The Police’s Stewart Copeland On The New “Around The World” Release, Oysterhead, His Classical Career, Van Halen & More
For well over 40 years, Stewart Copeland has been known all around the world as one-third of The Police, a band with 6 Grammys, 2 Brit Awards, 1 VMA and sales of over 75 million records to its credit. As a drummer, Copeland is renowned as one of the most influential players of all-time, having inspired modern greats like the Dave Matthews Band’s Carter Beauford, blink-182’s Travis Barker and Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron. Yet that is only a small part of the story with Mr. Stewart Copeland.
After The Police disbanded in 1986, Stewart Copeland dove into the composing world. Beyond television projects, he scored a wide range of films over the next decade including Wall Street, Talk Radio, Highlander II: The Quickening, and See No Evil, Hear No Evil. He also added writing music for video games onto his resume with the Spyro The Dragon series. Copeland has also been one-third of the all-star band Oysterhead, in which he collaborated with Phish’s Trey Anastasio and Primus’ Les Claypool.
Rock music aside, Stewart Copeland has been working non-stop as a composer for decade within the orchestral world ever since. Gamelan D’Drum, which largely features Indonesian instruments, was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2008 and premiered in 2011. The Tyrant’s Crush was debuted with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, as featuring Copeland on percussion. Stewart Copeland’s Orchestral Ben Hur wa sco-commissioned by the Virginia Arts Festival and notably performed with the Seattle Rock Symphony and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. In early 2016, I had the pleasure of doing Q&A with him via e-mail when he was preparing for New York City performances of The Cask Of Amontillado, as based on the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name.
Prior to The Police’s record-breaking reunion tour in 2007 and 2008, Stewart Copeland directed a documentary titled Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, as comprised of Super-8 footage he had compiled from over the years. Following the tour, he released a memoir titled Strange Things Happen: A Life With The Police, Polo & Pygmies. However, fans of The Police ought to be even more excited about the group’s latest release, The Police: Around The World, which shows The Police journeying throguh 6 continents in 1979 and 1980. Capturing behind–the-scenes footage and candid personal moments as the band explores new terrain, Around The World Restored & Expanded shows the beginning of the trio’s meteoric rise to worldwide fame. It is available in the DVD+CD, Blu-ray+CD, and DVD+LP formats, following an initial release via VHS and laserdisc; it now features restored picture, remastered audio, and complete performances of 4 bonus songs not featured within the original documentary.
Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking with Stewart Copeland again, as embedded below. Beyond Around The World, we discussed The Police’s inspiration to open up its archives, his future plans in both the rock and classical worlds, his other music-oriented siblings, and whether he ever met Van Halen’s David Lee Roth. More on all things Stewart Copeland can be found by clicking here, here and here.
About the Author
Darren Paltrowitz Darren Paltrowitz is a New York resident with over 20 years of entertainment industry experience. He began working around the music business as a teenager, interning for the manager of his then-favorite band Superdrag. Since then, he has worked with a wide array of artists including OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mike Viola, Tracy Bonham, Loudness, Rachael Yamagata, and Amanda Palmer. Darren's writing has appeared in dozens of outlets including the New York Daily News, Inquisitr, The Daily Meal, The Hype Magazine, All Music Guide, Guitar World, TheStreet.com, Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, and the Jewish Journal. Beyond being "Editor At Large" for The Hype Magazine, Darren is also the host of weekly "Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz" series, which airs on dozens on television and digital networks. He has also co-authored 2 published books, 2018's "Pocket Change: Your Happy Money" (Book Web Publishing) and 2019's "Good Advice From Professional Wrestling" (6623 Press), and co-hosts the world's only known podcast about David Lee Roth, "The DLR Cast."
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