I wish I'd been nicer to Sting: Stewart Copeland talks about life after The Police

ON FRIDAY the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall was the venue for the world premiere of Poltroons In Paradise, a concerto for percussion by Stewart Copeland.

sting, the police, stewart copeland, band, music, life, nicer, tour, road, adventure, showbizStewart is ranked the fifth best drummer in the world[PH]

Those who know Copeland only as the drummer in The Police may be surprised that he is a composer of some renown and has written music for film, opera and ballet for the past 20 years - although his hopes of "burning down the joint" are suitably rock 'n' roll.

As well as being a virtuoso drummer (ranked fifth best in the world), he also plays many orchestral instruments.

"Thanks to eBay I have the world's largest collection of cheap instruments," he says.

"Can I play them all? Well I can get a noise out of most of them, which is not the same thing."

Nor is that the whole truth.


When he went on Top Of The Pops he got friends (including fellow Police-men Sting and Andy Summers) to pose as his band.

They wore masks and pretended to play the instruments.

His home is California now but we meet two days before the big premiere in West London where he keeps a pied a terre.

"I really miss a good fry-up and curry," he says.

He is 61 and a grandfather, still lean but with ashy hair and trendy professor specs.

With his long, equine features he looks like an uncommonly intelligent horse.

"When I was a rock musician I wore leather trousers until one day I realised I was the only one.

"I have no need to stand out now because in Hollywood they hire you for your professionalism not your rock star status.

"Now my wardrobe is totally suburban dad.

"It's so bad that when The Police did our reunion tour I had to have a stylist."

Self-deprecation is Copeland's default setting.

He plays the goofy American among Old World sophisticates, the rock star parvenu who presumes to write for classically trained musicians but of course, that is not quite the true picture.

Of all the members of The Police he is by far the poshest, a diplomat's son who went to Millfield, Britain's most expensive public school.

When his father realised he was serious about learning the drums he insisted he had proper instruction.

 The Police were notorious for their rows [GETTY]

I don't feel so bad now because we did our reunion tour in 2007 and we were very nice to each other

Stewart Copeland

"I had a classical musical education but never used it in my rock 'n' roll days.

"The easiest way to scare a rock musician is to hold a sheet with dots on the page in front him."

He wasn't always so unassuming.

As he readily admits he was "an ****hole" in his Police days.

"We all were. When you go in a short time from hunger and despair to having all you ever dreamed of it takes a moment to remember that despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary, you are just human.

"One has a lot of opportunity to misbehave and one does.

"You become arrogant and inconsiderate."

The band were notorious for their rows.

Copeland used to have "Sting is a [reader, insert the worst four-letter insult you can think of]" taped on his drums so he would hit them all the harder.

When asked in an interview if he had any regrets, he said, "I wish I'd been nicer to Sting."

Did he mean it?

"Yes! And to Andy.


"We'd grown up. But I tell you, I feel Justin Bieber's pain.

"If I could give him some fatherly advice I'd say, 'Just rein it in a little' because he's very talented and it's not his fault he's just a babycake and it would be tragic if he burned himself out."

Most rock bands evolve out of shared dreams and upbringings.

That was not the case with The Police.

Sting was a working-class Geordie and Summers was from Bournemouth while Copeland was the Americanborn international brat.

Sting's father was a milkman; Copeland's dad was a CIA agent.

The youngest of four children, Copeland was two months old when his father Miles was posted to Cairo in 1952.

Five years later the family moved to Beirut where they became friendly with another expat couple, Kim and Eleanor Philby. Yes, that Philby.

"We did a lot of family things together, like picnics.

"Harry Philby [Kim's son] was my friend.

"Harry and his sister Miranda didn't like their stepmother very much.

 Performing with The Police at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1979 [REX]

"She was quite severe whereas my mum was gentler.

"I remember Kim as easy-going and fuzzy.

"Now I realise he was sodden with booze.

"When Kim jumped ship, Harry and Miranda stayed with us for a few weeks."

How aware was he of what was happening?

"I understood a lot more later.

"It was known that there was a mole and apparently my dad was pretty close to catching Kim.

"I never saw Harry again and I've never been able to find him."

Not long after, Miles Copeland's own cover as a businessman was blown and the family were forced to up sticks with Stewart being packed off to Millfield, where he says he "hung on to my American accent with great tenacity".

After studying at college in California he returned to Britain and joined the prog rock band Curved Air, first as a roadie, then as the drummer.

He also fell for the group's lead singer Sonja Kristina.

Copeland says the first time he saw Sting play at a North-east polytechnic in 1977 he had "golden light" pouring from him, but I think he was joking.

Within two years they were global stars.

By the time they split up in 1986 it seemed they could barely stand each other, though Copeland maintains it wasn't that bad.

"Sure, we got very angry with each other but never beyond just surface damage.

"In a band it's more of a sibling relationship.

"You go further than you would with friends."

Too far for their wives, apparently, as all the band's marriages broke down.

Copeland and Sonja divorced in 1991 after a seven-year union but he has been happily married to Fiona, who is also British, for more than 20 years.

They have three American-accented daughters while his four sons (three with Sonja, including her son from an earlier relationship whom Copeland adopted, and his son from another relationship) are British.

In the dying days of The Police the riages hapdirector Francis Ford Coppola asked him to compose the music for his fi lm Rumble Fish.

Copeland’s score – his first – went on to win a Golden Globe.

He has written 25 more fi lm scores since for, among others, Wall Street and Highlander II.

As I leave after our interview, we walk a little way together down a street of multi-million pound houses.

“The first time I lived round here I was starving and desperate.

"You can’t get a good fry-up round here now,” he says.

After the premiere of Poltroons In Paradise, conductor Vasily Petrenko is taking Copeland’s concerto to China.

“He can choose any piece of music he wants and he wants mine,” says Copeland.

“I’m extremely humbled by that.”

With his CV, Stewart Copeland has no need to feel humble but it speaks well of him that he does.