The Police

Henry Padovani Stewart lived in a squat. I didn’t know what a squat was. Paul must have explained it to me…how …what…but I must not have got it… All I understood was that Stewart wasn’t in his home. He occupied an incredible apartment on the top floor of a fantastic building with Sonja [Krystina – Curved Air] and his brother Ian. It actually was on the roof of that building that we did the first photo shoot of the Police with Stewart, Sting and me for the press photos

Stewart was already enthused by the punk scene and had written Fall Out and Nothing Achieving already. He also had a name for the band as well … The Police.

They all go to see The Damned at the Roxy and Henry the next day has his hair cut, hacks off his beard and buys some new clothes down the Kings Road. Henri then responds to an ad and auditions successfully for the band London but when he tells Stewart he says to play in his band and that a bassist is coming down from Newcastle called Sting.

Henry Padovani The guy could sing and play bass. And that was perfect because Stewart wanted to form a trio. Jimi Hendrix was his model. It is true that being only 3 had a lot of advantages. First of all, it is cheaper. It is easy to travel and you can play virtually anywhere with little equipment. The idea was to start, keep going and try to make some money

Stuart and Sting had previously met and hit it off already.

Sting Even at this very early moment of our relationship, it is clear that there is something going on, some chemistry, some understanding, some recognition, a rapport and a tension, between the amphetamine pulse of his kick drum and the shifting rolling ground of the bass…Such rapport is not common, and I realise very quickly that this is the most exciting drummer I’ve ever worked with, almost too exciting. I also realise that whatever music… I shall manage to make with this whirlwind, it will not be gentle or easy, it will be a wild ride to hell and back. Broken Music

That said Sting hated Stewart’s name for the band, love his drumming but sees punk as a flag of convenience. Now that Henry had been found, it was time to try them all out to see if it would work.

Henri Padovani Stewart went to change and when he came back down, he had his US policeman leather jacket on and dark glasses….I had understood that we had to play a little scene. We prepared ourselves quickly. I too had my shades on, and when Sting arrived, we had adopted the dangerous rockers attitude. I had my leather pants on, which hadn’t left my legs since I had arrived in London… and I remained silent. I didn’t say a word. Sting had dungarees on. He must have really thought we were 2 idiots.

Sting turns up with his baby in tow as his wife is attending an audition which has a farcical element to it.

Sting Stewart is seated at the drums wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket. As the room is sunless and adequately heated I’m puzzled as to why he’s wearing this get up, until I see that in the other corner … sits another man in impermeable wrap around sunglasses. They are both wearing, as far as I can see beneath the sunglasses, expressions of abject seriousness…this must be the new look, for there is a distinct smell of attitude. Broken Music

Miles didn’t see The Police and especially Sting as Punk but he set up Illegal to release their first single which is two compositions by Stewart Fall Out and Nothing Achieving.

Henry Padovani So, on February 12th, we recorded our first single. Stewart had wanted to play a lot of rhythm guitar parts and I did solos on the Jacobacci. I was quite pleased with the result and you can hear Sting drop a loud ‘ Henryyyyyy!’ just before the Fall Out one on the record.

It would be a couple more months before the record would come out. In the meantime, more songs were added which were all Stewarts.

Aware of what was going on in the UK and in the States with the emerging punk scenes, Miles had urged Cherry Vanilla and Wayne County to come over from the States and he offered up for the former the services of both Stewart and Sting to provide the backline to help with costs. The deal was The Police would support Cherry at gigs and tours.

Cherry Vanilla Anyway, he said that if I brought these two musicians, he could hook me up with a bass player and drummer in the UK and that they would also be my opening act (along with Henry Padovani, their guitarist at the time) and also play for me. They were professional and cocky. Henry was my favorite. He was really cool. He was the only one of them who came to my apartment for dinners with his girlfriend and so forth, the only one of them I hung out with outside of the gigs. They did the driving and loading in and out and played their sets and mine. They took stupid drugs, like cough medicine and antihistamines, things to make them up and down. They slept on floors with us and did their job.

Actually the early Police tracks when Henry was with them were the most punky.  Then they got into the more kind of soft or poppy-reggae sound.  I think the punks probably liked them better at the beginning but probably liked the later hits a lot less.  Henry was the most popular with the audiences, especially the girls.  He had the punkiest attitude and was very sexy.  

I paid them each 10 pounds per night. Often, there wasn’t enough money for my own band and me to make 10 pounds a night. We lived mostly on beer and potato chips. There were fabulous moments, like one morning when we woke up on a sheep farm with a roaring fire and French toast breakfast and hot coffee … and the time we all went to Stonehenge and just stood there silently with the wind whistling in our ears.

The Police are not seen as real punks as their past is well known.

Tony D (Ripped and Torn Fanzine) I remember I saw the Police do a gig at the Roxy in summer 1977. Miles Copeland had taken me down there with Mark P from the Step Forward offices. Mark P was going, “We gotta go and see this band,” and we went down and there were other people from Step Forward there. It was just a set-up showbiz gig. A guest list type only sort of thing. It was dreadful! I watched a couple of numbers and started booing.  Mark was laughing.

Above are the songs they played and how they sounded at the time. The gig is from The Nashville 6.3.77 supporting Cherry Vanilla which featured a short set of of nearly 50/50 covers. Sting describes their approach (and punk approach) to playing

Sting The Police now have about ten songs, all, apart from Landlord penned by Stewart… but these ten supercharged ditties are played at such furious pace that the whole set lasts only ten minutes, and that’s with an encore…It blisters along at such a pace – no gaps between the songs, defying the audience to be critical or appreciative, as if we don’t give a fuck either way, and then we’re off before they know what’s hit them. Broken Music

There’s also the earliest footage of the band captured later that year in France on March 28, 1977 – at the Palais Des Glaces playing Clouds In Venice. Filmed By Robert Glassman for his movie “ACCELERATION PUNK”

It’s hard to believe how much the Police were hated, so it’s ironic they are on the cover of the first Roxy album though so obscured you wouldn’t know it!

