Strange things happen: a life with the Police, polo, and pygmies

by Stewart Copeland

  “Go…chase!” orders Charlie, and the three forty-something heads-of-department simulate a flashing light show on the deck beneath us until, “Restore!” and the lights briskly converge again on the sacred spot. Dug stands aside with a beatific smile, Chris Sup and his mate pull aside the gong, while Charlie adopts the posture of the very suavest maître d’:

  “Mr. Copeland, at your leisure.”

  CHAPTER 35

  AFTERSHOW RITUAL

  JULY 2007

  TORONTO

  Getting used to this touring life.

  …n

  ot a bad show. It’s great not to be doing a runner. Walking off the stage and along the hallways of the arena back to the dressing room is always (almost) very cheerful. My shirt has turned to ice within seconds away from the hot stage lights so I fumble with my wires, radio packs, and belts as we walk so that I can get the damned shirt off. Sting is ten feet in front of me, sauntering along with Billy in attendance. I have no idea what his or Andy’s postshow ritual is, or what they’re thinking right now after spending two hours on a stage together in front of a lot of very aroused people. We disappear into our suites and are gone.

  Copyright © 2009 Danny Clinch / A&M Records

  Brad and I arrive in my casbah and he pours a shot of choice tequila as I pull off my soggy clothes and head for the shower. Within two minutes of leaving the stage I’m in a shower of bliss. Hot at first as I soak and glorify in the moment and then colder to stop the sweating. It’s exhilarating to play shows, but there is an excitement lag. During the show the business at hand (music, songs, arrangements, and so forth) is distracting from the fundamental coolness of the thing. But under the hot stream of water the thrill sinks in. I rerun the show in my head and revel in the moments of brilliance, while helping myself to absolution for the fuckups.

  Since I’m in a shower designed for hockey players I’m thankful that, unlike teams, bands win every game. Even if there were difficulties during the show there is always the reward from the audience. At least with this band, there is no such thing as a dead show. The songs are just so ingrained into people’s lives that when they hear us playing them they light up. So in the shower it’s all good.

  River Plate Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, by day

  Copyright © 2009 Charlie Hernandez

  Looking around the team-sized shower room it’s hard not to feel thankful for my job. It’s a breezeblock rectangle painted white with white neon light and serious plumbing. It’s the only part of my digs that Jaime Laurita’s crew couldn’t smother with pipe-and-drape. The Police area of the sport facility is swathed in silks and sexy lighting so that the players can shrug off worry and groove with joy. Sports players have to go out there and fight, so they don’t get the mood lighting. We do, I think, use this building for fundamentally the same purpose. They go out and stage a ritual battle to arouse communal passions and tribal thrills. We do that, too, but don’t have any opposition. If they slacken or blink, they lose. We’re here to cruise. Don’t get me wrong, rock music is an extreme effort, way beyond anything that would be possible without the exhortations of the masses. But there’s no one trying to stop us. What if they had a Super Bowl with just one team? Well, everybody wins!

  Later that night

  Cpyright © 2008 Thor Unamar, FotoAérea Ltda.

  People often say that this job looks like amazing fun. It sure beats rat catching, but it’s strangely uneuphoric to be up there at the center of all that ritual. The state of mind is many opposite things all happening at once. My body is almost on automatic pilot. I’m not listening to myself, I’m fixated on the other players, switching my focus back and forth between them. During Andy’s solos I’m right in there with him every step of the way. I like to pick up his phrases and articulate the rhythms of his ostinato figures. Crowds love that kind of interplay, but sometimes I go too far, and he’s suddenly wondering where I put the groove. It’s like if a pilot in his cockpit looks over and sees the mechanic trying to fly the plane. But generally he’s pretty tolerant of the racket that I set up behind him and we keep good eye and ear contact for most of the set.

