“It’s a myth that Sting and I fought all the time. I broke his rib once, but we were play-fighting.” Stewart Copeland on The Police's chemistry and conflicts

(Image credit: John Rodgers/Redferns)

That the members of The Police were never best friends is well known: guitarist Andy Summers once said that he was in a band with "two total arseholes", while drummer Stewart Copeland had the words 'FUCK OFF YOU CUNT' written on his drum heads, later stressing that this message was in no way directed to frontman singer Sting.

Sure.

In a new interview in The Guardian, Copeland again plays down the legendary tensions within the band, while admitting that life wasn't always a bed of roses.

“We had a great bond, which wasn’t strong enough to make recording together very easy,” he acknowledges. “We tore each other’s throats out in the studio but those two motherfuckers came up with incredible stuff and we got on really well on stage, in the van, on the plane. To this day we still send each other dumb Instagram clips. It’s a myth that Sting and I fought all the time. I broke his rib once, but we were play-fighting.”

Copeland also recalls the pivotal moment which led to the band's formation.

“I was drumming with [prog band] Curved Air when the Sounds journalist, Phil Sutcliffe, took me to see Sting’s band, Last Exit, in Newcastle,” he remembers. “He could sing and play bass, and had such magnificent charisma. I’d seen this new scene happening but had to call him and persuade him to come down to London to start a band, and the rest is history.”

A reissue of The Police's Synchronicity is set for release on July 26.

“The recording sessions were very dark,” Copeland recalls. “We beat the crap out of each other. We’ve laughed about it since, but going back into that black hole isn’t something we tended towards. But it was such fun listening to the demos and songs that didn’t make it, so there will be more reissues.”

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.