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

by Stewart Copeland

  There is something about how a fixed stage resonates, that connects the bass to the kick. Everything sounds better. Throw in a whole new attitude about music and we’re starting to surprise again. The shackles are off and we’re flying. We have deeply arranged parts of the set that Stingo can noodle with in sound check, and we have sections that are wanton chaos. Everybody’s happy.

  The atmosphere around the stage has loosened up. At the start of the tour Charlie would have Tazered anyone who came near the band while we were strapping up. Now it’s a party.

  A year ago we would urgently hug, exchange vows of love and encouragement as we waited for Charlie’s nod, and then halfway through the first song of the set we’d be reaching for the flame throwers. Now we just make sure we can land a barb or two before the earplugs go in.

  “You going out there in that?”

  “Yeah. Is that one of Trudie’s shirts?”

  Sort of thing. But the music is lit. We’re still hurling scatology at one another at every opportunity, but it’s all sport.

  STING IS STILL CAPABLE of mischief, however. One day we have a show in Las Vegas, and I take a detour to attend my son Patrick’s graduation from UC Berkeley (my old alma mater). As soon as my loyal friend discovers my absence at sound check, he is straight down my hatch and sidling up to Jeff to rewrite my percussion loops. He just can’t stop himself. He’s a slave to music and is driven by his muses to organize every scintilla of it. This is the same arena in which, a year ago, we had a “band meeting” that was so rancorous that we missed sound check altogether. I forget what the problem was, but after yelling instead of sound checking we played one of the best shows of the tour. What is up with this band?

  And don’t even get me started on the time he sneaked down to the other end of the stadium to sidle up to big Mike and ask him to turn my percussion rack off in the PA….

  WHEN WE GET TO Portland, Les Claypool catches up with us and jumps aboard the tour for a couple of days. Les was a big Police fan back when he was a kid, which is one of the reasons that he called me to produce that Primus track years ago when I first met him. But in the post-Police years he didn’t quite get Sting’s solo work—took violent exception to it, in fact. Many were the times on the Oysterhead tour that I had to patiently explain to Les and Trey that if they knew Sting personally, or if they ever played music with him they would love and respect him as I do.

  Sting’s only awareness of Les is that he’s another of my bass buddies (of which I have more than any other kind of buddy) and that one of my favorite T-shirts is Claypool swag. Sometimes the tiniest thing will motivate the most inspired show. Put Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck in the audience and Andy will burn down the house. Stingo is similarly affected. He doesn’t need to know the pedigree—it’s one of Stewart’s guys, so let’s show ’em who’s boss. And at the Portland show Sting is the bass god. He’s not too shabby as a singer either, but tonight he’s on bass.

  Les is won over completely. After our show he’s ready to completely overlook “Desert Rose” and the lute. Like I said, Sting might be handsome and highbrow, but he’s a motherfucker on that bass. No denying it. Les doesn’t get the chance to share any of this love with Sting himself because we’re staying in Portland tonight and have different places to go.

  Next day there is strange weather at the back of the jet, and when Les goes past the bass god to grab a sandwich from the kitchen, the handsome jaw is set and the eyes averted. This causes some mystification but never mind, it’s just a short ride up to the Gorge, where we’re going to play one of the most spectacular venues in America.

  Today is a sound check party, which means that a dozen or so contest winners are invited to attend our afternoon ritual. Things have become so casual that Sting has taken to inviting the fans up onto the stage to sing the songs while we play. It’s actually something that we all enjoy. Having the folks around us gaping at the technology and cool stage stuff reminds us of how cool our job is. Today our job is particularly cool because the stage is set on the lip of a spectacular gorge and we’re surrounded by huge natural scenery. As Sting pulls up the foxiest and least foxy babes to sing next to him on the mic, the thought crosses my mind, wouldn’t it be great to get Les up here on The Police stage for a jam? Hah! That would be a whole new kind of awkward!

