September 29, 2025 • 11 mins
From being an icon on the drums to life on the road, Stewart Copeland has stories that go far beyond The Police. In this chat about his upcoming Spoken Word show in New Zealand, he shares a few stories - how he first met Sting, his thoughts on immortality, and we find out what size stick he's rocking.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome so Radio Hod Keys off the Record podcast, That's
the record with Big Sandy's Curtis do it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I am really excited to hear about what happens on
your spoken word to it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's quite amazing, really. I walk out on the stage,
immediately everybody goes berserk. They take off all their clothes
and go running around the room screaming uncontrollably out into
the streets, and then come back and put their clothes
back on and listen to my crazy stories. We have
a professional on stage who will guide me through those
(00:40):
stories and keep me on track, because without such discipline,
I will go on and on, and so she has
to rein me in and say, okay, that's another that.
How about the time when and then she drives the ship.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You're known for your very energetic, amazing drumming behind a
drum kit. How does it feel for you stepping outside
of the drum kit and bearing it all, which is
a microphone and yourself on stage.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
My heart is an open book, and okay, I'm not
banging stuff necessarily, but I am banging on.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I've got a friend of mine who is a drummer
and quite an iconic New Zealand band, and he was like,
you have to ask Stuart what sized stick he rolls?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh, absolutely average. My personal stick, my branded Copeland stick,
is absolutely the stand. It's called the standard and it's
the most medium stick. I think, a c what most
people will call it. It's just your basic, not too long,
not too short, not fat, not skinny, nothing special about it.
And the reason for that is that I believe that
every drummer should learn how to play on standard equipment
(01:46):
and get used to. You get used to whatever it is,
so you might as well get used to when you're
jumping on somebody else's drum set, you might as well
be used to whatever you might find there. So my
stick is a.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Standard standard stack for Stuart. Is there an exclusive story
that you were keeping under your head for the kil Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Absolutely there is. There, totally is. There's several stories. How
did you meet Sting? That's a standard And I'll probably
tell this again on the night but I was up
in Newcastle on the night off and the local journalist
took us to see a band, the local hero band,
which is called Last Exit, and they were actually pretty good,
but at that time I was all infused with the
punk mania, and I wanted me a punk band and
(02:26):
do it yourself, DIY band three pieces got to be
three pieces, which means either the guitarist or the bass
player needs to sing because nobody wants to hear me singing.
And I'm busy banging shit at the back of the stage.
So I go see this band and hey, the bass
player can sing and that's cool. And look behind, Yeah
he's got his own amp, even handsome bass amp. Okay,
(02:48):
he's equipped cool. And then there was the small matter.
I guess the turning point was the shaft of celestial
light descending from the heavens, a lighting upon his magnificent brow.
And I just looked a meal ticket and yeah I
could play bass, and yeah I had his own app
But man, it was that charisma factor which just any
(03:11):
is no one else seeing this anyway? So a few
weeks go by and I call up that journalist and say, hey,
that bass player, now, can you give me his number?
And I go on about how this new punk thing
is happening in London and how it's all turning the
world upside down and how great. But as soon as
the word punk comes out of my mouth, the temperature
drops like twenty degrees and I can feel, oh, this
is not going well, and so can you give me
(03:33):
his number? No, I'm not going to give you his
number so you can lure him down to London and
break up Newcastle's finest jazz band. No, I'm not going
to give you his number. Okay, So I hang up,
and I'm walking around the room with and ever decreasing
circles thinking, and then I came up with a plan.
I came up with a logic that is, surely this
is going to persuade him, much more persuasive logic. And
(03:56):
the logic went something like this, give me his fucking number, asshole.
I was sure it was gonna work, but he didn't
pick up. His girlfriend picked up. Hello, Hi's Stuart Coplan
curved Air and I curved are Oh Phil loves curved?
There is anything I have? That bass player with a
funny name staying yeah him? Can you give me his number?