  Sting is another story. We have a lot of conflict onstage. We both understand each other’s issues perfectly but struggle to accommodate them, although it’s finally getting easier to put our good intentions into practice. Sting has a concept in his mind of the ideal form that the music should take. It is our job to re-create that ideal in the physical world, on that stage. I have very little in my mind, ideal or otherwise. I don’t count bars or look at a map. The patterns and arrangements are learned at a very deep level, where my conscious mind rarely goes. So when Sting, as an able arranger and bandleader, imagines a rhythm and asks me to play it, he never quite gets what he asked for. Anything that isn’t what he wants is chaos to him. Working with me (on drums) requires an unreasonable tolerance for chaos. Strange how that contrasts with my composer gig, which is autistically meticulous. When I get on my drums I’m not the urbane but brisk professional anymore. I’m a hairy-assed silverback swinging through the trees.

  CHAPTER 36

  TUBA IN TURIN

  OCTOBER 2007

  A

  fter a day of searching the antique stores of Vienna, I have found the perfect birthday gift for the man who has everything: a beautiful brass tuba. The bass member of the brass family for the bass member of my band family. Perfect! It’s a thing of brass beauty. By the time I’ve figured out how to play “Happy Birthday to You” on it, I want to keep it for myself. It is only the great love in my heart that commands me to reserve this treasure for my friend. It happens that the birthday lands on the day of our show in Turin, Italy. This is going to be the best day of the tour. My Taranta gang are opening for us! Italy is the best country in the world, where my life is enriched every summer with my own little cozy music scene. Turin ain’t Melpignano but anywhere in Italy still feels like a homecoming, particularly since my Salento tribe will be there.

  The Stadio delle Alpi is an old building and the dressing rooms are just off center field; perfect for football teams to enter the pitch at the center line. It’s nice that I can peek out from the players’ tunnel and watch my tribal friends banging up the pizzica for massed Police fans. They never miss; even without me in the band they rock the joint.

  They finish their show in triumph and I’m heading back to the silks when I run into Stingo. “Not bad!” he allows. I completely failed during the last week not to oversell the Tarantas to my colleagues. He must have liked them, though, because he watched most of their show. “But,” he says, “they didn’t play me ‘Happy Birthday.’”

  “Aha! Well, I can take care of that!” says I. “Follow me.”

  When we get to my rooms I slip behind the curtain, pull out the horn, and stride back into the room puffing “Happy Birthday to You” on his shiny new toy. His face lights up with joy and before I can even finish the tune he’s grabbing it from me.

  In a twinkling he’s figured out “Tequila.”

  da Tent

  Dada

  Ten ten Ten

  Tant

  He’s like that, our Stingo. Put anything that makes a sound into his hands and something beautiful will happen. For the rest of the preshow I can hear the tuba emanating soulfully from Sting world.

  The walk is a little different tonight. The dressing rooms are at midfield and our stage is down at the far end. Between our world and the stage are the loading ramps and traffic systems for the crumbly old stadium. So we get into a little bus and take a ride around the works to get to the stage. To make sure that we get there without mishap, we have a full Italian police escort with flashing lights and sirens.

  We are enjoying the drama as we snuggle up in the little van. All is well in Police-dom until we notice that we’re on a freeway. The huge stadium, that blocks out the sky, is receding behind us. Um….

  With flags flying, our convoy takes the next exit, snarls up Turin traffic as we cross over the bridge, and descends th
e on ramp back down to the freeway toward the stadium. Full lights and sirens.

  Soon we are home again in the stadium grounds, but our adventure is not over. We appear to be exploring the parking lots in search of a route to the stage—just like any fans at a show, but for the full lights and sirens. Then when we come to a T junction and the convoy halts. After an interlude, the lights and sirens go dark. We can only imagine the Italian fulminations in the lead car. Porko Dio!

  “Yeah…Billy?…are the band gonna play tonight?” squawks Charlie in the unit.

  “Bit of confusion with the escort,” replies Billy from the front seat. His voice is unnaturally low and even. We are enjoying this scene from Spinal Tap more than he is.

  When we pull up to the stage, with neither bleep of light nor murmur of siren from our escort, we’re twenty minutes late for the show.

  Soon we’re saddled up and we start up the drill. As the show opens my heart is bursting with adoration for the splendid Italians. It’s a really big show, with many of my personal chums in the crowd. I’m feeling perfect.

