The Police- Outlandos d’Amour- Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland

“Outlandos d’Amour  has a certain grotesque, naive charm about it,” Sting confessed in my classic rock interview about the Police late ’78 debut,”but Regatta de Blanc  was infinitely a much better record.” He was absolutely correct, of course, but it was due simply to his, Police founder/drummer Stewart Copeland’s, and guitarist Andy Summers’ lack of experience in the recording studio, not the songwriting which Sting provided. That is evidenced by Outlandos d’Amour‘s  “Next to You” and “Can’t Stand Losing You” being on par with the quintessential “Roxanne”, but also how the Police chose to perform, even more muscularly, the jazzy “Hole in My Heart” and “So Lonely” from their debut on their record-setting 2007-2008 reunion world tour.

In his book One Train Later , Andy Summers was kind enough to recall meeting me & doing our first Police interview on the infamous station wagon Outlandos d’Amour  U.S. tour. However, his memory failed him slightly, & in the book he places the meeting “in New Mexico or some place in the Southwest…” (understandable, since I did relocate to Dallas Texas subsequent to our first two interviews). Actually it was Memphis Tennessee at my radio station ROCK 103. The band headlined a concert earlier that night at the 2600 seat Orpheum Theater in early 1979, but only 200 people showed up. I introduced the band wearing an actual Memphis Police Department riot helmet & uniform shirt. When Sting joined me at the microphone, the first words out of his mouth were,”This should have been in a club.” After the 1979 Orpheum Theater show, Sting & Andy accepted my invitation to go to ROCK 103 at around 12:30 a.m. & record an interview. Unfortunately that tape has never been found. What’s REALLY odd is that I can’t seem to find the Memphis Orpheum date on any Outlandos  tour schedule, so I think the concert was a last minute date to fill an open day on the tour. With their first inauspicious event in Memphis, I can see why they would choose to forget it! –Redbeard