Andy Summers: Guitarist for the Police announces the NZ tour for 'The Cracked Lens + A Missing String'

With over 75 million records sold, six Grammy’s, and inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Police are one of the most iconic bands in the world. 

Although they’re no longer making music as a group, each member is still immersed in their creative pursuits, and guitarist Andy Summers is following his all the way to New Zealand. 

In an exclusive first announcement, Summers will be bringing Kiwi audiences ‘The Cracked Lens + A Missing String’, an intimate, multimedia performance full of musical performances, stories, and his celebrated photography. 

He told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking that tickets for the shows are hard to come by and he’s getting a standing ovation every night. 

“So, I think it’s going well.” 

Summers began his foray into photography while touring with the Police in 1979. He said he had plenty of time on his hands and photographers were abundant. 

“I finally sort of crossed over and got a good camera and said, ‘well, I’m gonna do this,’” he told Hosking. 

“It turned into, you know, a passion that I stayed with ever since.” 

When it comes to his photography, Summers favours abstraction, focusing on composition, values, balance, and colour as opposed to interesting faces or scenes. 

“I think of it in formal properties,” he explained. 

“Not like, ohhh, that’s an exciting moment, you know, that man’s doing something to that man, whatever.” 

This different way of thinking carries through to his music as well, Summers citing a quote from critic Walter Pater: ‘all art constantly aspires to the condition of music’. 

“I find the information that I had from music is sort of... you can take it across to photography. And again, you know, like in music you would be thinking of line shape, one thing contrasting against another, a structure.” 

“All these things can be applied to photography.” 

Summers blends his creative pursuits further, creating scores that go alongside his photographs. His newest EP ‘Vertiginous Canyons’, releasing later this month, is a companion for his 2023 photography book ‘A Series of Glances’. 

He revealed to Hosking that the score is entirely improvised, as he played around until he got sounds that inspired him and built each track off that. 

“I made those tracks in one afternoon, which I think is very healthy,” Summers laughed. 

There’s often an idea that quality directly correlates with the time something takes, but Summers doesn’t believe that matters, saying that some of the greatest things are done in minutes. 

“I was trying to tell somebody this morning,” he said to Hosking. 

“You know, you sit there and slog away trying to write something, and then you give up, and the last minute you give up, it suddenly arrives in your head.” 

While some of it can be attributed to years of training and familiarity with his craft, there is another sort of mysterious element to it: a spark of inspiration. 

Summers has been playing guitar since he was young, transitioning through styles and genres throughout his life. He grew up playing jazz and classical, learning from people like Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Rainey, and began his professional career in a rhythm and blues band before joining the Police. 

After their disbandment in 1984, Summers began his solo career influenced by all sorts of music, taking inspiration from the likes of Thelonious Monk and Miles David.  

“All this was something that I wish to take elements from and kind of build my own s

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is the classic rock and roll story. A group
of three musicians looking for a break, don't have a
scint can't get a gig, do a deal with a
record company, can't get one of those either. One song
changes at all of them. For a while, they were
the biggest band in the world, Stuart Copeland, Sting and
Andy Summers created Police of course, seventy five million records sold,
six Grammy's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and all
of that. So Andy Summer's coming here for three nights,

(00:20):
bringing his best selling show, The Correct Lens and a
Missing String. Andy Summers with us from New York.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good morning, I'll go mine to you. Nice to be
here now.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
First of all, talk us through the Correct Lens and
a Missing String. I've seen a little bit of it.
I mean, how clever people must respond brilliantly to it.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, I'm getting the standing ovation every night, and we
pretty much sold out everywhere, so I think it's going well. Yeah.
I originally started this just prior to the whole COVID thing.
I managed about ten shows and so the idea was born,
you know, combining you know, well, it's really a multi
media show, but photography talking guitar playing obviously and different things,

(01:02):
so and so forth, and then resurrected it as we
were able to come back to, you know, going out
on the road, and you know, you think going with
a show like this, I think you just keep adding
refinements to it and gets better all the time. So
we're having a pretty good time on New York Ividio
at the moment and playing tomorrow night here.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, So the idea of the linkage between the photographs
and the music. How long have you been into photography?
By the way, I.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Saw photography seriously as a medium I wanted to work
in in nineteen seventy nine when I was in New
York City with the police and had, you know, as
you might imagine a lot of time in my hands
because we were touring constantly and I was, you know,
we the van was surrounded by photographers all the time.
So I finally sort of crossed over and got a