(04:17):
Hang on, I'll go get Phil's phone book and I
hear footsteps receding. Then I hear footsteps coming back, and
I'm holding my breath. O three one four seven two
eight nine eight eight. By the way, that's still his number.
You can call that number and tell him. Stuart says, hey,
what you're doing? And two seconds later I'm on the
(04:40):
phone and I hear that voice with which we're also
familiar now, and I just start going on. I first
thing I got to do is there's a conversation about
you personally, not your band. And he said two fateful words,
keep talking. Okay. Number one, he's a player. I got him.
(05:03):
He's free, he can base, he can sing, and he's
got an amp and that charisma thing. Yep. Cool. But
then the other part of that keep talking was that's
what I had to do for the next year and
a half, or while we starved and got nowhere. I
had to keep talking because this is a jazz musician
who I persuaded to join a punk band. And the
song I always got songs. I got all the songs.
(05:25):
They were crap songs. There were punk songs. I only
knew four chords, which is one more than you need
for punk songs. And there were songs of convenience punk songs.
But the miracle of all this is that he stuck
around for a year and a half while we went
nowhere with those crap songs, and somehow we survived and
(05:46):
stuck together until the day Andy Summers walked into the room.
And for the rest of the story, You'll have to
come down.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
When you go into your process of writing songs, how
long would it take for you, like you coming up
with a song when you're throwing down what you want
to do for your drums?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Oh, so the drums on the songs. Writing a song
can either take ten minutes or three years or longer,
but playing drums on a song takes as long as
the song takes three and a half minutes. But the
way the police worked was that Stings. As soon as
Andy joins Stings started his ears pricked up music at last,
and he starts writing those big songs that we all
(06:24):
now love. But he would reveal them on an as
needed basis, and he would pull out a song I
get when there was a lull, Okay, I got another song. Cool. Cool.
We've soon learned that this is a good moment when
he says I got another song. All right, let's hear it.
So he's as long as it takes for him to
show Andy the chords, and I'm tapping on my knee
(06:45):
listening to this go on for as long as it
takes for Sting to show Andy the chords and then
get impatient to do takes. That's how long I had
to learn the song. So within a few twenty minutes,
say okay, let's do a take, and I go up
to the dining room hall, which is actually a separate building,
and we start doing takes. We do one take and
(07:05):
it's not a little scrappy here, didn't quite get into
the court. And then do another take, and then maybe
three takes, and these second take is usually it. And
then once I've done that, and that's lucked forever. Those
three minutes of eternity are now etched into my life forever.
And that's what's on the record. What you're listening to
(07:27):
on police records is what I came up with right
then and there. The other guys got to spend the
next couple of months redoing all the guitars and the
bass and the drums and the vocals and everything. And
in fact, when I was doing the takes, I could
hardly hear the lyric because thing was just mumbling. He
wasn't singing properly yet, and they were both not really
playing properly yet. They're waiting for the darn drummer to
(07:49):
get it right so they could have their fun. It's fine, Stuart,
but I didn't quite get into the chorus as fine
as fine. And so the combination of them being impatient
and me being l that's why all those police recordings
are so spontaneous on the drums.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
That's the magic that mde it work. Ballet.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, I did. Eventually we'd go out on tour and
I'd figure out how to get into the chorus or
come back from the chorus back down to all that stuff.
I figure out, Oh, this is how I should have
done it on the record. The record didn't suck.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Did not suck. But there's a great beauty when you
go see a live band is in the moment and
the drummer is basically the dude steering the bus. Right.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Oh absolutely not just steering the bus, but we're the engine.
We're carrying the bus every yard down the freeway on
our broad shoulders. We carry the band. And I was
once complaining winging about this to a producer friend of mine,
and I say, how the drummer's work and we can't
even wear capes or sequins or funny hat. We got
a short baggy shorts and a T shirt. That's all
(08:50):
we get to wear because we're working back here and
it's hard. And he the producer, very empathetic fellow, he says,
the Trevor Horn, great producer. He says, Yeah, I know
what you're talking. I hate it when the drummer gets tired.
