The moment Stewart Copeland realised Sting was a genius
Working on five albums with an act over the course of nine years might suggest that the brilliance of the collaborators would become apparent early on, perhaps even within the first few months of forming as a group. One of the core reasons many groups come together is often an appreciation for each other’s abilities, combined with a shared desire to create something special that merges individual talents. That’s the essence of being in a rock band.
That said, bands often fall apart because they grow tired of each other or come to a realisation that they won’t ever be able to surpass their previous work together, and often it can lead to one member being critical of another’s work. Despite the success of the Beatles, John Lennon was far from a fan of some of Paul McCartney’s vaudeville and show tune-inspired tracks, and Ritchie Blackmore regularly blasted his bandmates in Deep Purple for taking things in a less-than-satisfying direction.
British new wave group The Police were incredibly successful during their initial run as a group in the 1970s and ‘80s, but strangely, their drummer Stewart Copeland didn’t come around to the realisation that the band’s bassist, vocalist and chief songwriter Sting was quite as good as he was until long after the band ceased activity.
In a recent interview with YouTube personality and music historian Rick Beato, Copeland was questioned about whether he actually knew any of the lyrics to the songs he had been performing for years with the Police. “I do now,” proclaimed Copeland, before saying that he “never listened to them in the day; I was just banging shit in the background, and all I ever see is the back of [Sting’s] head.”
After humorously noting that seeing the front of Sting’s head spelt danger for the drummer, claiming that if he did catch a glimpse of his face, he was likely to be on the receiving end of a bollocking, he said that it wasn’t until he would work on a live show called Police Deranged for Orchestra in 2023 that he noticed how brilliant both Sting and the band’s guitarist Andy Summers were at their respective roles.
The show, which tasked Copeland with coming up with new orchestral arrangements for Police hits such as ‘Roxanne’, ‘Message in a Bottle’ and ‘Every Breath You Take’ allowed him to really take note of what both other members brought to the band while he was busy laying down his distinctive grooves, and he seemed almost surprised by how he had never paid much attention to the finer details of what his bandmates were doing.
Speaking of Summers’ guitar work, he said that “Andy was a motherfucker with those voicings and the chords,” but also began to realise the deeper intricacies of what Sting was singing about and had a profound reaction to some of his writing.
“I had my nose rubbed in those lyrics,” he would go on to say. “I never really bothered with them at the time, but years later, I did have to come to the realisation – and don’t tell him I said this – but that fucker’s a genius.” He’s not wrong to highlight the masterwork of Sting, but you do have to question where his head was for almost 50 years to have not had this epiphany sooner.