(01:54):
good camera and said, well, right, I'm going to do this,
and you know, in factic turned into it. You know
that I stayed with ever since.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
So what do you look for? I mean, what do
you shoot?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, I look for abstraction, really, you know, I mean
I would give it to you. I'm not looking for
like an interesting place. I'm looking for like shape, color, line,
you know, balance within a rectangular frame, balance of light
and dark. So I think of it in formal properties,

(02:25):
not like, oh, that's an exciting moment, that man going
to that man, you know, whatever, you know. I think
in a different way.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Is it the same as music. I mean it's a
creative expression.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I think so, you know, and I often like to
cite well, well, I mean the famous phrase is all
art aspires to the condition of music, And it's absolutely true,
because I find the information that I had from music
is sort of you can take it across the photography
and again, you know, like in music, you would be

(02:56):
thinking of line, shape, one thing contrasting against another, a structure.
All these things can be applied to photography. I mean,
obviously you have to learn how to use a camera
and study photography, but you find in the end that
some of the properties you're looking for are the same
ones that are expressed in music.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Do you reckon if you're good at music, you're good
at photography, or if you're good at photography you can
be good at music.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I think if you go in a photography, and you've
you're a musician, you're already in an advantageous place. I
really think that you've sort of trained your mind along
certain minds to think that way abstractly and straightforwardly, which
however you want to phrase it. And we'll give you
an advantage as a photographer because I think those things
are already in you. If you're coming in as a musician,

(03:45):
it is quite like a quite natural step in a
way to me. You know, photography you can get into
learn technically, whereas painting, for instance, as a visualize is
much more difficult because unless it's born in you and
it's literally in your hand, you'll only ever get to
be so good photography, I think you have more of
a chance that you know. I was very art inspired.

(04:08):
I did try painting for a while a few years back,
but I thought, ultimately I thought, no, I haven't got it.
I haven't got the thing. It's not emmy because obviously
I can't do that didn't come out like that. But
photography I think I'm very good at, and I think
that comes from to something extent. Well, I obviously haven't mind,
but I have the advantage of having played music all

(04:30):
my life.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
So the extension in this new ep of yours Vitigenous Kenyons.
How do you go about writing music for photography?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, well it's a good point, and no one's asked
me quite like that. For I did this my latest
photography book, which is Pretend Noise in Germany, and they
asked for it. And I haven't actually done that, but
I have scored films that the music. The music on
that Vitigenous Canyons I played. I made it in about
two and a half hour. All of it is improvisations,

(05:04):
you know, no great brand scheme. It's just I'll get
a sound through various you know, typical electric car devices.
Got a sound going that would you know, sort of
create a mood in me and you know, create something
with it. But I made that those tracks in one afternoon,
which I think is very healthy.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
See, it's funny you should say that. It's one of
the great mysteries if you write a song. I mean,
do you ever worry about saying, oh, look it only
took me half an hour to write, even though it's brilliant.
I mean, is that just how music like photography, like
soundtracks are created?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well? No, okay, look, there's a lot of things to this. First,
going to be talented, just to have a talent and
a feel for the medium you're in. I'm naturally a musician.
I don't think it matters. Some of the greatest things
are done in your minutes, you know, and it's just
they just try. And I was trying to tell somebody
this morning another interview. You know, you sit there and

(06:01):
slug away trying to write something, and then you give up,
and the last minute you give up, it suddenly arrives
in your head. I mean, I think this stuff comes
to you sort of from there. You could say it
comes from years of training and practicing and working at it.
But there's another sort of mysterious element to it where
it just arrives sometimes and you have the ability to

(06:21):
recognize it. Oh my god, that's it. I know, it's
all of that, and suddenly it pops out. So you
don't depend on it. You work for it, and then
suddenly it arrives. I like that sort of mysterious element
of creation. Creativity.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
If you like composition, is that the same as playing
the guitar. I mean, it's always fascinated me. At what
point do you get to if you ever do you
are so at one with the thing you no longer
even think about it.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, I mean, you know, not sounding statistical, I did think.
I am at one with it. I've done it since
I was a kid, and millions of hours to play
the guitar, you know, in front of people think Oh
I love the guitar. I love playing it. I love
the fact that I managed to live my life as
a guitarist. And it'll probably see me out as well.

