a phone booth. I can't even begin to For
Speaker 2: some reason, singers all have husky voices. I guess because
Speaker 2: sell all that singing they do. The speaking voice is
Speaker 2: very kind of husky. And come on up. And he
Speaker 2: comes up, and I put a bass in his hand,
Speaker 2: and I get behind the drums and we start playing.
Speaker 2: And oh my god, we surge high. We rock it
Speaker 2: forth into the outer galaxies. We dig deep into the
Speaker 2: bowels of the earth. We thrust forward like an invading army.
Speaker 2: We were tracked and retreat into subtle, subtle poignance, and
Speaker 2: just like everywhere we go, it rocks and it's cool,
Speaker 2: and we are locked at that, you know, locked at
Speaker 2: the groove. And it's what's called it's this, it's the
Speaker 2: holy grail of all ensemble playing, which is called the pocket.
Speaker 2: We had a pocket. We just had. He's a complete stranger,
Speaker 2: this guy, he's a complete stranger standing in my house
Speaker 2: and we're playing this cool stuff, which means this is
Speaker 2: the You know, we knew that we were in the
Speaker 2: right company, and we didn't have any songs. And for
Speaker 2: the next two years we stuck it out. We didn't
Speaker 2: have rocks in We didn't have message in a bottle.
Speaker 2: We didn't have every breath you take. We hadn't didn't.
Speaker 2: He didn't even know he could write songs. He was
Speaker 2: a jazz player, used to playing bass while somebody else
Speaker 2: takes the solo. He wasn't a songwriter yet. And besides,
Speaker 2: I had told him that I had song Yeah, I
Speaker 2: got we we got a band, and we got I
Speaker 2: got the songs, and we got gates coming up. It's
Speaker 2: all going on, and so, uh yeah, I had these
Speaker 2: you could call them so more like basslines. Was shouting,
Speaker 2: you know. The lyrics were like I hate the world,
Speaker 2: the world hates me, and you know, basically you know,
Speaker 2: standard issue punk rama because that's the only work it
Speaker 2: was available, and uh, that's where we had to play,
Speaker 2: and we had to wear the uniform and uh and
Speaker 2: we'd had that incredible jam. And that night I took
Speaker 2: him down to the Roxy Club, which is the opening
Speaker 2: of the first proper punk club in London, and we
Speaker 2: saw Generation X, which was Billie Idol in his band,
Speaker 2: and and we're there looking to our left and to
Speaker 2: our right, you know, thinking okay, these are the minnows
Speaker 2: us sharks will devour. We're gonna eat everybody's lunch, and
Speaker 2: we're still high off what we because we knew, just
Speaker 2: the two of us playing together, we've got something rare here.
Speaker 2: This is really cool. Uh. We knew that. Well, we
Speaker 2: were arrogant, okay. Uh, And so we started. You know,
Speaker 2: I introduced him to Henry, my guitarist, who could play
Speaker 2: three chords that I taught him. But he had the
Speaker 2: right black shades and the correctly upturned leather jacket collar. Uh.
Speaker 2: And was a genuine punk, which neither Sting nor I
Speaker 2: were genuine punks. But Henry was the real deal. And
Speaker 2: so we uh, we were the police.
Speaker 1: And uh a little bit slower. First when he came
Speaker 1: to you, he was already Sting. He already had that name.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The only person who calls him Gordon is Trudy.
Speaker 2: And what she's calling him Gordon, I take cover.
Speaker 1: Okay. In the book, you constantly referred to him as Stingo.
Speaker 1: Any particular reason you call him Stingo, Well, just.
Speaker 2: To make it mine. You know, he's my buddy. Well,
Speaker 2: you know he calls me Stewie. You know, if I
Speaker 2: can suffer that indignity, then he'll put up with whatever
Speaker 2: I call him, that's a term of endearment.
Speaker 1: How long after you get your buddy the guitarist in
Speaker 1: do you play out.
