- 11 months ago
Stewart Copeland of The Police joins us before his appearance with the DSO on Sunday, October 8th (dso.org)
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00:00hey hi sir how are you real good good to see you how are you good I'll turn on my
00:07camera just to be congenial hey how you doing I'm wonderful you have a much
00:17cooler room than I do I've just got the sign over my shoulder from the from the
00:20kitchen friends and and what's the middle word family gather here okay yeah
00:30and you've got just a couple percussion instruments behind you so I have I have
00:35the world's largest collection of the cheapest instruments money can buy I got
00:43to say first and foremost it's an honor that you're gonna be here Sunday night
00:46with the DSO the whole idea of police deranged is so cool Sunday night and I
00:51want to get this out front dso.org get your tickets this is an experience deranged
00:57now tell me if I'm wrong this is kind of from you finding splits and stems and
01:02people sharing some of the split out tracks from the police right is that sort
01:06of the inspiration for it well yeah improvisations we did on stage I've got
01:10the multi tracks from our studio recordings and I found lost excursions and so on
01:15and the reason I did that was because I was cutting up police music for a film
01:20that I made and it just to serve the scene it had to be police music but kind
01:27of I wanted to have alternate police music things that people hadn't heard
01:31before and so I started cutting up this material and I got went a little crazy
01:35okay I confess got out the once the scalpel was out the orgy began putting this
01:41verse with that chorus and this lyric on that bass rip you know and so that's the
01:47derangements the orchestra part came through 20 years as a film composer for
01:53which orchestra is the main tool now I don't do that work anymore I retired from
01:59that about 15 years ago but I've continued this love affair with the orchestra and
02:05I've had pieces commissioned by the Pittsburgh by Dallas Symphony Liverpool Royal
02:11Opera and so I'm very obsessed with the orchestral sound and what fun stuff can be
02:19done with it and I can't wait to get up to Detroit and put that big bad magnificent
02:24orchestra of yours through its paces do you find that the period that you were when
02:30you were doing films and you did a lot of those did that give you that I don't
02:34know if space or what word I'm looking for to do what you're doing now like the
02:38experience to take a different look at your music well film music is both very
02:43very constrained and also at the same time very very free you know it's not
02:49writing a song where you have to think of something to write a song about for one
02:52thing you got a chorus that's good you repeat that two or three times but your
02:57verse the second verse the rhyming scheme is established that you know and that's
03:03hard work film composing you just have to take this moment where she looks over at
03:09him in the scene and you just put a love chord there or if he's a jerk and she
03:16doesn't know it you put the danger chord there or if she's a jerk and he's an
03:22unsuspecting victim you put the sinister chord you know so the music has very
03:28specific very constrained and specific but you don't have to build you don't
03:33have to write that third verse of a song is there like message in a bottle is
03:38amazing the way you did that were there songs from the police that were harder to
03:42interpret this way well that song in particular was very inspiring to
03:48orchestrate because of that guitar figure just cries for strings and woodwinds
03:54and so on but the the form of the song was impervious to all of my attempts to
03:59mess with it like a diamond I could not carve that sucker up well for one thing
04:05it's sequential you have to tell the whole story from beginning then there's a
04:08middle and then there's an end so that one was like a dime other songs I have
04:13deranged up good you get the main hook that you remember but there are other
04:18things that are very police-ish I mean they're fully you know they derive from the
04:22three of us what we did and they're they're rendered unto orchestra but
04:27they're fully police just kind of stuff that you haven't heard before a lot of it
04:34we have the orchestra but we also have the other thing the big discovery of this
04:38mission was the three singers you know I couldn't be some guy up there I mean can
04:43you imagine that poor SOB up there pretending to be sting he'd get killed so how
04:50about this it was like an intellectual creative decision okay how about three
04:53soul sisters on the mic that that'll probably sound great oh my god then I
04:59heard them and we've been playing the show for two years now and I'm in love
05:03with the Durain Jets oh they soar they absolutely soar Stuart they soar when
05:08you're listening to it it just I was on the way home today getting ready to come
05:11talk to you and it just soars as you're listening to it well it's sort of like the
05:15police sung by the Supremes wow and wow can I steal that I'm gonna put that as a
05:21headline somewhere I think you just wrote it for the Detroit show you know I
05:25missed Motown and R&B when I was growing up I was into Jimi Hendrix okay I got
05:30James Brown I was in I was hostile I was a hostile young man and R&B seemed very
05:37mainstream to me and I was more into more dangerous stuff angrier stuff but now