  There is one fan this afternoon who suddenly, out of nowhere, hits the mic with a strong beautiful voice that echoes around the empty amphitheater and across the gorge. Dang! It’s a big Cinderella moment and Sting invites her to sing “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” at tonight’s show.

  Tonight Les is even more impressed. So am I, it really is a great show. But on the plane there is another brush-off. It’s just one of those strange awkward moments of wrong timing. Sting can be, oddly, a tricky man to compliment. Some of his most explosive outbursts have been in response to mistimed praise. I have had my head torched many times for simply expressing satisfaction with a show. Oh well. After an unsuccessful attempt to communicate his approval Les saunters back up to the front whistling one of his strange tunes. It occurs to me that good old cuddly Claypool can be quite intimidating himself if you don’t know him. Is this a time to pull out “Kumbaya”? Nah…Les is fine, Sting is fine…never mind.

  So it’s fine. But when we land and are leaving the plane, there is that inevitable little bottleneck at the forward passageway. Pressed a little too close together are two giants of the bass guitar. Les is impassive, but as host, Sting maybe feels a little obligation to break the ice. It’s a little late, but better late than never, so Sting warmly delivers a little yoga tummy tap to his unexpecting guest.

  Now, Les, as he’ll proudly tell you, comes from a long line of car mechanics. The tummy tap is not a part of his cultural vocabulary. Before he can even register surprise, Stingo is down the gangway and gone.

  Well now, Les is not so fine. What was that? He has been around the block many times in his rich and varied life, but no man ever gave him a tummy tap. All the way into San Francisco, Brad and I are reassuring him that nothing was meant by it. Yoga type people do it all the time. I even tap Brad a couple of times just to show how harmless it is. Les is unconvinced. He just can’t imagine that so much talent can reside in such an inscrutable figure.

  A few days later we have another buddy, Matt Stone, along for the ride and the whole experience is different. The timing is good! Matt, Sting, and Andy get along fine! Brad and I get a little carried away with the contrasting adventures and pretty soon we’re scheming. It was Les after all who first introduced me to Matt years ago. By the time Les hears the tale from Brad, Matt, and me, it has evolved a little.

  According to this new version, Matt’s life has been transformed. Sting and he bonded immediately. Matt ditched Brad and me and spent the whole trip in the back of the plane doing yoga and breathing exercises with the golden one. Sting is teaching him how to play the lute. South Park is ruined!

  WE’VE BEEN OUT HERE for a year and a half, and my, how things have changed. It took a while but I do believe we have arrived at the promised land. This is how it was always supposed to be. I get to go onstage with two titans of music playing songs that (1) are beautiful songs that beguile and challenge us night after night and (2) are hymns of glory to the gathered masses. Music that is known has a particular potency. If it has cool musical rips and curls, that raises the temperature, but when you get to play challenging and popular music with challenging and inspiring players this is as good as it gets. I’m playing with the big Tonka toys.

  The first campaigns of the tour were about an enormous nostalgic reunion for an enormous number of people. It was about the flashing lights and the three-ring circus. This part is about a much deeper ritual of music. These shed audiences are very close up and we can feel, in this intimate environment, that every nuance has power. These are still big shows and the big gestures are still big, but the little things work, too. Tiny little nuggets of music protein can gladden the heart. Moments of repose can enchant and
entrance. It’s OK to cruise. And since we’re cruising, when we let rip, it has a more focused fury. We’re starting to surprise ourselves again. “Roxanne” is still “Roxanne” but there are whole new subplots weaving and turning every night.

  The walk from silks to stage is a migrating party. When we get to the wings, our friends and guests keep on choogling around us. Charlie is doing the cha-cha with Bobby. He sniffs the air for the perfect timing to start the show. When the vibe is right…

  “Roll Bob.”

  And the preshow rolls like clockwork. Only now, with Bob Marley tipping off the ceremony, we’re easy skanking. Everybody is dancing. My percussion riser with the big gong doesn’t rise on this stage. This is a regular flat stage and our gear is all just sitting there. Two amps and a drum set. After my lightshow with Charlie, Dug, and Chris, I just walk out there, jump up onto the riser, and pound the gong. Minutes later we’re grooving on a regular stage like a regular band. Take away the nostalgia and the blizzard of production and we’re on a level playing field. Just a band. But guess what. This is a much better band. I would pay money to go see this band. Probably even stay for the whole show.