Speaker 2: Shows? Yeah? Well not long because arriving from America at
Speaker 2: that time were a handful of American acts out of Queens,
Speaker 2: New York, The Heartbreakers, Donny Thunder and the Heartbreakers, Blondie,
Speaker 2: Wayne County and the Electric Chairs and won Cherry Vanilla,
Speaker 2: and she brought her guitarist and her keyboard player and
Speaker 2: was looking for a rhythm section. She figured she'd hire
Speaker 2: a couple of guys in London, say were hotels and salaries,
Speaker 2: and so I ran across them and offered our services
Speaker 2: as the rhythm section and the opening act. And I
Speaker 2: provided backline because I had the gear, and so she
Speaker 2: got so sting and I were the bass player and
Speaker 2: drummer in her band with her guitarist Louis Lapoort and
Speaker 2: keyboard players. Zecha and the Police was the opening act
Speaker 2: with Henry. We play our our eight songs in about
Speaker 2: four minutes. We were fast and then come back on
Speaker 2: the stage just Cherry Vanilla's been and they were really
Speaker 2: good musicians. Actually, it was a good band. And once
Speaker 2: again I'm surprised that. You know, Cherry's manager was trying
Speaker 2: to steal sting as everyone else was, and I was
Speaker 2: surprised that he stuck with me and Henry. And later
Speaker 2: on one day we were doing sessions. We were the
Speaker 2: happening rhythm section. That's how he paid the rent. And
Speaker 2: in walks Andy Summers on this session, and he's really
Speaker 2: way above us. He was you know, triple scale. You
Speaker 2: know you'd pay somebody else, you pay Andy times three
Speaker 2: and legendary player. And for some reason he latched onto us,
Speaker 2: this fail fake punk band, we're going nowhere. Uh remember
Speaker 2: we didn't have those songs yet, and we just had
Speaker 2: my bass lines with shouting. But we were a heck
Speaker 2: of a rhythm section and Andy just decided that we
Speaker 2: need him in his and he accepted our non invitation
Speaker 2: and was suddenly a member of the group. Uh. At
Speaker 2: first we couldn't believe it. You know that session driving home,
Speaker 2: this thing is seething with musicality. He had it all
Speaker 2: bottled up. We've been playing our crap punk songs and
Speaker 2: so on, and just but a day of actual music
Speaker 2: with real musicians reminded him of his reason for living.
Speaker 2: And he's driving home sething and saying we got to
Speaker 2: get that guy. And I'm humoring him. We're not going
Speaker 2: to get that guy. Sure, i'd be great, I'd be great.
Speaker 2: We're not going to get that guy. And and he's
Speaker 2: going on, he's on a rant. He got Henry's a
Speaker 2: crap guitarist. You're a better guitarist than Henry And you're
Speaker 2: a crap and and and I'm you know, he carries
Speaker 2: on with his tire. But I'm taking aback at this
Speaker 2: unexpected accolade. Really I'm better than Henry. Okay, I'm crap,
Speaker 2: but I'm better than Henry. Uh. And So we ended
Speaker 2: up doing a show with the guy who employed this
Speaker 2: guy named Mike Howett and other things. So we kept
Speaker 2: running and then there was mixing that album, and we
Speaker 2: kept running into Andy and Stein and I are plotting, Hell,
Speaker 2: can we get that guy? What can we offer him?
Speaker 2: You know? And one day I run into him on
Speaker 2: Oxford Circus tube station in London. Then he pulls me
Speaker 2: into a cab and say, hey, look you and that
Speaker 2: that bass player. I think you got something, but you
Speaker 2: need me in the band. And I accept. And that's
Speaker 2: very Andy, by the way, direct to the point. And uh,
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it, and I called Sting, I'm doing
Speaker 2: done deal. That's it, that's it. We can hold on,
Speaker 2: hold on, And I explained to Andy, Uh, just so
Speaker 2: you know the record company, that's me on the phone
Speaker 2: selling boxes of records to record stores in Birmingham and Manchester.
Speaker 2: I am the record company. You're looking at it management
Speaker 2: once again, you're looking at this is it. I got
Speaker 2: to see this briefcase. That's my briefcase. That's the manager roadies. Yes,
Speaker 2: we do have a road crew. That would be you
Speaker 2: on one and I will take the other end of
Speaker 2: your amp. But that's you are the road crew. And
Speaker 2: basically I'm throwing all this stuff at him to kick
Speaker 2: the wheels, you know, to shake it loose, because I
Speaker 2: was sure he'd quit after a week and we'd be screwed.
Speaker 2: But he stuck to his guns and he canned all
Speaker 2: of his sessions except for one which was critical this
Speaker 2: German composer. He kept that gig and brought me along
Speaker 2: and then Sting too, and that's another story that's in
Speaker 2: the book, and was determined to join the band. Okay,
Speaker 2: now we have an actual musician on guitar.
Speaker 1: He gives you an ultimatum, I'll come in the band,
Speaker 1: but it has to be a tree. You got to
Speaker 1: get rid of the other guitarists.
Speaker 2: That's right. And we said, well, well, so now Sting
Speaker 2: and I are scheming and plotting and not how do
Speaker 2: we get Andy in the band, it's how do we
Speaker 2: get Henry out of the band? And because he was
Speaker 2: our best friend, he was just the best guy. Uh.
Speaker 2: And he was very cool. He was great on stage.
Speaker 2: I mean he could only play three courts man, he
Speaker 2: played them with great panache. And he was the real thing.
Speaker 2: The only reason people paid any attention to the police
Speaker 2: was because Henry was credible. The others, you know, the
Speaker 2: other two guys were obviously obviously real musicians. You know,
Speaker 2: fuck that. But Henry was the real thing. And it
Speaker 2: just had a vibe about him. And oh my god,
Speaker 2: it just you know, he was the life of the party.
Speaker 2: And you know, both of us we loved Henry. It
Speaker 2: was really hard, but we had to you know, music
Speaker 2: supersedes humanity.
