The Police’s Stewart Copeland says trio are good friends now, after years of “tension”

Stewart Copeland is widely regarded as one of rock music’s greatest-ever drummers.

The prolific musician, songwriter and composer has been celebrating the music of his former band The Police with a series of amazing orchestral concerts.

The Police Derange for Orchestra has toured the world, with Stewart joined by a full orchestra as they play classic Police songs like ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’, ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Every Breath You Take’, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2023.

Smooth’s Jenni Falconer caught up with Stewart about the project, which will see an album released on June 23.

In the interview – Stewart talks about his new album, as well as his former bandmates Sting and Andy Summers, and his biggest hits.

Stewart revealed that despite “tensions” with the band in the past, all three of them are on good terms today.

“Tension would be a fair way of putting it,” he told Jenni. “A lot of the tension was relieved by just shouting and yelling.

“I mean, it’s amazing how cathartic it is to scream at your bandmates. But we all recognize now, with the wisdom of hindsight, that that tension, that conflict was what made the records what they were.

“And it wasn’t fun at the time. And we did go at each other’s throats with homicidal intent, but we never actually came to blows. There was never any physical fisticuffs or anything.

“It was usually two against one. Chinese democracy. Okay. But we all understand that. We argued because we cared and we each had our different reasons for making music, different philosophy of what music is for and how to make it and why.

“And those three conflicting ideas did clash in the studio, but did produce a result of which we are very proud.”

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Sting reveals why The Police will never ever be reuniting again..

The internal fighting which led to The Police’s eventual break up was well-documented.

In 1984, the new wave trio were arguably the biggest band in the world, but would call it quits that year.

Throughout their seven-year career together as The Police, creative tensions between bassist and singer Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland, and guitarist Andy Summers would frequently boil over.

When they disagreed, not only did they have a difference of opinion, sometimes they’d even come to blows in physical altercations.

So once they’d reached the peak of their powers together as a band, all three members decided to go their separate ways.

That was until their reunion in 2007 when they toured the world as The Police once again, in what became the third-highest-grossing tour of all time (at the time).

Not only was it a huge commercial success, their tour also courted enormous critical praise, leaving the door open for another potential coming together.

 

Steward Copeland recently revealed in his interview with Smooth Radio that despite “a lot of the tension” they shared, the trio are now back on good terms once again.

Sting has followed up with his own new interview in Music Week however, pouring cold water on rumours of a future reunion.

When asked if he thought bands should reunite ever, he laughed: “Once!” before going on to explain that bands “should do it once and the timing should be right.”

“When the Police reunited, it had been long enough and it was the right time to do it. And I’m taking credit for that because that was my decision” Sting continued.

“Doing it again would just be gratuitous and that won’t happen. But we did it, and everyone was happy that Mum and Dad got back together again and had one last fling.”

The ‘Fields Of Gold’ singer also agreed with Copeland’s assessment of why tensions between the three bandmates opening reached explosive levels.

“It’s an intense relationship. You start out in a band together and you live together; you sleep in the van together; you share hotel rooms. Your life is completely welded with the other guys in the band, and that’s intense.”

“We still love each other and respect each other, but I’m happy not to be in a band. I have much more freedom and when I have my own band, everyone’s role is very clear. We just get on with the job.”

“When a young band starts out, the roles are much more flexible and that creates tensions. But it’s all-natural, of course…I think it gives you a competitive energy, a buzz.”

Sting was also fairly candid about how his ego affected how the band began to perform together, and feels it right to stay as separate entities.

“There comes a point where it just gets in the way of the creative process and you’re dealing with ego as opposed to actual musical ideas or the currency of musical ideas. When the flow stops, that’s when a band has to break up.”

Sting went on to confirm that he, Copeland and Summer hadn’t considered writing more songs together, saying: “It was – what’s the word – nostalgia, with recreating that thing for a short time. No, we didn’t even try.”

Stewart Copeland seemed more positive about a full-scale reunion during his Smooth Radio interview however, saying: “Hey, look, I’m optimistic. I would give us at least a 1% chance.”

“You know, we are enjoying each other’s company. We get along really well. In fact, even when we were screaming at each other in the studio over dinner, we’d be laughing and joking. And we were deeply bonded.”

“We went through a lot together, and we are like siblings, deeply bonded. And it’s nice like this” Copeland told Smooth’s very own Jenni Falconer.

“And I’m enjoying in fact, we have laughed amongst ourselves. We’re in touch by email and so on. We send each other daft Instagram clips and so on.”

At least the trio are back on good terms, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be hitting the road or the studio together any time soon.