05:43that I've through these singers through the Jets as we call them lovingly I've
05:49discovered the you know the the Supremes the Ronettes the Chiffons and really the
05:55Motown sound in fact I'm at the back of my mind I'm considering maybe after I've
06:00done this tour maybe what would be really a lot of fun would be Motown deranged for
06:05orchestra I don't know if I'm the right guy to do that maybe a brother ought to take
06:10this on but you know that it's that I've become a sudden and late huge fan of this
06:16music and I now realize that this music the Motown sound and R&B in general is
06:22what we're all playing country and western bands are playing this music that
06:26derives from black culture and don't get me started now or I'll be talking about
06:30D.D. Chandler who invented the bass drum pedal in 1898 down in New Orleans and that
06:38invention created the drum set which meant the band leader could fire two guys
06:43because one guy could play the bass drum and the snare drum and the cymbal where
06:48it used to be three guys okay a fundamental thing a thing happened right there is that
06:53when it was one guy playing the kick in the snare in opposition to each other one
06:58guy thus was born the backbeat now the backbeat is the dominant feature of the
07:05dominant feature of American culture American culture is most distinctively
07:11represented by our music we make films we write books we do all kinds of stuff but
07:15our music is distinctly American and it's around the world it dominates the world
07:20and the distinctive feature which dominates the world our music the
07:26distinctive feature of our American music is the backbeat through jazz through
07:31funk through bebop even through all forms of popular music from the Beatles to
07:37Chuck Berry on into the future even Kanye has got a backbeat and so although he has
07:44pushed it to the list finally there's a new finally a revolution against the
07:47backbeat but this all derives from black culture those country bands down in
07:52Nashville they're playing music that derive the rhythm they're playing and that
07:56backbeat it all derives from down in New Orleans and Motown of course you got to
08:02come to the museum when you're here if you get time I don't know what your sketch is
08:05like yeah I'm gonna be there you when we get done if you need yeah but I real quick
08:12note I took Phil Collin the guitar player for Def Leppard he he's a huge Motown guy we
08:16took him there and the lady who was giving us the tour had no idea who he was just
08:21thought he was a very nice British gentleman so we're walking around and she's
08:24looking at her phone and she looks at him and says what's the name of your
08:27guy yeah she's are you is this this Def Leppard is this you and he goes yes ma'am
08:32and she said you sold a lot of records and he's like yes ma'am and then by the end
08:37of it she we kept reading more and more about him but he stood there he knew
08:40everything about Motown he knew where to stand and sing the echoes he knew where
08:45where they were like Marvin Gaye laid on the floor and sang up at the ceiling it was
08:49amazing just and when I talked to folks like Hugh Stewart the passion and the
08:53connection that Motown has to the world to the world and it's right here in the
08:57Motor City well my fervor is recent therefore at high level a recent convert
09:05is more uh crazy uh than uh somebody but he probably knows more but I bet you I'm
09:11wilder about it oh man the playlist that I've sort of concocted in my head for this
09:17Motown deranged for orchestra uh is what a play I could I could listen to it over and
09:23over every day but we digress you know and the other thing about it is that I have to
09:28be aware that although I am a product of black culture I mean I'm white as I'm as
09:32white as all get out I have not lived the black experience but that music is part of
09:37my DNA it is me whether or not I am them they are me uh it that culture is me uh and but and
09:46yet there may be some questions asked about why a brother isn't doing this and if one
09:52were two I would certainly assist so I'm kind of dealing with that maybe I can get some questions
09:57on that uh philosophical uh question when I get get over there Bob Seger said a great line
10:03once and I wrote it down I've always actually one of my favorite lines from Bob Seger is we're
10:07all Chuck's children yeah yeah right I mean we're all Chuck's my instrument my instrument was
10:13invented by a black man I play music that derives from black culture two forms of black culture by
10:18the way island black culture from the West Indies from the Caribbean and American black culture uh
10:26we can't you know I can't claim to really understand the black experience but I sure
10:31do understand that music well and that was one thing about I was going to say like you're part of
10:36this as well Sunday night with with the DSO DSO.org again I want to mention that for everybody
10:41but the police music there's so many songs that were percussion forward they kicked in with the
10:47drum and not just the same hit you guys always had something a little different I could listen to
10:51King of Pain or Regatta de Blanc where you guys lose your mind but there's everything had a little
10:56unique percussion sound that had to be difficult to do but it's also amazing to listen to and I'm sure
11:03you have fun with it well you see uh difficult the fun part true true everything you said was
11:07absolutely true except for the difficult part uh it was instinctive um and I you know if I'm feeling
