In The Studio with Redbeard

Tag: The Police

  • Sting- The Soul Cages 35th Anniversary

    Sting- The Soul Cages 35th Anniversary

    We had already done multiple interviews when Sting was in The Police, and now by the time we reconvened, the Chief of Police had released three highly-acclaimed solo albums, The Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985), …Nothing Like the Sun (1987), and The Soul Cages in 1991. By then Sting had lost both parents, the most recent his father, and was clearly wrestling with his star of success and celebrity ascending amidst the pain of personal loss. While that is an inevitable, wholly predictable, nearly universal experience for tens of millions, strangely little exists in Western culture that is readily available to prepare one for it.

    Not since the Beatles had a band exited the international stage at the zenith of their popularity quite like The Police following 1983’s Synchronicity  album and eighteen month world tour, so to say that Police singer/songwriter Sting’s first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, was highly anticipated is quite an understatement. Musical direction-wise it surprised some who did not know Sting’s pre-punk jazz roots at college, but in no way did it disappoint, with “If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free”, “Russians”, and “Fortress Around Your Heart” framed by sophisticated arrangements showcasing the lilting soprano sax of Branford Marsalis. …Nothing Like the Sun  in October 1987 continued that musical direction with “Be Still My Beating Heart”,”Englishman in New York”, and the #7 “We’ll Be Together” resulting in the album’s debut at #1 in the UK, a #9 peak in sales stateside, garnering three Grammy nominations including Album of the Year, and eventually selling an estimated eighteen million copies worldwide.

    For  The Soul Cages, Sting’s second #1-seller in the UK and a Grammy Award winner in 1992 for Best Rock Song with the title track, a new digital-only expanded edition has been released containing remixes, Spanish and Italian vocal singles, live performances, and two covers. The extended remix of “Mad About You” and an exquisitely faithful reading of Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Come Down in Time” are included here, the latter with  Sting on acoustic upright bass that’s worth the price of admission.

    In my In The Studio  classic rock interview, Sting covers a lot of ground, including paying his dues pre-Police by playing in cabarets and backing stand-up comedians; the pejorative term “Third World countries” and the conundrum of developing nations; the alarming lack of heroes in our society today, and the failure of politicians to provide leadership; ecology, global warming, and threat of pandemic disease; how fatherhood changed his relationship with his own father; losing both parents at the height of international stardom; his favorite pop songwriter; the Nordic myth that inspired “The Soul Cages”; and the satisfaction Sting derives from writing such timeless songs as “Roxanne”, “Message in a Bottle”,”Every Breath You Take”,”King of Pain”, “All This Time”,”If I Ever Lose My Faith in You”,”Fields of Gold”,” and “Brand New Day”.

    “Basically, misinformation is the most frightening aspect about American culture. People only get the information that confirms their prejudices. The opposing viewpoint isn’t really easy to find.” Sting made that observation to Spin  writer Vic Garbarini, not echoing the conclusions of US intelligence agencies in the last ten years, but rather presciently predicting it in October 1987 in conjunction with Sting’s sophomore solo release …Nothing Like the Sun. –Redbeard

  • Police- Zenyatta Mondatta- Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland

    Police- Zenyatta Mondatta- Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland

    Amazing to realize that it has been over forty-five years since The Police copped their first hit album in America with their third effort, Zenyatta Mondatta. On their first U.S.tour in early 1979, the three members of The Police, Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers, & Sting arrived for their first interview with me at Memphis radio ROCK 103 studio in a station wagon. Barely 15 months later they returned to take me to lunch, except this time they were in a chauffeur-driven limousine. I learned never to doubt the talent or determination of Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland.

