What an honor to have Stewart Copeland on Talkin’ Rock!
The new album ‘The Police – Deranged for Orchestra’ comes out this Friday, June 23rd. In a nutshell, he took massive Police songs and rearranged them with an orchestra and some singers. He talked about the process of making this album and what songs turned out the furthest from the original. He added that he can do this to these songs, because they’re his. “I feel a sense of ownership, a sense of impunity. If we hired someone to orchestrate these, they would be very polite.” He wasn’t so polite.
We talked about one of his soundtracks to a movie that was hugely inspirational to me as a young budding radio guy, Talk Radio. He gives away the ending, so skip that part if you haven’t watched it.
He talked about the Jeff Beck project he did about 23 years ago. I asked him if that will ever come out. “Probably not.” He went into more detail on why that will never see the light of day.
What’s it like to play behind Sting and then switch to Les Claypool? “Oh, my God…very, very different.” What about his relationship with Neil Peart. “He was a great man. A tower of strength and wisdom.” He had some great stories of jamming with him and other legendary drummers. Watch one of their jam sessions below.
We wrapped up the conversation by asking him about the band Scrantonicity from the TV show The Office. His answer was the most surprising of not only this interview, but of any interview I’ve done in recent memory.
Listen to the conversation below….