(07:13):
And you know, I don't necessarily sit with an earnest
expression on my day, my face every day and I
kind of wind. You know, I've got to be better.
I don't. I'm at one with it, like you pointed out.
You know, I'm doing shows now. It's just me on stage.
This is all I'll be bringing in New Zealand. And

(07:34):
I'm very comfortable with it, you know. I just I
can do it. You know. It's not like I don't
have to work up to anything. I'm there. I just
hope to have a good night with it.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
It's good, A good, good place to be. By the way,
how did you work out even when the police fell
apart in the eighties, how did you work out what
you were going to do, How are you going to
do it? Whether you needed, you know, to formulate a
whole new career. How did that come about?

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, I would say, you know, in my musical thought,
my musical head, you know, all those years running parallels
to place, I was interested in a lot of other things,
you know. I mean, I grew up not really as
a rock guitarist, but as a plastic book as a jazz.
I was a jazz planning as a kid. You know,
I was learning from people like Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Rainy,

(08:17):
whereas Montgomery. This is where I started. But then I
started my professional life in a rid of and blues band.
But you know, post Police, I had a lot of
information about all kinds of music, and so then there
was really time to start composing instrumental music, not pop songs.

(08:38):
And that's where I went with it, you know, influenced
by all kinds of ECM records, for instance, with one
of the influential meaning music of Coilonious Monk Miles Davis.
All this was something that I wished to take elements
from and kind of build my own style, my own
big mixture, if you like.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
What's more creatively fulfilling? Post the police or the police.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Well that's not that's a bit of a cool question
because you know, well, I mean, well, I can't really
answer that. I mean they were both there, two different things. Obviously,
I was a huge contributor to the police, as we
all were, you know, with the Magic band. You know,
they don't come along way after. But I've enjoyed I've

(09:21):
made fifteen solo albums and I really dug into it
and I totally enjoyed making albums. In fact, I just
renewed my studio equipment completely two you know, go back
to recording in the next Well, I hope this year. Yeah,
I think we went through a weird time with COVID
and everything seemed to stop, and now it feels like

(09:43):
life is coming back again. And you know, I'm on
the road and we knew the studio, so yeah, I
support to it.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
I always like to know the answer with stories like yours,
so if people don't know it at the beginning, before
the police started, when you nothing right and no one
would hire you and there was no money and there
weren't any hits, and then not long after that Roxane
came along, you were suddenly being the biggest band in
the world, having headed all and had nothing. What's it

(10:13):
like to live through that?

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Well, it was fabulous. And I'll just comment on that
because I did get you know, when I was living
in California, he's before going back to London and then
ultimately joining the police, I was down to literally nothing,
you know, I was, you know, hand about existence. I've
never forgotten it. The one thing that kept me going, honestly,

(10:35):
I'm not stand Corney was my faith in the guitar,
faith in music, and my abilities were there, and you
know that maybe virtually one day it would surface, you know,
And it did, you know, but in a most unlikely way.
Because I joined a band that had nothing and no future.
The only thing we could believe in was our ability
to make music. And once you would cut through fact,

(10:58):
it was pretty quick job. Yeah, so you've got to
keep the faith, you know, And it's hard to say
that to young musicians because the whole game has changed.
You know, people don't buy records anymore. You know, it's
all gone now, it's just dreaming and all that. And
you know, a young person wants to live a life

(11:18):
in music, even make any money anymore, to stay their
life looking.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Forward to seeing you in the country. By the way,
what's your relationship with New Zealand. How long has it been.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, I think it's been a few years. I don't
think I've ever played there on my own, so this
would be at first. I did play the over the place,
and I toured Australia on my own, but not New Zealand.
But of course you know you're one. I mean this,
maybe I shouldn't say this, but you do tend to

(11:47):
associate New Zealand with Great Britain. You know, the first
time I ever worked there, I thought, oh, it's just
like not that much, but get a climate as much.
So it's sort of a key that's different for an
English person with say America, you know, sheileiums. You feel
partly British and no question about that exactly.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Hey listen, go well and we'll catch up when you
hear later on in the andy summers out of New
York for us this morning, the crack Lens and the
Missing String. He's here September. The middle of September is
obviously taking a holiday between the two September nineteen and
Wellington twenty in christ Church. Then there's a break until
the third of October when he is in Auckland.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
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