Speaker 1: How did you tell him? What did he say?
Speaker 2: Well, he could. We went into the studio and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: let's give him one last recording here. Uh. And actually
Speaker 2: John Cale theoretically was producing the session, although he didn't
Speaker 2: really do much in the way of producing, uh, and
Speaker 2: he could send something was wrong. So he calls Sting
Speaker 2: up later and say, what's the matter with Stuart's weird?
Speaker 2: What's going on here? And and and Sting says, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry Henry, thinking we decided I was going
Speaker 2: to tell Henry, but I was such a such a
Speaker 2: you know, such a pussy that I hadn't uh And
Speaker 2: it was disgraceful. Uh. And he calls up and says,
Speaker 2: what's in So Sting's commiserating, and Henry got wait what
Speaker 2: what what? Uh? So he's on the phone to me
Speaker 2: and uh, what's what? The Sting says things, you know,
Speaker 2: and I had to, you know, finish the job. And
Speaker 2: it was terrible. The next day he was scooped up
Speaker 2: by Wayne County in the Electric Chairs, who are a
Speaker 2: bigger act than us, And within two weeks we are
Speaker 2: opening for him in the electric Chairs. Now, Henry was
Speaker 2: a great guy, and the Electric Chairs were one of
Speaker 2: the best hangs in show business. They were just all
Speaker 2: those bands, they were great fun. Uh. And there we
Speaker 2: were opening for Henry. Uh. So he was a happy
Speaker 2: guy and he did have a big career in France
Speaker 2: because he's Corsican French and h he was one of
Speaker 2: the judges on the Big Talent television talent show. He's
Speaker 2: a he's a big star in France now and he
Speaker 2: did get pretty good on the guitar while he was
Speaker 2: at it. As the year we did, we did, and
Speaker 2: Andy did us a favor because as soon as we
Speaker 2: had Andy in the band with his harmonic sophistication, now
Speaker 2: Sting's ears prick up. And he's had a couple of
Speaker 2: years of being the discipline of the punk format, which
Speaker 2: is verse chorus, verse chorus, guitarist, you know, not guitars.
Speaker 2: No guitar solo is allowed, bridge verse chorus out of course, course,
Speaker 2: chorus courus out, you know, just a simple that's the format.
Speaker 2: That's the formula of a pop song. Ram down his throat.
Speaker 2: And so now he had an actual musician, but he
Speaker 2: had he was writing songs for the Police book, but
Speaker 2: with only two chords. You know, they weren't the big
Speaker 2: songs that we're familiar with now, I think Visions of
Speaker 2: the Night anyway. But now with Andy, his mind just
Speaker 2: started exploding with music. And that's when he came out
Speaker 2: with those songs that you have heard of, and one
Speaker 2: by one they replaced our dumb, fake punk songs. And well,
Speaker 2: you know, every time he said I got another song,
Speaker 2: we would leap on it like piranhas. And suddenly with
Speaker 2: every song he brought in, it was like an upgrade,
Speaker 2: and we started we started turning into an actually pretty
Speaker 2: good group with kind of a unique sound, just in
Speaker 2: the nick of time. Because Andy was we were already unhip,
Speaker 2: but with Henry and the band we had some friends.
Speaker 2: But without Henry, and everybody knew that Andy had been
Speaker 2: around the block a couple of times too many times.
Speaker 2: He was ten years older than Stuf and Sting and
Speaker 2: I were bat it up. But Andy and his first
Speaker 2: show with the band, actually well Henry was still in
Speaker 2: the band. We played two shows with two guitarists, and
Speaker 2: he comes on stage and he's now made the big
Speaker 2: step of cutting his hair, which it's hard to emphasize
Speaker 2: enough what a big deal that was. That means he
Speaker 2: exchanges one whole friend group for another group. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like coming out as punk and all those people
Speaker 2: would close their doorst rim and all these new people are,
Speaker 2: you know, not that hospitable punks. That was his new family.
Speaker 2: So he cut his hair and he made that huge
Speaker 2: leap across the rubicon. But he had not yet traded
Speaker 2: in his sartorial equipment. He was still in bell bottoms.
Speaker 2: Short hair and bell bottoms busted. And that's when the
Speaker 2: last shred of credibility of the Police as punk band
Speaker 2: fell away, and we knew we better come up with
Speaker 2: some good music or we are screwed. And we did.
Speaker 1: Okay, when did you come up with the name Police
Speaker 1: and when did you start to use it?
Speaker 2: I had the name Police before I had the band,
Speaker 2: and I had a manifesto, which I still have, by
Speaker 2: the way. That's uh. When I when I'm in moved,
Speaker 2: when I need some light comedy, I'll pull out my
Speaker 2: vitriolic document statement of Purpose. It's quite funny, really, written
Speaker 2: by a wild eyed twenty six year old. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it was all planned, it was. It was all on paper.