    It seems that stardom for The Police had occurred in the UK with the release of their second album Reggatta de Blanc containing the excellent “Message in a Bottle”, but mainstream popularity in the U.S. still eluded them. Thinking aloud back then during my classic rock interview, main songwriter Sting remarked rhetorically, “I wonder what it would take to write a hit song in America? The idea appeals to me.” So when the third Police album Zenyatta Mondatta  appeared barely ten months later in October 1980, containing the hits “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”, “When the World Is Running Down”, “Driven to Tears”, & “De Do Do Do”, I had to smile and admit to myself that Sting certainly did not take long to figure that out. – Redbeard

  • The Police- Reggatta de Blanc- Sting, Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers

    The Police- Reggatta de Blanc- Sting, Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers

    More than four decades ago, a very young and musically evolving Sting made the following observation to me that is still remarkable for his keen insight and artistic objectivity: “Outlandos d’Amour has a certain grotesque, naïve charm about it,” Sting offered in my interview, referring to his band The Police’s debut, “but Reggatta de Blanc is infinitely a better record.” Both the critics and the rock audience agreed, garnering two #1 hits in the UK with “Walking on the Moon” and “Message in a Bottle”, plus topping the album sales chart there with Reggatta de Blanc, as well. Sting is joined here In the Studio by Police-men drummer/band founder Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers for  The Police’s 1979 second album release.

    Much of the interview you now hear In the Studio on this  Reggatta de Blanc program comes from their return to ROCK 103 Memphis on January 25, 1980 ( It was the first time anyone had ever sent a limousine to pick me up for lunch). After lunch we recorded the second interview, & only Sting & Andy could fit into the tiny control room with me. That night The Police indeed did play a Memphis club, the High Roller on Madison Avenue, but by now after Reggatta de Blanc‘s release they had to play two complete shows back-to-back for two completely separate audiences to satisfy demand. A CBS television network camera crew from New York City was there filming for some kids news show. As before, the band asked me to introduce them on stage for both shows. The cramped dressing room was immediately behind the equally tiny stage, & all three members plus me were huddled in this space right behind Stewart’s drum chair. I watched Stewart, wearing gym shorts & knee-high white athletic socks, put on thin driving gloves, then tape over the gloves with duct tape. When I inquired what the heck he was doing, Copeland shoved his left (snare) hand in my face & showed me these huge gashes all over the outside & knuckles of his hands.”When you play reggae,” the Police timekeeper explained,”you play the rim of the drum as often as the actual drum head. And your hands get sliced up pretty bad.” After the second show, after the second packed crowd left, I found myself sitting at the bar with Sting & Stewart with the house lights up full & the waitresses, bus boys, & bartenders flipping the chairs up on the tables to close for the night. All thoughts of their initial disappointing debut show in Memphis, less than a year earlier, had evaporated. The lads were spent physically from the two Police shows, but even though not a lot was said between us, the overwhelming satisfaction of a very good night, & an even more promising future, was in their eyes as we nodded, then raised our glasses in a toast. – Redbeard

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

    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’ initial 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 to the small audience 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

  • The Police- Synchronicity- Sting, Stewart Copeland

    The Police- Synchronicity- Sting, Stewart Copeland

    The fifth, arguably the finest, yet the final studio recordings by the Anglo-American trio The Police, Synchronicity in 1983 slapped the cuffs on an arresting recorded legacy left by the band. Synchronicity went to #1 sales on both sides of the Atlantic, sold more than eight million in the US alone, was nominated for five Grammys, and won three. Rolling Stone magazine ranks Synchronicity by The Police at #159 on its list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

