Stewart Copeland’s drumming helped define a generation.
As one third of The Police, he played at some of the biggest venues not only in New Zealand, but in the world.
He went on to work extensively in composing for film and TV.
And now, 18 years since his last visit to New Zealand, Copeland is returning for a very special spoken word tour - ‘Have I Said Too Much? The Police, Hollywood, And Other Adventures’.
He told Newstalk ZB’s Jack Tame this type of show is a bit more of an intellectual exercise than playing the drums.
“Actually having to form sentences and so on, is a little more challenging,” Copeland said.
“Fortunately in my 70-something years, I’ve had a couple of adventures, which are fun to talk about.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at Budut.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Juicy.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Ah, that's an incredible song, isn't it. Stewart Copeland's drumming
helped define a generation. As the drummer for the Police,
he played at some of the worlds and New Zealand's
biggest venues, and Stuart is a muso's muso at heart.
As well as playing with the Police, he's worked extensively
and composing for film and TV. He's even written opera
(01:06):
and now eighteen years since he was last on Our Shores,
Stuart is returning for a very special spoken word tour.
Stuart is with us this morning, keld A, good morning, Well, thank.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You very much.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Good to be talking to New Zealand. It is cool
looking forward to getting down there.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, we're delighted you're coming down. Tell us about the
show because I spoken word to her. I suppose it's
a different kind of creative outlet.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well it is.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
It's talking instead of banging stuff, which requires a little
more brain power.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Usually when I'm behind the drums banging stuff, it doesn't
take a lot of intellectual exercise necessarily, But here actually
having to form sentences and so on. There's a little
more challenging. But fortunately in my seventy something years, I've
had a couple of adventures which are fun to talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, it must be. It must be so nice to
be able to kind of purposefully sit down with an
audience who is so keen to hear those stories and
actually reflect on them in an active way.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Well, yeah, you know, it's much better than chatting to
somebody at a cocktail party or any form of conversation.
You know, I've noticed that singers, front persons and bands
are often very shy, and the reason that they have
become front persons is because armed with a five jillion
watt PA, conversations are easier. People are forced to listen
(02:36):
to you exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So, So you, I mean, you've been taking the show
around the place a bit, touring it around a little bit,
and it's been incredibly well received. What has the experience
been like for you. Have you found that as the
shows have continued that you've been surprised about some of
the things that you found yourself coming back to or
(02:59):
reflecting on, or have you kind of gotten too a
rhythm with the same stories well.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Every audience amazingly laughs at different times and pauses at
different times, and cheers at different times, and that keeps
it interesting. Last night's gag that brought down the house
goes like a damp squib tonight and vice versa, you know,
just something throughout nothing tonight the place goes well, So
every audience is different.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
That makes it much more inspiring for me.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, and it is actually a lot of fun to
carry the room with you on one of those adventures,
whether it's chasing giraffes across the Serengetti or chasing royalty
across the polo fields of Cirencester, you know, or for
that matter, chasing conductors across the stage in the opera house.
(03:47):
You know, when the audience is with you listening, it
is inspiring and it infuses your words with kind of
an extra mojo.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, So to give us a saint of the kinds
of stories you're telling without giving too much away, what
kinds of parts of your life and career are you
reflecting on the most.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Well, pretty much covering most of it pre police and
curved air, my prog rock days, a lot of noodling
and self promotion of course, there's my family background, which
is I didn't realize until I grew up that my
family was really strange. My daddy was a spy in
the Middle East, busy imposing and sustaining dictators, despots and assholes,
(04:29):
and I thought it was perfectly normal to grow up
in Bairut Lebanon. Didn't everyone else, But it was different.
And so I've had a checkered career, my adventures in
Hollywood with Francis Coppola, Oliver Stone at all, navigating all that.
But the cool thing about that I can share with
(04:49):
your listeners that is unexpected is that some of the
most valuable lessons I've learned about music were when I
was a stone cold employee, a composer for hire, a
hired gun flinty eyed film composer, and when the boss
man said I want this, I got to figure out
how to do this. Whereas an artist following their own
(05:11):
instincts doesn't have to do that, They don't have to
develop their skills beyond what their instincts are interested in.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you you have just first of all,
had an incredibly varied and interesting life like this kind
of rich range of experiences. But then even within the
musical realm. I mean this incredible kind of richness with
your experiences. So when you say that, you feel like
you learn more as an employee, like when those constraints
(05:40):
were put on you, those creative constraints by having to.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Well, look these constraints, constraints as well as prads yeah
go there, Yeah, don't do this. It's also I need
that specifically, this emotion.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I need to. You know, the audience thinks this handsome.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Guy who says I love you to the beautiful woman
and the moon shining and everything. They're what they're seeing.
