Back when London's punk scene was still flourishing, a young American drummer was dead set to make something out of it, but he needed the participation of a certain bassist from up north to make it work.
Stewart Copeland previously reflected on the lengths to which he went in order to persuade Sting to join his fledgling band, and following the addition of guitarist Andy Summers, the trio ended up conquering not just the whole of London, but the world itself.
The immediate chemistry with Sting
Copeland, who's got a new book out called "Police Diaries", said during a recent interview on "The Hole Podcast" that he was amazed at how fast he and Sting gelled with each other despite having virtually zero songs (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar):
"We stuck together without any songs. And Sting and I immediately bonded as players. And we just found that pocket, the Holy Grail that every musician looks for. A pocket where you light each other up and nail each other down at the same time. And we had that going on. But we did not have 'Roxanne', we did not have 'Message in a Bottle' or 'Every Breath [You Take]' or anything. He hadn't started writing songs yet."
Their first songs amounted to little more than "basslines with yelling" as Copeland depicted it a few months ago, which changed with the arrival of Summers who replaced Henry Padovani.
The unexpected arrival of Andy Summers
However, Copeland admits that he didn't think a guitarist like Summers, who already enjoyed quite the reputation, would ever join "a punk band that was going nowhere."
Recalling the first time when he and Sting did some session work with Andy Summers, Copeland added:
"We had a day doing much better music than The Police music of that [time]... And that night driving home, Sting is seething. I'm fast-talking the whole way, 'We're gonna make it, this is gonna be great...' I had to keep talking. But that night driving home, Sting had a day of actual music. And it reminded both of us what actual music can be and how joyful it is to be doing really great music."
And while Sting was adamant on getting Summers to join, Copeland thought it was never going to happen. After a few more joint gigs, things took an unexpected turn:
"I ran into him at a tube station, Oxford Street Tube Station in London. And he pulls me into a cafe and says, 'Stewart, you and that bass player, you've got something but you need me in the band for this.' And since then, he has expressed remorse for muscling in and stealing Henry's gig, and I'm going, 'All's fair and all fair in love and bands.' It was heartbreaking to lose Henry, but we had to do it.
"And as soon as Andy joined with his musical sophistication, particularly with regard to harmony and voicing and everything, that's when suddenly the light bulb went on in Sting. And he started writing those songs now before that, none of us not even he had any idea he had that stuff under the hood."
He added:
"I didn't even notice that my songs are getting replaced one by one. Because they were better. Every song he pulled out was an upgrade."
Why "The Police" is a terrible name
For all its success, Copeland notes elsewhere in the interview how the band didn't choose the most creative — nor the most copyrightable — name for their joint enterprise. he said:
"'The Police' was a terrible name. Although it achieved its hostile effect — that label labeled us as punk, because it was a hostile name — but we can't copyright it. I don't own the word 'police'. Grateful Dead; they own [the name] 'Grateful Dead'. No one else can call themselves Grateful Dead. But there are people ripping us off in every city in the world. People driving around cars called 'police!' [laughter]"