Speaker 2: In my book. I've got page of all the other
Speaker 2: band names that I was considering. You know, Artillery Teeth,
Speaker 2: London Teeth. There's a lot of a lot of orthodontic
Speaker 2: imagery in the names of this group. You know, Teeth
Speaker 2: of London, you know biting, you know, the bite. You know,
Speaker 2: actually we should have been called the bite.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've been living in London. But the police weren't
Speaker 1: cool in America. They were referred to as the pigs.
Speaker 1: Did you worry about.
Speaker 2: The point, that's the point. The punks were the anti hippies.
Speaker 2: They wore suits. Okay, they were fucked up, slashed with
Speaker 2: razor blade suits, but they were suits with tie, skinny tie.
Speaker 2: They had short hair, not long hair. They did not
Speaker 2: smoke pot, They sniffed glue. They did not talk about
Speaker 2: peace of love. It was war, anger and anger and anger. Uh.
Speaker 2: And so the punks were to hippies, it looked like
Speaker 2: the Man, the Revenge of the Man. You know that
Speaker 2: all the hippies rebelled against suits and short hair and everything.
Speaker 2: Suddenly the suits and short they were peering up from
Speaker 2: the streets, wild eyed, high on sniffing glue, and uh.
Speaker 2: It was like every hippies nightmare.
Speaker 1: Okay, have you ever sniffed glue?
Speaker 2: I tried it. I don't get it. Uh no, don't
Speaker 2: do it. There's there's gotta be a better way of
Speaker 2: getting high.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the era, how are you with alcohol and drugs?
Speaker 2: Drugs, Yes, alcohol, not so much. We were stoner's drinkers
Speaker 2: were a different trime. And I was still leftover hippie.
Speaker 2: I guess, uh California kid, Uh still smoking pot as
Speaker 2: medication to I was. I was an anxious guy looking
Speaker 2: at these diros. The activity, I mean, unbelievable hard slog.
Speaker 2: The police was after curved Air in the lap of
Speaker 2: luxury with three roadies, light show and everything you know
Speaker 2: and a salary uh and curve in police. It was
Speaker 2: scrabbling for every penny, carrying our gear in and out,
Speaker 2: driving the length of the nation for a gig, you know,
Speaker 2: for thirty quid? And so I forget where are we going? Oh?
Speaker 1: You gottat you covered? Let me go back. What we
Speaker 1: didn't mention is you end up in a relationship with
Speaker 1: the lead singer of Curve Deer, who also comes with
Speaker 1: a child. Yes, what is she thinking about you at
Speaker 1: this point scrounging and starting over?
Speaker 2: Well, we were both at it. She on her own,
Speaker 2: she had her solo career which she was pursuing with
Speaker 2: great energy, and we both were living parallel lives, struggling
Speaker 2: with our various bands, and she was doing a lot
Speaker 2: better than me. Because she had the momentum of being
Speaker 2: the star singer of Curved Air, and so she was
Speaker 2: doing much better than me, and I was, you know,
Speaker 2: an appendage. You know. We go places and meet people
Speaker 2: and they would be all interested in meeting her, and
Speaker 2: I'm standing there like a lunk, and who could care less,
Speaker 2: you know, And that was sort of my social position.
Speaker 2: And one day my group kind of came out from
Speaker 2: under and overtook. But you know, we were we're very
Speaker 2: bonded and had you know, we're both working it every
Speaker 2: which way we could.
Speaker 1: And how did that relationship end?
Speaker 2: Oh? Three kids, twelve fifteen years later something I can't remember.
Speaker 2: How we eventually did get married and and my camera's
Speaker 2: running low on guests. We eventually did get married, and
Speaker 2: she came with a son, and we had two more boys,
Speaker 2: and how did it end? We eventually divorced very amicably,
Speaker 2: and we had, you know, when I was traveling the
Speaker 2: world and playing Polo and Lottie Dot and she was
Speaker 2: still you know, she didn't want to be seen in
Speaker 2: the Mercedes with her hippie friends, playing folk clubs and everything.
Speaker 2: She hated the image of being the rock star's wife,
Speaker 2: and she wouldn't be caught dead in the Mercedes. You know,
Speaker 2: only a you know, a third hand VW bus would
Speaker 2: suit her. And she's just a wonderful person. I've been
Speaker 2: very blessed, fortunate and both of the women that I married.
Speaker 1: Okay, so so far this story is about you. At
Speaker 1: what point do your two brothers become involved.
Speaker 2: Well, my brother Ian was my agent at the age
Speaker 2: of twelve, got me into my first band, the Black Knights.