The information they're getting is he's handsome, she's pretty. It's
a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
However, the plot is that he's an asshole, and so
I put my shit cord on him. And so the
audience they don't believe they're lying eyes. They believe my chord,
which informs them emotionally, do not trust this guy. Yeah,
and so it's not what I'm constrained. The film comes
there is not so much constraint as he's pushed into
(06:28):
doing very specific using music to speak very specific emotional language.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah, he's prompted, as you say, so is working on
a project like that. How do you compare the creative
satisfaction from a project like that with something wearby? You
are just out there making whatever music you want to make.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Well, for one thing, I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Yeah, I haven't scored a movie in twenty or thirty
years or something like that. But I do the same job,
but the pay is much worse. And it's called opera.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, it's the same job.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
It's telling a story and guiding the emotions with music
a lot more music, and an opera the composer gets
to be boss of everything, which is another cool thing
about it. Uh And but the pay sucks. But I
live a very simple life, so I can afford to
be an opera composer.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
M How do you how do you reflect on the
kind of generational impact of your music, and specifically of
the Police. I mean, I'm not sure if you hear
this all the time.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
At least is one generation, but I've got another whole
bandwidth yeah of Spiro fans, Yeah yeah, game and people
of a specific age group who grew up playing Spiro.
They find out, oh the music, Oh I love the music,
you know, and you know that the music guy, you know,
he used to play in a band.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
No what band.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You Yeah, many people make that connection, but I'm very
proud of Spiro.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well, I you know, I grew up in a household.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Actually it actually succeeded to the same extent that the
Police did in a way still going years later.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
See that just must be so satisfying. Like I yea dragons.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You know, a pink dragon is much easier to get
along with than a certain bass player.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Just kidding, just kidding, Hey, you said it, not me, okay.
I So I grew up in a household where my
dad would just always play music. His music really really loud, right,
And so we grew up with with Hendrix, with Cream,
with the original Fleetwood Mac, and with the Police. And
(08:40):
it's interesting because when me and my siblings all moved
out of home, we all ended up, you know, the
music that we rolled our eyes at when we were
kids ended up being the music that we all bought
for ourselves. And so I think buying a couple of
Police albums was one of the first things I did
once I left home, which is which is a bizarre thing.
So I just wonder how you kind of reflect on
(09:02):
having that kind of impact across generations in the same
way you you mentioned with Spiro.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Well, I'm actually still just digesting what you said about
that your dad turned you on to Jimmy Hendrix.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
I was once driving my kids to school. You know,
the only way I could stay hip was driving my
kids to school and they would play with me what's
going on? And one day my daughter, aged twelve, was
a check this out and it was Jimmy Hendrix.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Ah, she said, you probably haven't heard of this guy.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
My goodness. But the idea that your dad I mean
for me, my dad.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Raised me to be a jazz musician.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
He raised me on on what is known as wrong jazz,
which is to say, white big band jazz, Stan Kenton,
Louis Belson, and well, of course Buddy Rich, which is cool.
But he raised me to be a jazz musician. But
when I heard Jimmy Hendrix, it was all about rebellion.
You know that For me, Jimmy Hendrix was a rebellion
against my dad. And there you are, growing up with
(10:04):
your dad turning you onto Jimmy Hendrick.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, It's amazing how these things happen, right, This is
what I mean it I feel like good music ultimately
bleeds into the next generation and it's passed on, and
yet it's a kind of there's a beautiful cycle to it.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Well, I'll share something else, and I've talked to this
with you know, McCartney and Ringo Mick, you know, the
Beatles and Stones, the people who came before me. None
of them, nor us in the Police, none of us
ever expected our music to last longer than ten minutes.
We play pop music. The music is to hit the
(10:40):
charts and be gone within a couple of weeks. Eat
it like a sandwich, you know, fast food. That's what
pop music is supposed to be. And so none of
us ever would have dreamed that, you know, whether the
Beatles or the Police would dream that the music would
live on. And I think something happened around the year
(11:00):
two thousand, around that time when suddenly retro became a
good thing, school became a compliment, and kids, I guess,
realized that the originals are somehow have more X factor
than the derivatives. And so around two thousand, kids are
you know, on the radio. They're getting the derivatives until
(11:21):
somebody discovers the original. Jimmy Hendry, go, wait a minute,
that's way better, and so God blessed the children of
the world that around that time they started to rediscover
well the dinosaurs, which the police just scrapes into that category.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
No, I think it's just a quality supersedes everything else.
I think there has nothing to do with big dinosaurs
or anything else. It's the same reason we listened to.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
For me, it was about rebellion because the cultural divide
between my generation and my parents was much wider than
the divide between you and your parents.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Hey, look, we're so delighted you're coming to New Zealand.