Thanks pal.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The drummers are the fittest of the band. You've always
got the most equipment to carry. You've always got to
have the bigger car because you've got a whole drum
kit to transport from gig to gig.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I still drive an SUV just on principle, in case
you know I need to carry my drums around a
little I'll share a little secret. I'm never gonna carry
my drums around no more. I am seventy something years
old and I'm never gonna carry my drums anywhere ever.
But I still have an SUV just in case.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You've got so many generations of people that listen to
your music and are fans of you, and you're very
iconic as a drummer, So when you're doing your Spoken
word tour, are there times with your fans that just
still blow your mind with that connection across those generations.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It is an amazing thing. The relationship with fans, it's
a weird thing, because their relationship with somebody that they
see pictures of and hear the music of, and conjure
up this wonderful, perfect being in their minds. And I'm
just some jerk, and I'm writing a book about this, actually,
the separation of the person from the persona and what
it is. There's this avatar out there with my name
(10:13):
and my face, and I don't even have control over it.
News editors, bloggers, retweeters carry it this being forward. In fact,
even though a rock star is worshiped, we are not
gods because number one, we don't control the weather. Number two,
we're gonna die. However, the avatar, that being the guy
(10:35):
with my name and my face up there, and he
doesn't die. He can't, so he's immortal. So let's call
him a demigod. And in fact, when I croak that
demigod will actually get a rejuvenating boost. When Elvis died,
all the crocodiles in the entertainment industry, you know what
they all said was great career move.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I love that. We're going to get onto the last
question now, When people are walking out of the theater
after seeing your show.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
What do you hope after putting their clothes back after putting.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Their clothes back on, what do you hope that they'll
be talking about in the car park or in their
car ride home.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Oh, the great spiritual uplifting that they have experienced, the
betterment of their lives, the optimism with which they faith
the next day, a joy, and their very being is
what I hope will be instilled by these shows. Radio
hod Aches Off the Record podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Why not subscribe so they download automatically and don't forget
to rate.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Us five stars? Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It
Welcome so Radio Hod Keys off the Record podcast, That's
the record with Big Sandy's Curtis do it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I am really excited to hear about what happens on
your spoken word to it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's quite amazing, really. I walk out on the stage,
immediately everybody goes berserk. They take off all their clothes
and go running around the room screaming uncontrollably out into
the streets, and then come back and put their clothes
back on and listen to my crazy stories. We have
a professional on stage who will guide me through those
(00:40):
stories and keep me on track, because without such discipline,
I will go on and on, and so she has
to rein me in and say, okay, that's another that.
How about the time when and then she drives the ship.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You're known for your very energetic, amazing drumming behind a
drum kit. How does it feel for you stepping outside
of the drum kit and bearing it all, which is
a microphone and yourself on stage.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
My heart is an open book, and okay, I'm not
banging stuff necessarily, but I am banging on.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I've got a friend of mine who is a drummer
and quite an iconic New Zealand band, and he was like,
you have to ask Stuart what sized stick he rolls?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh, absolutely average. My personal stick, my branded Copeland stick,
is absolutely the stand. It's called the standard and it's
the most medium stick. I think, a c what most
people will call it. It's just your basic, not too long,
not too short, not fat, not skinny, nothing special about it.
And the reason for that is that I believe that
every drummer should learn how to play on standard equipment
(01:46):
and get used to. You get used to whatever it is,
so you might as well get used to when you're
jumping on somebody else's drum set, you might as well
be used to whatever you might find there. So my
stick is a.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Standard standard stack for Stuart. Is there an exclusive story
that you were keeping under your head for the kil Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Absolutely there is. There, totally is. There's several stories. How
did you meet Sting? That's a standard And I'll probably
tell this again on the night but I was up
in Newcastle on the night off and the local journalist
took us to see a band, the local hero band,
which is called Last Exit, and they were actually pretty good,
but at that time I was all infused with the
punk mania, and I wanted me a punk band and
(02:26):
do it yourself, DIY band three pieces got to be
three pieces, which means either the guitarist or the bass
player needs to sing because nobody wants to hear me singing.