Speaker 2: He was the coolest kid in Beirut and they really
Speaker 2: wanted him in the band because he was the fonds,
Speaker 2: but he couldn't play drums. My other brother, Miles, was
Speaker 2: kind of a music mogul and he started up the
Speaker 2: company managing bands such as Effect. He put together Wishbone
Speaker 2: Ash and other prog bands of the era that you
Speaker 2: wouldn't have heard over over here in the States, like Renaissance,
Speaker 2: Curved Air, but we are of all those, Wishbone Ash,
Speaker 2: absolutely Climax blues band, Oh I love van Al Stewart
Speaker 2: and such. And they had kind of a music empire
Speaker 2: and that's where I learned all my skills as roadies
Speaker 2: for all the groups and eventually tour manager for some
Speaker 2: of those groups. My first tour of America was but
Speaker 2: Joana Armor trading just her an acoustic guitar and me
Speaker 2: and my briefcase for three months across America, ending up
Speaker 2: in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: What point does Sting come in with roxane and you
Speaker 1: immediately hear it.
Speaker 2: About a year and a half in. We were struggling
Speaker 2: and starving and going nowhere for about a year and
Speaker 2: a half, and he wrote it without any agenda. It
Speaker 2: was certainly not a police song because we were still
Speaker 2: theoretically a punk band, and he wrote it before Andy joined,
Speaker 2: and he had it there in just one afternoon. He
Speaker 2: was playing it to Andy because you know, out of
Speaker 2: shot of their taliban drummer, you know, because I was
Speaker 2: the one cracking the punk whips and no, we got
Speaker 2: to be punk, we gotta be punk, and they're saying,
Speaker 2: can't we just play, No, we can't play, just play
Speaker 2: some music. We gotta be punk, and they considered me
Speaker 2: to be the wild eyed you know, uh, morality police
Speaker 2: of the band, and so secretly thing might have played
Speaker 2: this Busanova lament to Andy, who immediately said, we got
Speaker 2: to play that, we gotta play that, which we did
Speaker 2: for every song, whatever song He pulled out. We suddenly
Speaker 2: we got to play that, and so he pulled it
Speaker 2: out in a rehearsal and I gave it a drum
Speaker 2: beat that was kind of bass awkwards uh and made
Speaker 2: it into a police song. It wasn't punk Barama, but
Speaker 2: it was still a rock song, even though it was
Speaker 2: kind of a lament. And that was about a year
Speaker 2: and a half into the band, you know. And by
Speaker 2: the way, it sank without a trace when it first
Speaker 2: came out and can't stand.
Speaker 1: Okay, but anybody heard in America it was one listened
Speaker 1: smash and it was played. Did you realize how great
Speaker 1: it was? Or it was just another sting song.
Speaker 2: It was a throwaway song. And it was my brother
Speaker 2: Miles who put his finger on it. That's what he does.
Speaker 2: He provides dumbass, which is forgetting musicality sophistication. He hears it,
Speaker 2: folks are going to love this, And I don't care
Speaker 2: if it's any good or not, but I do know
Speaker 2: folks are going to love this. And so we were
Speaker 2: recording our album basically on a deal with the studio
Speaker 2: owner who was just trying to get any bands in there,
Speaker 2: would make any deal just to get some albums recorded
Speaker 2: in the studio so he could establish himself.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, this is Nigel Gray.
Speaker 2: This is Nigel Gray.
Speaker 1: Nigel Gray was nobody at the time, nobody.
Speaker 2: He just said he was a doctor. He was a
Speaker 2: family doctor who invested in some recording equipment which he
Speaker 2: put in this above a darry and started just recording
Speaker 2: bands on the off chance that one of them would hit.
Speaker 2: And one of them was Clark Kent, which was me
Speaker 2: on guitar, bass and drums, singing songs that were even
Speaker 2: too dumb for the police, but one of which was
Speaker 2: picked up by Radio one BBC and became a hit.
Speaker 2: They put it on the playlist and suddenly Clark Kent
Speaker 2: is having a hit, which was a secret identity thing.
Speaker 2: And long story short, the Police had released Rock Sand
Speaker 2: and Kanstan Losing You Sank without a Trace, but suddenly
Speaker 2: Clark Kent is having a hit. And so the record
Speaker 2: company got me and the band and signed you know,
Speaker 2: A and M Records, who had just done a singles deal,
Speaker 2: said okay, let's get these guys, let's sign them up
Speaker 2: for an album. And they signed us up for an
Speaker 2: album and we were recording that album when Miles comes down.
Speaker 2: He hadn't. He wasn't officially our manager yet. He was
Speaker 2: just my big brother, and I used his rolodex and
Speaker 2: his offices and his resources and his wisdom and his vice,
Speaker 2: but he wasn't technically our manager. And he hears all there,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's kind of it's just another rock band.
Speaker 2: Then last thing we played in was rock Sand that's
Speaker 2: a hit. And the legend is that he tore off
Speaker 2: all of his clothes and went running down Leatherhead High
Speaker 2: Street shouting eureka. Well that myth. I started that myth,
Speaker 2: so it's true, and he took it to he said,
Speaker 2: I'll take that to a record company and and then said, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll release that as a single. And the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Okay, but let me just wrap up a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One is the album done when you tour America?