11:14a little down these days uh uh all I have to do to cheer myself up is get on the google machine
11:19and type in Stuart Copeland's 10 best drum fills and there they all are people analyzing all the
11:26stuff that I did and I just want to tell them guys uh I was high
11:32which by the way is not true it's just a joke I mean it's just a fun joke but I mean
11:39it was instinctive and and it's very gratifying to have people analyze this stuff in such depth I am
11:45honored that they should consider it so deeply but the real answer is that it's instinctive uh I heard
11:53that song each one of those songs 20 minutes before recording the drums on it and I'm whatever I came up
11:59with 20 minutes after I heard the song for the first time is on the record that are the good you
12:06know because Sting would pull out his songs on an as needed basis and uh he'd pull out a song hey guys
12:12I got another read of me yep let's hear it and uh he'd start showing Andy the chords and they'd be
12:18working on it and I'd be kind of listening in tapping my knees and then okay Andy's got it let's go
12:22let's do a take and we'd do two or three takes usually the second take we would use and that's
12:30it the drums are done and now they can replace all the guitars all the bass all the vocals they spend
12:36the next two months replacing phoning tuning everything trying different ideas but the drums
12:42are locked that's the the foundation upon which everything else is built you can't change them
12:48so whatever I came up with on that day spontaneously is it and so what those analysts on the google
12:55machine are going after is that 20 minutes of brain activity and they're trying to figure that out
13:03uh good luck with that so walking on the moon was something you just heard it and went
13:08all right I got something and then off you went absolutely there's one song that's freaky talented
13:14come on I mean that's freaky talented well we were very lucky very blessed to have found each other
13:20and it was the chemistry between the three of us that made that stuff happen like that uh I wouldn't
13:26have come up with that stuff if I'd been playing with some other guy um you know we're just very lucky
13:32that we found each other we we landed with in the right company so if someone has never heard a song
13:39from the police say somebody's that they've got a kid who's like okay I know who the police are but
13:44I've never heard one song what would you have them listen to the one song what would you say here here
13:48here's us uh I would say either message in a bottle or can't stand losing you why is this a personal
13:56connection to it or just is uh they're both some of my favorite songs that stingo wrote but um
14:02can't stand losing you was where we discovered our bass aquards approach to rhythm uh where everything's
14:10not where it's supposed to be but totally rocks you know how to tap your foot to it but it's not
14:15where it's supposed to be the back beat is on the front and the down you know the front beat is on the
14:20back uh and so that kind of shows what our our gimmick was if you like that's that was sort of like
14:29our trick our our uh our our gimmick let's call it that let's let's take it right down to the base level
14:34here uh okay and message in a bottle was where we had it ramped up times 10 that was the the you know
14:42the the upgrade the power up well and and what you're doing here and to be here in the motor city
14:49on sunday dso.org for tickets the police deranged steward copeland eight o'clock sunday night do you
14:55ever get caught up in it with when you turn around and you've got a you've got an orchestra going and
14:59these three amazing ladies singing and you're on the percussion and the drums and you just look around
15:03going whoa this is a lot and i made this happen absolutely it is really a rush it is huge
15:11excitement from the moment i'll meet those guys at two o'clock in the afternoon um at 4 30 we'll be
15:18done with rehearsal doors at seven uh and play the show that night so when i first meet them it is
15:26always a rush they count into that first two and they kick in and you know it's a little scrappy
15:31they're they're sight reading you know this stuff and it's already pretty good but as we get through
15:37the rehearsal they get the thing and they start leaning in and it starts to building up just the
15:42rehearsals are amazing let alone when we come out and play the show they now have had they've done
15:48their two and a half hours rehearsal they kind of they ingest it they kind of process it over dinner
15:54in the afternoon then come the show they're a thousand percent better you know they now own it
16:01and they will burn down the building thank you thank you for the time thank you for the music with
16:06the police and more importantly to me personally thank you for the motivation i i love it when people
16:11who are established artists that are doing this where you're pushing yourself too i think in life we
16:16got to keep moving forward and when we just get content with who we are we're done and and you
16:22remind me that i got to keep pushing forward day to day by day and i can't wait for sunday night it's
16:27going to be amazing yeah i'm looking forward to it myself and we'll go to the motel museum
16:31whatever you want we'll be there all right thanks a lot steward thank you have a great day
16:37thank you sir thanks see you there thanks
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