And I'm busy banging shit at the back of the stage.
So I go see this band and hey, the bass
player can sing and that's cool. And look behind, Yeah
he's got his own amp, even handsome bass amp. Okay,
(02:48):
he's equipped cool. And then there was the small matter.
I guess the turning point was the shaft of celestial
light descending from the heavens, a lighting upon his magnificent brow.
And I just looked a meal ticket and yeah I
could play bass, and yeah I had his own app
But man, it was that charisma factor which just any
(03:11):
is no one else seeing this anyway? So a few
weeks go by and I call up that journalist and say, hey,
that bass player, now, can you give me his number?
And I go on about how this new punk thing
is happening in London and how it's all turning the
world upside down and how great. But as soon as
the word punk comes out of my mouth, the temperature
drops like twenty degrees and I can feel, oh, this
is not going well, and so can you give me
(03:33):
his number? No, I'm not going to give you his
number so you can lure him down to London and
break up Newcastle's finest jazz band. No, I'm not going
to give you his number. Okay, So I hang up,
and I'm walking around the room with and ever decreasing
circles thinking, and then I came up with a plan.
I came up with a logic that is, surely this
is going to persuade him, much more persuasive logic. And
(03:56):
the logic went something like this, give me his fucking number, asshole.
I was sure it was gonna work, but he didn't
pick up. His girlfriend picked up. Hello, Hi's Stuart Coplan
curved Air and I curved are Oh Phil loves curved?
There is anything I have? That bass player with a
funny name staying yeah him? Can you give me his number?
(04:17):
Hang on, I'll go get Phil's phone book and I
hear footsteps receding. Then I hear footsteps coming back, and
I'm holding my breath. O three one four seven two
eight nine eight eight. By the way, that's still his number.
You can call that number and tell him. Stuart says, hey,
what you're doing? And two seconds later I'm on the
(04:40):
phone and I hear that voice with which we're also
familiar now, and I just start going on. I first
thing I got to do is there's a conversation about
you personally, not your band. And he said two fateful words,
keep talking. Okay. Number one, he's a player. I got him.
(05:03):
He's free, he can base, he can sing, and he's
got an amp and that charisma thing. Yep. Cool. But
then the other part of that keep talking was that's
what I had to do for the next year and
a half, or while we starved and got nowhere. I
had to keep talking because this is a jazz musician
who I persuaded to join a punk band. And the
song I always got songs. I got all the songs.
(05:25):
They were crap songs. There were punk songs. I only
knew four chords, which is one more than you need
for punk songs. And there were songs of convenience punk songs.
But the miracle of all this is that he stuck
around for a year and a half while we went
nowhere with those crap songs, and somehow we survived and
(05:46):
stuck together until the day Andy Summers walked into the room.
And for the rest of the story, You'll have to
come down.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
When you go into your process of writing songs, how
long would it take for you, like you coming up
with a song when you're throwing down what you want
to do for your drums?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Oh, so the drums on the songs. Writing a song
can either take ten minutes or three years or longer,
but playing drums on a song takes as long as
the song takes three and a half minutes. But the
way the police worked was that Stings. As soon as
Andy joins Stings started his ears pricked up music at last,
and he starts writing those big songs that we all
(06:24):
now love. But he would reveal them on an as
needed basis, and he would pull out a song I
get when there was a lull, Okay, I got another song. Cool. Cool.
We've soon learned that this is a good moment when
he says I got another song. All right, let's hear it.
