Stewart Copeland

Born in Alexandria, Virginia on July 16, 1952, Stewart Copeland is a musician and composer best known as the drummer of The Police, one of the best-selling bands of the 1980s. The son of a CIA officer, his family moved to Cairo months after he was born before relocating to Beirut when he was five. He took drum lessons at the age of 12 and started playing in bands a year later. In the late 1960s, he lived in England and finished high school before he moved to California to attend college. Moving back to England, he worked as a road manager for British progressive rock band Curved Air in 1974 before taking over on drums in ’75 and ’76. Inspired by the punk and new wave scenes, Stewart Copeland formed The Police with singer, songwriter, and bassist Sting (real name: Gordon Sumner) and guitarist Henry Padovani, who would soon be replaced by Andy Summers. Their debut album, Outlandos d’Amour, was released in 1978 and was an international success and the first of five hit albums released between 1978 and 1983. While Sting wrote the majority of the material, Stewart Copeland wrote or co-wrote at least one song per album. Since he had a stockpile of unrecorded songs, he released a self-titled 1980 ‘solo’ mini album under the pseudonym of Klark Kent. While still a member of The Police, he composed the soundtrack to the 1983 film Rumblefish and released the album the same year. Band leader Sting recorded his first solo album and when that proved to be far more successful than expected, he decided to officially break up The Police in 1986. Stewart Copeland continued to release solo albums and soundtracks including Wall Street (Original Motion Picture Soundtracks) (1986), and The Equalizer and Other Cliff Hangers (1988). In 1987, he formed Animal Logic, a trio that also featured bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The group released two albums – Animal Logic (1989) and Animal Logic II (1991) – during their short lifespan. Throughout the 1990s, he continued to explore new musical avenues on solo albums and soundtracks before forming another musical side-project, Oysterhead, with Primus’ Les Claypool and Phish’s Trey Anastasio. They released one studio album, The Grand Pecking Order, in 2001 before splitting up but reformed several times over the next two decades. The Police unexpectedly reunited for a 2007 tour but broke up again once the tour was completed. His next musical side-project was Gizmodrome, a quartet that also featured Level 42’s Mark King on bass / vocals, King Crimson’s Adrian Belew on guitar / vocals, and Italian musician Vittorio Cosma on keyboards. They released their self-titled debut album in 2017 and a live album in 2021. Also in 2021, he released the album Divine Tides - a collaboration with composer Ricky Kej - which won two Grammy Awards. Stewart Copeland then composed the opera Electric Saint, which was based on the life of Nikola Tesla, and released the album Spyro (2022). In 2023, he revisited his past and created new orchestral arrangements of songs from his days with The Police, releasing the album Police Deranged for Orchestra, which reached number 3 on Billboard’s Classical Albums chart. The release featured musical assistance from bassist Armand Sabal Lecco, guitarist Rusty Anderson, and vocalists Amy Keys, Carmel Helene, and Ashley Támar.

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