Speaker 2: Yes, And when we go to America it is. The
Speaker 2: record company is not aware of us, the American record company.
Speaker 2: In fact, there's a famous conversation where Miles calls up
Speaker 2: the American record company and says, Okay, I got this
Speaker 2: band of the Police, I'm bringing them over and they said,
Speaker 2: don't bring them over. We're not going to give you
Speaker 2: tour support. I never heard of them. They don't mean
Speaker 2: anything but a punk band, forget it. Uh. And Miles
Speaker 2: is never mind. I bring up, well, we're not giving
Speaker 2: you any you know, and there's the famous list of
Speaker 2: knots that they're not going to provide us. Uh. But
Speaker 2: we came over anyway. We came over with my drums
Speaker 2: as check, you know, as luggage, and uh pulled up
Speaker 2: to the CBGB's in New York City. And by this
Speaker 2: time Miles and Ian had gotten a truck or actually
Speaker 2: a van, a station wagon with two amps and a
Speaker 2: drum set, and they had just brought Squeeze over UK.
Speaker 2: Squeeze who played these the circuit of clubs that my
Speaker 2: brother Ian had found one in Philadelphia, won in Boston,
Speaker 2: Won in New York and so on, Grendel's Lair and
Speaker 2: the Right Club in Boston, so on, like a circuit. Uh.
Speaker 2: And we were the second band to come over on
Speaker 2: that circuit. Unknown, but we were English and there was
Speaker 2: a scene and you know, for kids who were thirsty
Speaker 2: for something new Thursday night at the Rat Club in Boston.
Speaker 2: Whoever's playing, they're English cool, I'm going down and Uh.
Speaker 2: That's how we started to actually strike a light in uh,
Speaker 2: in America.
Speaker 1: So the legend is the album was not out in
Speaker 1: America when you toured. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: No, the album was. The record company wasn't aware of it,
Speaker 2: which meant that it wasn't out, but it was available
Speaker 2: on import and radio stations were playing it WBCN and
Speaker 2: and Boston was playing it, uh, w MMR and Philly,
Speaker 2: you know whatever the stations were. You know they were
Speaker 2: they were playing, particularly college stations, and so uh another
Speaker 2: long story. When I was touring Jon Armer Trading's tournament,
Speaker 2: she was on an M and I met their you know,
Speaker 2: artist relations guy. I happened to know him, and he
Speaker 2: heard about this band and her. You know, he was
Speaker 2: starting to hear they're starting to get positive feedback, but
Speaker 2: not even are they even on our label. They had
Speaker 2: no idea we were signed in England. And so he
Speaker 2: comes out to check out a show in Indiana or something.
Speaker 2: Calls up Jerry Moss the next day, who's the m
Speaker 2: of A and M Records? We got to hit here,
Speaker 2: you know, send money. We didn't need money. We were
Speaker 2: completely self sufficient, you know, two hundred dollars a night
Speaker 2: and we could get to the next city, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know that's two hotel rooms for three, you know,
Speaker 2: three in the band and one guy. Uh. So that's
Speaker 2: when record company A and M showed their true colors.
Speaker 2: They immediately they said, well, let's check this record out. Whoah,
Speaker 2: And they started coming to shows whoa. And by the
Speaker 2: time he got to Los Angeles, the headquarters, they were
Speaker 2: out there on full parade with every resource you know.
Speaker 2: And these are all the things they're gonna do, not
Speaker 2: the knots. These were they gonna can and will do.
Speaker 2: And they really did run with it. They were absolutely
Speaker 2: the best record company ever.
Speaker 1: And were you ever disillusioned, especially driving in a station
Speaker 1: wagon cross country or did you always know you were
Speaker 1: gonna make it? And did you have any idea you
Speaker 1: were going to be as big as you were?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, And that's the same answer that most musicians
Speaker 2: would give you. Bands are eternally optimistic, mutually affirming. We
Speaker 2: are the best, aren't we? We kick our ass? Don't
Speaker 2: we totally? Last night we blew us away? You know,
Speaker 2: that's how bands work. And so yes, we were convinced,
Speaker 2: absolutely certain in fact that we would dominate and rule
Speaker 2: the world. And we had that same arrogance from the
Speaker 2: moment the day Sting and I met and we went
Speaker 2: down to the Roxy Club and saw Generation X and
Speaker 2: looking around at the minnows on our left and on
Speaker 2: our right that US sharks were going to eat. We
Speaker 2: knew that we were going to rule the world, the
Speaker 2: same way Generation X knew that they were going to
Speaker 2: Ruin rule the world, and the same way that Evil
Speaker 2: Edna's Horror Toilet assumed that they were going to rule
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the beginning, you're writing a lot of songs
Speaker 1: on the albums, and then as the albums go down
Speaker 1: the path, you're writing fewer songs. What goes on there?