  It’s amazing to remember the tensions of that first year. What were we doing to ourselves that churned us up like that? My theory is that the juju was so strong that it almost ate the witch doctors. Kinetic ritual is a two-way street. Our music gives us power but also has power over us. This music, with its long history, is very powerful.

  CHAPTER 43

  ELVIS IS LEAVING THE BUILDING

  AUGUST 2008

  E

  lvis Costello is not happy. He clearly doesn’t like to have to do this, but he’s dragged himself into my dressing room to pitch me on The Police appearance on his new TV show. It’s a tough sell because the proposed recording falls on the second-to-last day of the tour. It’s the day after three shows in a row and the day before our last ever show. I just know that no one will be in a mood for work that day. So Elvis, all scarf and spectacles, is working me over. He looks like he’s chewing toads. The flattery is finely calibrated, and I know why; he and Sting were spotted in a huddle earlier today and Elvis was no doubt getting driving instructions from Stingo. Those singer/songwriter guys might be jealous as hell of each other, but they’re still thick as thieves.

  This is actually our first chance to chat after touring together for some months. Everyone else in the Costello band and crew are like familiar tribal cousins. I had never met any of them before but they are the guys, or at least just like the guys that I grew up with in London. Elvis and The Attractions played all the same pubs and clubs that we did, carried their gear up and down the same beer-soaked steps, got hailed or hazed by the same journalists, ripped off by the same promoters, and had double-egg-sausage-chips-beans-and-a-slice at the same motorway diners. We were rivals back in the day so we didn’t mix much then, but we’re cozy now.

  Billy (lurking), Karen, Elvis, Elvis, Danny Q, Charlie, Elvis

  Copyright © 2008 Bobby Sagar

  All except for Elvis himself. He’s kind of a mystery. My hearty attempts at greetings have been met with uncomfortable evasion. There is a category of people in my life that is defined by a cautious body language in my presence. Such people adopt a defensive crouch, or evasively lean away as if to avoid catching beer or spittle from me. My jerky body movement and callow social style threaten such people, and with good reason. They are a magnet for my moving elbow, and they know it. They just know I’m going to spill my drink on them—and I usually do. Sting and Elvis are both in this category.

  But one thing I can be sure of is that Elvis is an extremely clever man and the concept for the show that he’s describing is persuasive. If he’s doing it, it’ll probably be way cool. Anyway, the answer was already yes from the moment he walked in. For the man who wrote “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea,” the answer is yes, and he can adopt any posture that makes him comfortable.

  One reason that the shows have gone well on this leg of the tour is the big effect of Costello’s band (now called “The Imposters”) before we even get to the stage. They tear the place up and when we come out, the joint is already rocking. Also, to be surrounded by these tribal cousins reminds us of where we came from. It deflates the sacred temple that has been built around us. We’re still swaddled in silk, but laughter is allowed. Goofy inconsequential banter is allowed. I’m allowed.

  Steve Nieve, the Imposter keyboardist, has an idea of how we can make a hybrid arrangement of “Walking on the Moon” and “Watching the Detectives,” so our sound checks on this last leg have merged. Instead of two sound checks for two bands, we just roll all the gear onstage and jam away the afternoon with two drummers, bassists, and guitarists, plus keyboards. It started out with just the medley that we had to organize for the TV show. But then another agenda cropped up. We want to throw in some extras for our last show at Madison Square Garden and have arrived at “Purple Haze” and “Sunshine of Your Love” as a kind of tribute to the great three-piece bands that went before us. So after running through “Walking on the Detectives,” it’s time to work out the extras for MSG. But the vibe is so mellow that no one wants to tell The Imposters to leave the stage. So when Andy hits the Hendrix riff, all seven players get on the groove. We actually fit together very well; it’s that tribal connection. We come from the same place. It’s the London sound. Even the two bandleaders fit together, still thick as thieves even though they have to share the baton.

