Stewart Copeland insists he “gets along great” with Sting amid royalties lawsuit
Stewart Copeland has insisted that his relationship with fellow The Police bandmate Sting hasn’t been impacted by their ongoing royalties dispute.
Recently, the band has been plagued by years of legal rows between the trio, with Andrew Summers and Copeland accusing Sting, real name Gordon Sumner, of owing them between $2million (£1.5m) and $10.75m (£8m) in unpaid royalties.
Despite the high price tag on the dispute, Copeland has admitted that his relationship with Sting is still amicable, saying they still “get along” despite the disagreements.
In a recent interview with Billboard, the drummer shared, “We’re not (in court). The bean counters are, somewhere over in London. For me it’s, ‘Lemme know how it works out…’”
The pair still share friendly conversations about “kids, Instagram memes, bullshit… I’m happy that we get along just fine, and we know way. It’s not because of satanic impulses or any of the human infirmities of jealousy, greed, pride, whatever.”
Copeland clarified that the legal dispute is “because we had a spell where our music universes overlapped and we created some incredible stuff. We really achieved everything we needed to achieve.”
He concluded, “Really, as I’ve been saying a lot recently, ol’ Sting-O and I, we make music for different reasons, and it has a different place in our lives. So we get along great as long as we’re not trying to make music together.”
In the most recent update from the lawsuit, it was revealed that Sting reportedly paid his former bandmates around $800,000 in royalties since the lawsuit was filed last September.
Tensions between the members of The Police have been building for decades, even since they were still together as a band, as Copeland once said: “Looking back, I’m grateful that we got at least five albums, because, really, it was over after the third album.”
At that time, he went on dejectedly, “After Zenyatta Mondatta, which was the first time the tension started to appear, and by the time we got to Montserrat for Ghost in the Machine, it was hell on Earth.”
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