Speaker 2: Well, most of my songs. At that time we're going
Speaker 2: to Clark Kent, and I was managing the band too,
Speaker 2: so I didn't have time. But you can see in
Speaker 2: the book I have the set lists, and the first
Speaker 2: set list are all my songs, one animal song, one
Speaker 2: curved air retread, and you know my handwriting, and then
Speaker 2: one by one, stings songs start appearing, Visions of the night.
Speaker 2: I can't remember whatever they were. They were not the
Speaker 2: big ones that were familiar with now, but they were
Speaker 2: better than anything I'd written, and one by one, and
Speaker 2: then the last one that appears, and it's like now
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty. But look closely and you'll see that
Speaker 2: it's now Sting's handwriting doing the set list, because by
Speaker 2: now it's his band.
Speaker 1: Okay, you keep a diary throughout all this why.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I keep stuff, but you.
Speaker 1: Stop keeping the diary according to the book, Well.
Speaker 2: I got a movie camera and that story is taken up.
Speaker 2: You know. The book kind of ends, you know, I've
Speaker 2: got date sheets of what happened when you got to America,
Speaker 2: but the narration really ends when we leave England and
Speaker 2: go to America, and the story is picked up there
Speaker 2: by my Super eight camera and the film Everyone Stairs,
Speaker 2: which came out a few years ago, you know, which
Speaker 2: is all the Super eight footage of the Rise and
Speaker 2: the rocket ship ride of the Police, which I got
Speaker 2: all of on Super eight.
Speaker 1: So when you go through the diaries and your other paraphernalia,
Speaker 1: are you reminded of what happened? Or you remember vividly? Anyway?
Speaker 2: Well, my memory is wrong in many cases, and I've
Speaker 2: learned that I've been set right by fans sometimes. And
Speaker 2: somebody would say, when you used to play such and
Speaker 2: such a song. Did you use the such and such?
Speaker 2: And they go, well, we never played that song, And
Speaker 2: then another family, Oh, yes you did, and here's a recording.
Speaker 2: So memory is a very flexible thing, very creative thing.
Speaker 2: And the diary, you know, I read Sting's book, Andy's book,
Speaker 2: Henry's book, Miles's book, and their memories diverged from mind.
Speaker 2: But I've got the receipts.
Speaker 1: So how did you actually assemble the book?
Speaker 2: I didn't, Well, I did. I wrote all the commentary, uh,
Speaker 2: describing what's these mysterious because a lot of big events,
Speaker 2: you know, I met Sting, I met this bass player
Speaker 2: named Sting. I had no idea that this is going
Speaker 2: to change my life. So it doesn't have a it's
Speaker 2: not a red letter day. There isn't like a it's
Speaker 2: not underlined in capital letters or anything. It's just you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize at the time. So there's commentary, modern
Speaker 2: commentary that goes along with it. And uh, I wrote
Speaker 2: that in the pictures and doodles and accounts. I sort
Speaker 2: of and not photoshop it in word. I just sort
Speaker 2: of plunked the images that I wanted to use, but
Speaker 2: they but the publisher had an artist who really turned
Speaker 2: it into a work of art with all his graphic design,
Speaker 2: and it's a coffee table book. It's very visual and
Speaker 2: it has all my doodles and accounts. Don't look too
Speaker 2: closely at the numbers.
Speaker 1: So where can people get the book?
Speaker 2: I think it's available online. Rocket Books is the publisher,
Speaker 2: and I don't think it's in stores, and so I
Speaker 2: think you got to buy it online.
Speaker 1: But is it going to be in stores at some point?
Speaker 2: I hope so, yeah, I hope. You know. They did
Speaker 2: the book, which I don't know costs whatever a book costs,
Speaker 2: and then they did the deluxe version for two hundred dollars,
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars because I sign it, or some little
Speaker 2: upgrade meaningless upgrade. And then for five hundred dollars you
Speaker 2: can get the same book with some other with a poster.
Speaker 2: Those went overnight. The most outrageously priced versions of the book.
Speaker 1: Is this book a labor of lover? You actually making
Speaker 1: money here?
Speaker 2: Well, those stupidly priced ones turn over instant moolah. But
Speaker 2: it was a labor of love. It was just fun
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're very verbal with a very strong personality.
Speaker 2: Not so much at the moment and.
Speaker 1: You, well, we're reaching the end of the feeling we've known.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and you have this charisma. How do you
Speaker 1: get along with people? People who are either in orn
Speaker 1: or they say I can't get a word in edgewise,
Speaker 1: or it's oil and water or it's all groovy. What's
Speaker 1: it been like during you?
Speaker 2: I'm a noisy son of a bitch and I'm the
Speaker 2: epitome of the interrupting cownt.
Speaker 1: Okay, how is that in the band? How is that
Speaker 1: in a band?
Speaker 2: Uh? Virtuous for the other guys? And I'm very thankful
Speaker 2: that they put up with me. I am a noisy
Speaker 2: son of a bitch And did that one of the
Speaker 2: other guys in the band is quiet and deep.