So he's as long as it takes for him to
show Andy the chords, and I'm tapping on my knee
(06:45):
listening to this go on for as long as it
takes for Sting to show Andy the chords and then
get impatient to do takes. That's how long I had
to learn the song. So within a few twenty minutes,
say okay, let's do a take, and I go up
to the dining room hall, which is actually a separate building,
and we start doing takes. We do one take and
(07:05):
it's not a little scrappy here, didn't quite get into
the court. And then do another take, and then maybe
three takes, and these second take is usually it. And
then once I've done that, and that's lucked forever. Those
three minutes of eternity are now etched into my life forever.
And that's what's on the record. What you're listening to
(07:27):
on police records is what I came up with right
then and there. The other guys got to spend the
next couple of months redoing all the guitars and the
bass and the drums and the vocals and everything. And
in fact, when I was doing the takes, I could
hardly hear the lyric because thing was just mumbling. He
wasn't singing properly yet, and they were both not really
playing properly yet. They're waiting for the darn drummer to
(07:49):
get it right so they could have their fun. It's fine, Stuart,
but I didn't quite get into the chorus as fine
as fine. And so the combination of them being impatient
and me being l that's why all those police recordings
are so spontaneous on the drums.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
That's the magic that mde it work. Ballet.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, I did. Eventually we'd go out on tour and
I'd figure out how to get into the chorus or
come back from the chorus back down to all that stuff.
I figure out, Oh, this is how I should have
done it on the record. The record didn't suck.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Did not suck. But there's a great beauty when you
go see a live band is in the moment and
the drummer is basically the dude steering the bus. Right.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Oh absolutely not just steering the bus, but we're the engine.
We're carrying the bus every yard down the freeway on
our broad shoulders. We carry the band. And I was
once complaining winging about this to a producer friend of mine,
and I say, how the drummer's work and we can't
even wear capes or sequins or funny hat. We got
a short baggy shorts and a T shirt. That's all
(08:50):
we get to wear because we're working back here and
it's hard. And he the producer, very empathetic fellow, he says,
the Trevor Horn, great producer. He says, Yeah, I know
what you're talking. I hate it when the drummer gets tired.
Thanks pal.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The drummers are the fittest of the band. You've always
got the most equipment to carry. You've always got to
have the bigger car because you've got a whole drum
kit to transport from gig to gig.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I still drive an SUV just on principle, in case
you know I need to carry my drums around a
little I'll share a little secret. I'm never gonna carry
my drums around no more. I am seventy something years
old and I'm never gonna carry my drums anywhere ever.
But I still have an SUV just in case.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You've got so many generations of people that listen to
your music and are fans of you, and you're very
iconic as a drummer, So when you're doing your Spoken
word tour, are there times with your fans that just
still blow your mind with that connection across those generations.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It is an amazing thing. The relationship with fans, it's
a weird thing, because their relationship with somebody that they
see pictures of and hear the music of, and conjure
up this wonderful, perfect being in their minds. And I'm
just some jerk, and I'm writing a book about this, actually,
the separation of the person from the persona and what
it is. There's this avatar out there with my name
(10:13):
and my face, and I don't even have control over it.
News editors, bloggers, retweeters carry it this being forward. In fact,
even though a rock star is worshiped, we are not
gods because number one, we don't control the weather. Number two,
we're gonna die. However, the avatar, that being the guy
(10:35):
with my name and my face up there, and he
doesn't die. He can't, so he's immortal. So let's call
him a demigod. And in fact, when I croak that
demigod will actually get a rejuvenating boost. When Elvis died,
all the crocodiles in the entertainment industry, you know what
they all said was great career move.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I love that. We're going to get onto the last
question now, When people are walking out of the theater
after seeing your show.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
What do you hope after putting their clothes back after putting.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Their clothes back on, what do you hope that they'll
be talking about in the car park or in their
car ride home.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Oh, the great spiritual uplifting that they have experienced, the
betterment of their lives, the optimism with which they faith
the next day, a joy, and their very being is
what I hope will be instilled by these shows. Radio
hod Aches Off the Record podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Why not subscribe so they download automatically and don't forget
to rate.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Us five stars? Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It
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