  With joy in my heart I look to my brethren, that we may ignite the evening together. Andy gets it, he’s right in my groove. Over on the right, however…oh, great. Sting’s got a problem. Not much mystery to it, it’s the usual. Me.

  Let the joy shine forth, I soothe, seeking to deflect the dart of anger that zings past my ear. But it’s no use. The other ignition sequence has begun.

  First he starts waving his bass at me—often a good thing, but not this time. He’s facing away from me, out to the crowd, but he’s clearly trying to get my attention. Instead of playing the damned thing, he’s trying to conduct me with it. I’ve got nothing better to do than to figure out how I may cease to displease my beloved comrade, but you know what happens next.

  In my mind I’m running through the lengthy list of known displeasures. There’s always the tempo thing, but right now he’s rushing, not me, damn it. Then there is each and every instance that I hit a drum or cymbal God Damn it. And he’s probably blaming me that he lost the plot at that last turnaround….

  No, no, no. There is only love. We are sharing the blessing of music with all of these enraptured Italians who love us. In fact there is kind of a heightened urgency to the show. When the punter blinders come up, I can see right to the back of the stadium. One hundred sixty thousand arms raised. The voodoo is way high tonight.

  Andy takes a solo. He can feel the excitation. As he ramps it up and up, I’m raging with him. OK, so the tempo gets a little overheated. When we get back to the song Sting has to snatch at the lyrics in the brighter tempo. Well, I know that’s going to piss him off.

  And it does; now he’s got Tourette’s syndrome. He doesn’t want to miss a precious word of his blessed song, so he’s singing like a bird, but after every line of soaring beauty, his head twitches round to spit venom. There’s an urgency to it. It’s really important that he get his message across to me. It’s vital that I not miss any drop of his outrage. Since I’m strenuously avoiding any outward sign of acknowledgment, he must employ ever larger gestures. I’m just focused on Andy. The riff is clear: lock and groove.

  But I fail to completely ignore it when he half turns, takes his left hand off the frets and starts to make whacking gestures to indicate when I should hit my backbeat. What?!

  Now we have eye contact for the first time all night. He’s mouthing curses at me, as if he thinks I’ll be persuaded by this to mellow out.

  Pumped up as I am by the show, this strikes me as the most heinous crime imaginable in stagecraft. Particularly since there are only three of us it’s very important not to frag your own team. I’m stunned. My body is strenuously engaged in sacred ritual and someone is shooting at me. What?!

  No time for any little silvery ringing, we’re straight into the clanging gongs of Armageddon.

  I’m surging. Love and adore this you fucking piece of shit! I actually have the perfect tools in my hands for this sentiment. Hard wood, strong drums, and 500,000 watts of amplified rage. The stadium full of screaming frenzy doesn’t calm me down much, either.

  You fucking—Fucking—Fuckkkkinnng bastard!

  I’m in a whiteout of fury. My cymbals are flattened against their stands and the drums are clacking because I’m hitting them too hard. There are white and red flashes behind my eyeballs. Splinters are flying off my sticks, and I’m slaughtering whole civilizations.

  Jeff is in my headset. “Feeling a little happy tonight?”

  I’m screaming unintelligibly into my head mic as we come to the end of the set. I charge down my hatch, and Brad is there with cold Gatorade and towels. The stadium around us is quaking with tumult. As the multitude screams its approval, Brad is carefully managing my mood. Of course he agrees one hundred percent with every imprecation that I hurl over to the Sting zone under stage right, where Beelzebub and Billy are head-to-head, no doubt having a similar conversation. But he’s sharing my rage in kind of an upbeat way, steering me more toward humor than violence. Better a sardonic sneer than a murderous lunge, because we still have one last song to play.

  I normally burn up just about every available calorie of energy that I possess during a regular show. When we go back out for our final song, I’ve got just enough fuel left to carry it manfully before flopping down the hatch and limping back to the silk. Tonight there is a whole new source of energy. The desire to rend, rip, claw, or cudgel conjures up hidden reserves and the Devil himself is torching the stadium. This may be Turin, but these folks are the descendants of Romans. They can smell the blood. They get it, and the conflagration consumes everything.

