Stewart Copeland
Stewart Armstrong Copeland is an American musician and composer. He is best known as the drummer of the English rock band the Police. Before the Police, he played drums with the progressive rock band Curved Air.
As a composer, Copeland's work includes the scores of the films Wall Street, Men at Work, Good Burger, and We Are Your Friends ; the theme music for television shows The Equalizer, The Amanda Show, and Dead Like Me; and the scores for video games in the Spyro series and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. He has also written pieces for ballet, opera, and orchestra.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th-best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Copeland and American espionage officer Miles Copeland Jr.. His mother was born in Edinburgh, while his father was from Alabama. His father was, according to his own 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, a key intelligence operative in Britain during the Second World War and a founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency. Stewart's mother was also an espionage veteran, serving in the British Special Operations Executive.Miles Copeland was assigned CIA duties in the Middle East and the family moved to Cairo a few months after Stewart's birth. When Stewart was five years old the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drumming lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the Police's manager. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.Eventually, Way left the band and after months of gradually losing steam, Curved Air broke up so quietly that, by singer Sonja Kristina's recollections, most of the music press wrote off the band's absence as a "sabbatical". Copeland formed the Police and Kristina and Way both pursued solo careers. Kristina and Copeland maintained the close personal relationship they'd formed while bandmates and were married in 1982.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani, and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day", "Does Everyone Stare", "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one entering the UK singles chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studios, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" —a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The Police attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and film soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for films, television, operas and ballets. In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his songs "Red Rain" and "Big Time" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall film Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but broke up as the members wanted to pursue other projects. He has also played on albums by Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
''Spyro the Dragon'' soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
Copeland was commissioned by Universal Interactive and Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. He would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Universal Interactive had different developers handle the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but the tour was cut short.
In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmodrome, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S. debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us.
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.