  It’s the final countdown, counting the hours of stage time between now and last show shower. Twelve hours, ten hours, eight hours…we’re all getting giddy. We’re loving every second of this even as we gloat over every second burned. It’s like the end of the perfect holiday in paradise. No matter how splendid the sojourn, it’s time to go home.

  The last shows of the tour proper are out on Long Island, NY. Then there will be the TV taping and then the last Police show ever, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. As a parting shot we raid the Costello stage during their show, dressed as three Elvises. Ha-ha! We dance around them while they play and enjoy a little simulated River Dance all over Elvis’s foot pedals. Sting looks cool even in black wig and Elvis goggles.

  Next day it’s just two more hours of stage time—except for the TV show that Elvis slicked us into. It turns out to be the perfect way to spend our last day together. The music part is a breeze, and we even tape some of our seven-piece Hendrix and Cream, just for the fun of it. We spend the afternoon in the green room, watching the monitors and taking turns at interviews with Elvis in front of the small theater audience. There’s a lot of happiness to ponder as we cheerfully throw brickbats at whoever is upstairs on camera.

  The band gag of the last week has been that we look for opportunities to fire one another. “You’re fired!” is our favorite refrain. We actually used to be pretty snappy with our band repartee but this whole tour we have hardly ever done a three-shot interview. This time, with Elvis as referee, the three blond heads manage to speak with one coherent voice: “You’re fired!”

  NOW IT REALLY IS just two hours of showtime before this band is over. Backstage at the MSG, in The Police pipe-and-drape world, the rooms are all clacking with good cheer. The B-52’s hit the stage and wake up the house.

  The love circle

  Copyright © 2009 Danny Clinch / A&M Records

  We’ve played here quite a few times this tour and way in the past, too. There was one time that the band vibe was so grim that each member had to be nursed up to the stage by teams of physical and spiritual therapists, murmuring incantations and rattling bones.

  This time I’ve got Collin, Bruce, Rob, Mulligan, and even my son Scott, who has flown up from Alabama. My beautiful daughters, Eve, Grace, and Celeste are bouncing around the silks. Fiona has been wrangling the guest list from hell. One of our guests is Deborah Lin and her fiancé, Jim. I had fun describing them to Brad as a beautiful, tall supermodel with her boyfriend who looks kind of like Tony Soprano. He do
esn’t have much trouble picking her out of the crowd, and her friend looks just like Tony Soprano because Jim turns out to be James Gandolfini. The high point of the whole tour for Brad was to get an Italian neck clasp and kiss on the cheek from James. Even better than a Sting tummy tap.

  The show itself has a few extra bells and whistles, best of which is the NYPD Drum Line, which kicks off the set with a crashing cadence based on “Message in a Bottle.” The front rows are a combination of all the friends and fans that have been touring the world with us. Everybody is happy. There’s not a trace of happy-sad. When we get to the end of the set, it’s with the same relief as usual that I pull out my earplugs, swagger to the front of the stage, and wave good-bye. Thank you! Good night!

  Then it’s down the hatch and good-bye cool techno stage, goodbye blue Police drums, see you back in L.A. Jeff, and hello last show shower!

  AFTERWORD

  THE GREEN FLAG

  2009

  Since I’m too lazy to study physics, I’ve invented my own cosmology.

  W

  hat is this shaman thing that I keep talking about? What does it have to do with music and why has it thrown me into so many of these adventures? To explain it I need to talk for a minute about kinetic ritual. When humans gather together and shout or sing or dance as one body, there is a communal shift in brain chemistry. A collective human energy is ignited. It’s not an energy like light or sound or “divine spirit,” it’s the raw horsepower of a united pack of humans. When we stomp or hoot together we unite. We can feel it and we are evolved to like it when this happens. As a coordinated pack, we can devour an individual or a smaller or less coordinated pack.