    With 1978’s formative Outlandos d’Amour,  the UK breakthrough Regatta de Blanc,  their 1980 worldwide hit Zenyatta Mondatta,  and the more experimental Ghost in the Machine  the following year, you could debate whether the first four  albums by the Anglo-American band The Police  were significant enough, creatively and commercially, to issue a warrant to book them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet this fact is certain: the 1983 Police album  Synchronicity  guaranteed it. Synchronicity was so massively appealing that millions purchased it, as well as the preceding four Police albums, in numbers great enough to place all five on the 1983 sales chart simultaneously at year’s end! Drummer Stewart Copeland, the sole American, figuratively was the Police commissioner in London in 1977, forming the band at the height of the Punk Rock scene, but like guitarist Andy Summers, the veteran of the force, and chief of Police singer/bass player/songwriter Sting, none of them were actually spawned by that minimalist scene. In the long tradition of white musicians copping authentic black music, the reggae influences so prominent on those first two Police albums had been homogenized by the time of Synchronicity‘s  June 1983 release enough that the band was not handcuffed by the musical conventions of either punk or reggae on mega-hits “Every Breath You Take”,”King of Pain”,”Wrapped Around Your Finger”, and the title song. There are a few self-appointed online hacks implying that The Police were no more than two side musicians helping to realize the early songs of singer/songwriter Sting, but if you check their credentials, these clueless Justin-come-latelies never actually spoke to them or even saw the band. Cops of Rock Stewart Copeland and  Sting open this Police inquiry with me  In the Studio  for the definitive classic rock interview regarding the making  of  Synchronicity. – Redbeard

  • The Police- Wrapped Around Your Finger- Buenos Aires 2007

    The Police- Wrapped Around Your Finger- Buenos Aires 2007

    On their way to setting new world records for attendance, The Police reunion tour in 2007-08 made a stop in Buenos Aries, Argentina where they performed this impressive version of “Wrapped Around Your Finger” in front of a huge crowd. –Redbeard

  • Sting- Message in a Bottle- London 1981

    Sting- Message in a Bottle- London 1981

    This solo performance by Sting (his first ever) of “Message in a Bottle” at the second Amnesty International fundraiser, known as The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball   in London 1981,  is extremely rare on compact disc, but thankfully many of the stellar performances over the years have been collected now on DVD. “Love can mend your life, But love can break your heart…” –Redbeard

  • The Police- Ghost in the Machine 45th- Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers

    The Police- Ghost in the Machine 45th- Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers

    By the time October 1981 ‘s fourth Police album Ghost in the Machine was dispatched, the exposed roots and influences shown by the London-based trio, founded by Yankee drummer Stewart Copeland, revealed the infectious pop of “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and “Spirits in the Material World”, as well as the brooding “Secret Journey”. Turned out that The Police, who had emerged from the dying embers of the London Punk Rock scene , were more Miles, Mingus, and Marley than Johnny Rotten.

    The preceding album by The Police only a year earlier, Zenyatta Mondatta, had been the keystone for these cops of rock, finally unlocking a jailbreak of three Top Twenty hits and selling over a million copies for the first time. With Ghost in the Machine they moved The Police headquarters to the Caribbean island of Montserrat to record a more varied group of song arrangements. The Police line-up included more synthesized keyboards and saxophones on “Spirits in the Material World”,”Hungry for You”,”Omega Man”, the mystical moody “Secret Journey”,”Invisible Sun”, and the huge worldwide hit “Everything She Does is Magic”. The grand jury court of public opinion was virtually unanimous in the affirmative, resulting in Ghost in the Machine topping the UK sales chart, #2 on Billboard  album chart, over three million copies sold in America alone, and Rolling Stone  magazine ranking it at #322 on their Top 500 Albums of All Time list. Police commissioner Stewart Copeland and six-string sharpshooter Andy Summers are your personal Ghost…busters in this classic rock interview. –Redbeard

  • Police- Driven to Tears- Buenos Aires 12-2007

    Police- Driven to Tears- Buenos Aires 12-2007

    If any fans in the massive audience witnessing the reunion tour by the Police in Buenos Aires back in December 2007 were literally “Driven to Tears“, then no doubt they were tears of joy. This kind of reaction was replayed nightly so often that the multi-year, multi-continent musical dragnet ranks in the top three biggest tours in rock history. –Redbeard

  • The Police- Walking on the Moon- Boston 1979

    The Police- Walking on the Moon- Boston 1979

    Here is a rare early performance by The Police of “Walking on the Moon” in a Boston club 1979 just after the release of their second album, Regatta de Blanc . –Redbeard