It is fantastic news, all the very best with have
I said too much and we can't wait to see
you soon.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Stuart looking forward to getting down there for more from
Saturday Morning with Jack Tame.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Listen live to News Talks d B from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at Budut.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Juicy.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Ah, that's an incredible song, isn't it. Stewart Copeland's drumming
helped define a generation. As the drummer for the Police,
he played at some of the worlds and New Zealand's
biggest venues, and Stuart is a muso's muso at heart.
As well as playing with the Police, he's worked extensively
and composing for film and TV. He's even written opera
(01:06):
and now eighteen years since he was last on Our Shores,
Stuart is returning for a very special spoken word tour.
Stuart is with us this morning, keld A, good morning, Well, thank.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You very much.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Good to be talking to New Zealand. It is cool
looking forward to getting down there.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, we're delighted you're coming down. Tell us about the
show because I spoken word to her. I suppose it's
a different kind of creative outlet.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well it is.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
It's talking instead of banging stuff, which requires a little
more brain power.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Usually when I'm behind the drums banging stuff, it doesn't
take a lot of intellectual exercise necessarily, But here actually
having to form sentences and so on. There's a little
more challenging. But fortunately in my seventy something years, I've
had a couple of adventures which are fun to talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, it must be. It must be so nice to
be able to kind of purposefully sit down with an
audience who is so keen to hear those stories and
actually reflect on them in an active way.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Well, yeah, you know, it's much better than chatting to
somebody at a cocktail party or any form of conversation.
You know, I've noticed that singers, front persons and bands
are often very shy, and the reason that they have
become front persons is because armed with a five jillion
watt PA, conversations are easier. People are forced to listen
(02:36):
to you exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So, So you, I mean, you've been taking the show
around the place a bit, touring it around a little bit,
and it's been incredibly well received. What has the experience
been like for you. Have you found that as the
shows have continued that you've been surprised about some of
the things that you found yourself coming back to or
(02:59):
reflecting on, or have you kind of gotten too a
rhythm with the same stories well.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Every audience amazingly laughs at different times and pauses at
different times, and cheers at different times, and that keeps
it interesting. Last night's gag that brought down the house
goes like a damp squib tonight and vice versa, you know,
just something throughout nothing tonight the place goes well, So
every audience is different.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
That makes it much more inspiring for me.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, and it is actually a lot of fun to
carry the room with you on one of those adventures,
whether it's chasing giraffes across the Serengetti or chasing royalty
across the polo fields of Cirencester, you know, or for
that matter, chasing conductors across the stage in the opera house.
(03:47):
You know, when the audience is with you listening, it
is inspiring and it infuses your words with kind of
an extra mojo.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, So to give us a saint of the kinds
of stories you're telling without giving too much away, what
kinds of parts of your life and career are you
reflecting on the most.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Well, pretty much covering most of it pre police and
curved air, my prog rock days, a lot of noodling
and self promotion of course, there's my family background, which
is I didn't realize until I grew up that my
family was really strange. My daddy was a spy in
the Middle East, busy imposing and sustaining dictators, despots and assholes,
(04:29):
and I thought it was perfectly normal to grow up
in Bairut Lebanon. Didn't everyone else, But it was different.
And so I've had a checkered career, my adventures in
Hollywood with Francis Coppola, Oliver Stone at all, navigating all that.
But the cool thing about that I can share with
(04:49):
your listeners that is unexpected is that some of the
most valuable lessons I've learned about music were when I
was a stone cold employee, a composer for hire, a
hired gun flinty eyed film composer, and when the boss
man said I want this, I got to figure out
how to do this. Whereas an artist following their own
(05:11):
instincts doesn't have to do that, They don't have to
develop their skills beyond what their instincts are interested in.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you you have just first of all,
had an incredibly varied and interesting life like this kind
of rich range of experiences. But then even within the
musical realm. I mean this incredible kind of richness with
your experiences. So when you say that, you feel like
you learn more as an employee, like when those constraints
(05:40):
were put on you, those creative constraints by having to.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Well, look these constraints, constraints as well as prads yeah
go there, Yeah, don't do this. It's also I need
that specifically, this emotion.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I need to. You know, the audience thinks this handsome.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Guy who says I love you to the beautiful woman
and the moon shining and everything. They're what they're seeing.
