The iconic performance Sting wanted to erase from history: “I’ll never forget”
Sting was never the kind of musician to play the same thing twice when he went in to make a record.
There were many pieces of his discography that can sound the same from time to time, but given how creativity he had inside of him, it was only a matter of time before he broke free from The Police and forged his own path. Not everything was going to be the kind of smash hit that he had with ‘Every Breath You Take’, but he was also never going to escape the looming shadow that his other two bandmates had on him when he started making those records.
Then again, Sting could have cared less whether he was going to be known as the frontman of The Police for the rest of his career. He wanted to be a more sophisticated rockstar when he began working with jazz and fusion musicians, and that full band atmosphere helped give him a lot more size and scope when he started working on records like Ten Summoner’s Tales when the 1990s rolled around.
And given what he wanted to do later on in his career, it’s not like he and the band were exactly on the same page, either. The idea of re-recording some of their old hits and playing them correctly would have been a novel idea back in the day, but it’s not like Stewart Copeland was going to be all that happy when his iconic drums were being replaced by a drum machine that Sting programmed. He wanted to make something that served the song the best way that he could, and making everything sound that quantised loses all of the feeling that came from listening to them back in the day.
Because when you think about it, erasing any of Copeland’s parts would be like removing John Bonham’s drum parts from Led Zeppelin’s catalogue. Bonzo might have been a much more powerful drummer than anyone else he came in contact with, but listening to Copeland’s approach, he’s the lead instrument half the time they play. Any other A&R man would have told him to dial things back, but his virtuoso playing is what propels the band forward on tunes like ‘Synchronicity II’.
Those songs might have been in the rearview for a while, but even a session legend like Josh Freese had a few problems when Sting tried to work up ‘Message in a Bottle’ later on in his career. Copeland’s drum performance on the tune is iconic at this point, but even if Sting wanted to do his own thing, Freese remembered getting pissed when he was told to cut out the tom-tom part in the middle of the chorus.
That’s one of the most fun drum parts in the band’s discography, and Freese told Sting so when he was told to hang back a little bit more, saying, “I’ll never forget we were playing ‘Message in a Bottle’ and I’m playing it and Sting says, ‘Can you not do that tom thing?’, and I said, ‘Dude, I know I’ve only known you for 24 hours and I’m the new guy, but I have to play it. I’ve airdrummed that on my steering wheel since I was 16, as has every other drummer or nondrummer.’ And I think that he appreciates that I’m still thinking about it. That I still care at all. It’s an important part of the song and it would be sacrilegious to not hit it.”
And for all those non-drummers complaining that it’s only one small part, let me give you a better example. ‘Message in a Bottle’ might not have been as iconic as a song like ‘In the Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins, but if anyone played that song and decided to leave out that drum break in the middle of the tune, most people would be asking for their money back, right? It’s the same thing with Copeland, and the thought of Sting wanting to push it in a different direction would have been one step too far.
He’s more than welcome to do what he wants to with the song, but when you have a performance that was that perfect, why would you ever want to deviate from it? This was a master at work behind the drum kit, and even if another drummer would have played something different, they were never going to make anything that sounded as good for the tune as those tom hits.