Speaker 1: And opposites attract? And did this cause tension in the band?
Speaker 1: And ultimately was it a cause of the dissolution?
Speaker 2: No? No, we fought and there's tension. Then we've realized
Speaker 2: a couple of things. One is that that tension is
Speaker 2: what made the band work the way it did. And
Speaker 2: more importantly, for our souls, we understand that the cause
Speaker 2: of the tension, which was to put it as simply
Speaker 2: as possible, We make music for different reasons. We listened
Speaker 2: to different kinds of music. We make music different ways,
Speaker 2: with different intentions. Music fills a different place in our lives.
Speaker 2: And so obviously when it comes to you know, whether
Speaker 2: or not we're going to play this song is a
Speaker 2: done deal. It's a great song to listen to, that lyric,
Speaker 2: that's a cool line. Here how we play it? And
Speaker 2: then now comes the other ingredient, which is to give
Speaker 2: a shit, where no one wants to just be a passenger.
Speaker 2: I don't play in a band so that I can
Speaker 2: be like a session guy in my own band. No,
Speaker 2: I have a band so that I can express myself musically,
Speaker 2: and if I don't express myself musically, I shall go mad.
Speaker 2: And so that's because we give a shit and we
Speaker 2: have different intentions, there's going to be a clash. And
Speaker 2: it was not a matter of ego or anything like that.
Speaker 2: It was just that music is real important to us.
Speaker 2: And when we came to realize that during our reunion tour,
Speaker 2: we had band therapy and we got it all set
Speaker 2: and we couldn't believe it. We realized what it was,
Speaker 2: what was going on. But we still we clash musically,
Speaker 2: and we still the factors that cause that tension are
Speaker 2: still there, but we understand that it's not evil intention,
Speaker 2: it's not the work of Satan. And when we're not
Speaker 2: making music, we get along really well.
Speaker 1: And everybody's been not everybody. A lot of people have
Speaker 1: been selling their rights in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Is that something you've entertained?
Speaker 2: Not really, No, nobody's made an offer. You know. I'm retired.
Speaker 2: I'm comfortable. I live a very simple life, and that's
Speaker 2: really by designs so that I can be free of
Speaker 2: all such considerations. I'm I'm completely free, and as long
Speaker 2: as I don't have ten houses around the world and
Speaker 2: twenty cars and you know, any of that, I live
Speaker 2: a simple life, which makes me free.
Speaker 1: And what might we be looking for from you in
Speaker 1: the future.
Speaker 2: I'm currently in gauged on a couple of very cool missions,
Speaker 2: but I'm superstitious about talking to them until they come
Speaker 2: to fruition. But I'm deep at it. You know. I've
Speaker 2: been playing Police Deranged for a orchestra for two years
Speaker 2: and I'm done with that, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, you also became a film composer. Where did you
Speaker 1: get the chops for that? And how did you get
Speaker 1: the gigs?
Speaker 2: I didn't have the chops. I learned them on the job.
Speaker 2: It was Francis Coppola who gave me my first break
Speaker 2: and explained to me what he needed and it just
Speaker 2: came to me. And since I was inventing the wheel,
Speaker 2: it meant that it was different from how you're supposed
Speaker 2: to do. It equals revolutionary. And I retired from that
Speaker 2: about fifteen years ago, after twenty years. You know, the
Speaker 2: film composer is not an artist, he's an employee. And
Speaker 2: a result of that employment, under the harsh yoke of
Speaker 2: cruel employ I learned all kinds of things that an
Speaker 2: artist would never learn. Among those things was orchestra, and
Speaker 2: so I learned. I had an involuntary education in orchestra.
Speaker 2: And then I retired and I do the same job now.
Speaker 2: By the way, I write opera, which is music and
Speaker 2: storytelling with music. Only in this world, the composer is boss.
Speaker 2: You know, on television, the writer is boss. Everybody works
Speaker 2: for the writer. Films, the director's boss. Everybody works for
Speaker 2: the director. In opera, it's the composers medium.
Speaker 1: To what degree is there a market for opera?
Speaker 2: None? The business model is to lose money. Rich people
Speaker 2: or governments pay for it. There is an audience for it.
Speaker 2: People do love it, and people do come out and
Speaker 2: see it. It's a very rarefied world. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to play, say Stadium with my next opera, but I
Speaker 2: got to play in Weimar at the National Theater there.
Speaker 2: I got to play last summer my pieces The Witches
Speaker 2: Seed played in Italy and by the Lakes there living
Speaker 2: the dream doing opera in Italy and the year before
Speaker 2: that in Germany. And it's just a really fun mission.
Speaker 2: It's no way to make a fortune. It's just a
Speaker 2: really great life.
Speaker 1: Okay Stewart, I want to thank you for taking the
Speaker 1: time to speak to my audience. You've been very forthcoming.
Speaker 1: Until next time, This is Bob Left SAIDs