The information they're getting is he's handsome, she's pretty. It's
a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
However, the plot is that he's an asshole, and so
I put my shit cord on him. And so the
audience they don't believe they're lying eyes. They believe my chord,
which informs them emotionally, do not trust this guy. Yeah,
and so it's not what I'm constrained. The film comes
there is not so much constraint as he's pushed into
(06:28):
doing very specific using music to speak very specific emotional language.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah, he's prompted, as you say, so is working on
a project like that. How do you compare the creative
satisfaction from a project like that with something wearby? You
are just out there making whatever music you want to make.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Well, for one thing, I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Yeah, I haven't scored a movie in twenty or thirty
years or something like that. But I do the same job,
but the pay is much worse. And it's called opera.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, it's the same job.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
It's telling a story and guiding the emotions with music
a lot more music, and an opera the composer gets
to be boss of everything, which is another cool thing
about it. Uh And but the pay sucks. But I
live a very simple life, so I can afford to
be an opera composer.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
M How do you how do you reflect on the
kind of generational impact of your music, and specifically of
the Police. I mean, I'm not sure if you hear
this all the time.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
At least is one generation, but I've got another whole
bandwidth yeah of Spiro fans, Yeah yeah, game and people
of a specific age group who grew up playing Spiro.
They find out, oh the music, Oh I love the music,
you know, and you know that the music guy, you know,
he used to play in a band.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
No what band.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You Yeah, many people make that connection, but I'm very
proud of Spiro.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well, I you know, I grew up in a household.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Actually it actually succeeded to the same extent that the
Police did in a way still going years later.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
See that just must be so satisfying. Like I yea dragons.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You know, a pink dragon is much easier to get
along with than a certain bass player.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Just kidding, just kidding, Hey, you said it, not me, okay.
I So I grew up in a household where my
dad would just always play music. His music really really loud, right,
And so we grew up with with Hendrix, with Cream,
with the original Fleetwood Mac, and with the Police. And
(08:40):
it's interesting because when me and my siblings all moved
out of home, we all ended up, you know, the
music that we rolled our eyes at when we were
kids ended up being the music that we all bought
for ourselves. And so I think buying a couple of
Police albums was one of the first things I did
once I left home, which is which is a bizarre thing.
So I just wonder how you kind of reflect on
(09:02):
having that kind of impact across generations in the same
way you you mentioned with Spiro.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Well, I'm actually still just digesting what you said about
that your dad turned you on to Jimmy Hendrix.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
I was once driving my kids to school. You know,
the only way I could stay hip was driving my
kids to school and they would play with me what's
going on? And one day my daughter, aged twelve, was
a check this out and it was Jimmy Hendrix.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Ah, she said, you probably haven't heard of this guy.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
My goodness. But the idea that your dad I mean
for me, my dad.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Raised me to be a jazz musician.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
He raised me on on what is known as wrong jazz,
which is to say, white big band jazz, Stan Kenton,
Louis Belson, and well, of course Buddy Rich, which is cool.
But he raised me to be a jazz musician. But
when I heard Jimmy Hendrix, it was all about rebellion.
You know that For me, Jimmy Hendrix was a rebellion
against my dad. And there you are, growing up with
(10:04):
your dad turning you onto Jimmy Hendrick.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, It's amazing how these things happen, right, This is
what I mean it I feel like good music ultimately
bleeds into the next generation and it's passed on, and
yet it's a kind of there's a beautiful cycle to it.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Well, I'll share something else, and I've talked to this
with you know, McCartney and Ringo Mick, you know, the
Beatles and Stones, the people who came before me. None
of them, nor us in the Police, none of us
ever expected our music to last longer than ten minutes.
We play pop music. The music is to hit the
(10:40):
charts and be gone within a couple of weeks. Eat
it like a sandwich, you know, fast food. That's what
pop music is supposed to be. And so none of
us ever would have dreamed that, you know, whether the
Beatles or the Police would dream that the music would
live on. And I think something happened around the year
(11:00):
two thousand, around that time when suddenly retro became a
good thing, school became a compliment, and kids, I guess,
realized that the originals are somehow have more X factor
than the derivatives. And so around two thousand, kids are
you know, on the radio. They're getting the derivatives until
(11:21):
somebody discovers the original. Jimmy Hendry, go, wait a minute,
that's way better, and so God blessed the children of
the world that around that time they started to rediscover
well the dinosaurs, which the police just scrapes into that category.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
No, I think it's just a quality supersedes everything else.
I think there has nothing to do with big dinosaurs
or anything else. It's the same reason we listened to.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
For me, it was about rebellion because the cultural divide
between my generation and my parents was much wider than
the divide between you and your parents.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Hey, look, we're so delighted you're coming to New Zealand.
It is fantastic news, all the very best with have
I said too much and we can't wait to see
you soon.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Stuart looking forward to getting down there for more from
Saturday Morning with Jack Tame.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Listen live to News Talks d B from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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