Over a decade after the Police's mammoth 2007/2008 reunion tour, drummer Stewart Copeland took a look back at the band and what they mean today to the fans — and the group itself. During a new chat with Record Collector, Copeland admitted, "The Police is a strange experience for all of us. It's a sacred event where we don't express ourselves artistically. We're there to play 'Roxanne' and 'Every Breath You Take' the way people expect. But it was really worth it. The feeling that you get from and audience is why we became musicians."
Copeland, who's currently hosting a three-part BBC TV series, called Stewart Copeland's Adventures In Music, went on to talk about where the Police experience stands now for him, Sting, and Andy Summers: "The downside is that, in spite of out great love and admiration for each other, music now has a very different purpose in each of our lives. It's like putting ourselves aside and joining the army for the greater good."
He went on to say, "Music that's old and of that vintage builds power. Sting could write the best song of his life, but it won't have the same impact as the worst song he ever wrote that's been around for 40 years, because of the emotional baggage it carries."
Stewart Copeland says that although he enjoyed reuniting with Sting and Andy Summers for their first extended dates since 1984, he never felt the need for closure after their mid-'80s split: ["Andy often talks about how he felt the sense of incompletion, but I never felt that way. . . And when we broke up the first time it was amicably and my intention was that it was to be a break. We all got new lives, new careers, so it all went rather well. And for us to come back 20 years later, it was kind of better than if we had done it then. We wouldn't have gotten nearly the buzz out of it that we're getting this time around. And we're getting a big buzz out of it this time around. Even Sting's impressed. I mean, we're all really surprised by what happened."] SOUNDCUE (:28 OC: . . . by what happened)
Out now is the new vinyl box set, Every Move You Make: The Studio Recordings. The 40th anniversary package collects all five Police albums along with a 12-track sixth disc entitled Flexible Strategies featuring exclusive bonus material of non-album recordings and B-sides.