  We take our bows with glassy smiles and I storm back down my hatch. When I get to the little love van, ready with my sardonic sneer, there’s no sign of the Adversary. Billy and Brad have rustled up separate conveyance. But Andy is here, and he’s in a genial mood. I’m not. My comradely congratulations (through gritted teeth) on his towering performance quickly accelerate into a contrasting opinion of our singer. By the time we get to the dressing rooms I’m speaking in tongues and pounding the upholstery, taxing the suspension system of the little van. Andy appears fascinated by the stitching on the back of the driver’s hat. He’s regretting that he took out his earplugs and left them with Dennis back at the stage.

  Within the hour, I’m hosed down, dried off, and wallowing in endorphins. Vittorio is here! And Titti, and Mauro and Giovanni and Eugenio, Stephano, Sylvia, Silvio, Antonio, Ninfa, Emanuele, Alfredo, Enza, and the whole Salento tribe. Long into the night we carouse and laugh. We only have this one show in Italy so everybody I know is here.

  Copyright © 2009 Danny Clinch / A&M Records

  NEXT MORNING, IT’S A beautiful sunny day as I cross the hotel lobby, but in the back of my mind there is some unfinished business. Billy is there.

  “Fancy a coffee?” he asks, uncharacteristically.

  “Sure.”

  We wander over to the lobby café and Sting is there with his posse. Fiona and Trudie are twinkling to each other and waving their eyebrows at their husbands while gazing heavenward. I settle in close to the Jovian jowl.

  “Give me back my fucking tuba, asshole.”

  “Can’t. I trashed it.”

  Aaaahhh…music is thicker than blood.

  CHAPTER 37

  FOUR BEERS AND THE PRESIDENT

  OCTOBER 2007

  MILLENNIUM STADIUM, CARDIFF

  I

  t’s gradually getting less weird on this tour. Our lives are engineered to keep band contact to a minimum so we mainly see each other on the plane and in the bus on our way from the airport to the sound check. Conversation in the bus is easy because it’s too bumpy to read and we are physically within earshot. The best part is that it’s usually dumb shit, although it is also a good place for clear conversation about band matters. When we get to the gig we each head back into our corners. After a quick look at our dressing rooms we head out to the stage, and when we get up there it’s all business. We�
��re still doing sound checks, longer into the tour than most other bands bother with. It’s good to get the blood moving and to tinker with the toys. Sting always has some new noodle to gnaw at.

  The second best part of the day is the post–sound check nap. It’s strangely nonvoluntary. The body knows by now what’s coming up in a couple hours so it just shuts down. Coma. At 6:30 the bear crawls out of hibernation. Protein is the first demand. In Band Dining Jaime has a spread of calibrated nutrients for the three athletes. There’s some fancy-looking stuff spread out for us but I’m tearing at the red meat, gradually waking up my own flesh.

  Copyright © 2009 Danny Clinch / A&M Records

  Usually, after Band Dining, it’s time to start suiting up. But tonight I have to do some promotion for the South American leg that we have been coddled into adding to the tour. We’re going to swing through Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. Amy intercepts my stroll back to the dressing room and guides me along the cavernous stadium hallways into a room with a crew. It’s a camera team from Chile, who just need a few words from me to promote our concert down there. The charismatic presenter of a TV show back in Santiago is here with his microphone and vibe. We get some fun repartee going while the camera turns. The TV guy is playing for his viewers back home (so am I) and very soon everybody has what they need.

  Amy moves me to the next room, which is the same deal, only it’s a crew from Argentina. Easy enough, same gags, same shtick, only now my favorite country in the world is Argentina. Flattery is the easiest shill, so it always helps to have a little specific local color to refer to when flogging tickets in distant lands. It so happens that with Argentina, there is an easy one. They have just re-established their historic flair for female leaders by electing the quite babeliscious Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as president.