Big George (Blitz) The band that went down the worst at the Roxy while I was there was the Police. Everybody hated the Police. They played limp-wristed tosh posing as punk.

Henry Padovani (the Police) We were viewed as impostors and fakes. Everybody knew Stewart Copeland was from the band Curved Air and Sting was in a jazz-rock band. The single came out and everybody slated it. People would say to me, “Henry what you doing playing in that band? Get out, they’re crap!”  Nobody liked us and nobody came to see us!

But the band didn’t give up taking the negativity to drive them on

Stewart Copeland For the first few months Sting hasted everybody he saw. We’d wander down the Roxy and he’d be going “Jesus Christ, what the fuck’s all this about? And a band would come on and he’d be totally freaked out…. They’re shit. I can do better than this fucking lot’. He’d get wilder. He became very aggressive but very determined

If Barry had realised that the cover shot inadvertently featured Stewart Copeland from the reviled Police dismantling his drums and Zecca Esquibel with his piano following a Cherry Vanilla gig, then he might have thought otherwise.

You gotta love it!

Barry Jones (Roxy Club Partner) I remember near the end we had an argument with Miles Copeland. He wanted us to put on the Police and we said no they’re fucking shit!

Sting I met a lot of those punks… Joe Strummer, Rotten…we were sort of untouchables as far as they were concerned. We weren’t allowed to mix with the in-crowd. There was an inner circle we didn’t belong to… The Police Release, Big O Publishing

The band tour with Cherry still doing their 2 sets a night.

What became obvious very quickly was that Henry wasn’t sufficiently skilled to input into the songs Sting and Stewart wanted to write and the search for another guitarist was on though out of loyalty to Henry it would be an additional guitarist. Apparently, their first thought was Cherry’s boyfriend Louie, which she found later in Andy Summers’s autobiography, and which she understandably was no one too happy about.

Cherry Vanilla I sacrificed all of my worldly possessions to get my boys and myself over there, but behind my back Stuart and Sting were trying to get my boyfriend/guitarist, Louis, to leave my band and join them … and I was pregnant at the time on top of it all. I never knew about this until I read Andy Summers’s book. When I did, I cried my eyes out. How could they have been so heartless, so sneaky, so cruel? How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so unaware of their intentions? Punk77 Interview

How serious they were about it only they know, but they meet Andy Summers another guitarist when they play together in Strontium 90 who is very skilled and they get on well with. He’s older but looks younger and they ask him to join which he accepts on the condition he is the only guitarist. They become a short lived four piece.

“The whole thing happened when Mike Howlett [ex-Gong] asked Sting and Stewart to be part of a project he was doing in Paris, where other ex-members of Gong were also a part, and so was Andy. Guitar World 12.12.23

Again, like with Sting, there is something there with Sting and Stewart that will make Andy want to join the band.

Stewart Copeland We didn’t yet have Sting songs to work with, just my two-chord tricks with lyrics so dumb that our singer couldn’t bring himself to articulate them clearly,” he continues. “[They were] basically bass riffs with yelling. So another miracle was that we stuck together through thin and thinner and then Andy [Summers] joined us, casting aside his lucrative session career to join two fake punks long before we knew what Sting could do. In the beginning it wasn’t so much the music that bonded us, since we hadn’t even figured that out yet; it was just musical instinct that convinced us that we were in the right company. We bonded with each other before we figured out what music to play.” Rolling Stone

They stayed as a four piece out of loyalty to Henry for just two more gigs including Mont De Marsan in August 1977 with The Clash, Damned, Jam, Boys and The Rings/Maniacs.

It’s at Mont De Marsan that Henry knows it’s not going to work. There is an argument over who gets to use the better amp and solos.

-‘ Henry, I would like to remind you that I am the one who does the solos and that the sound is really important’, Andy tells me….Fantastic! Andy and Sting didn’t really like the trip. Andy is 34, 10 years older than us. I think he is a very very good player but he is a bit boring. Too old, probably!

Arriving back in England Miles has John Cale over from the Velvet Underground recording for his label and doing a job lot on production duties for Sham 69, Squeeze and Menace and he puts The Police in with him. There’s been a shift as the new single would be a Sting composition.

Earlier on, we came back from the studio where we were recording with John Cale the new Police single: ‘Visions of the Night’.This is a song that Sting has written and one of the first Stewart allows him to do. We played it for the first time live in Mont de Marsan.

There are more arguments between guitarists in the studio and the band doesn’t get on with Cale so the studio session is aborted and I assume nothing was completed or it would have come out.

Sting is given the task of reluctantly telling Henry he is out of the band. The deed is done and the classic Police lineup is complete. They remain friends and Henry will figure again in this story.

Stewart summed up being in The Police at that time.

Stewart Copeland There was absolutely no reason for anybody to be a member of The Police…we were unloved, unpaid…everything. The Police Release, Big O Publishing

With Andy in the band the set list had swung more to Sting’s songs including one about outside their seedy hotel in Paris when they played were a group of prostitutes. Steart was worried Sting was thinking of leaving and Sting himself was trying to make ends meet getting money from where he could even appearing in a Triumph bra advert. See around the 16 second mark

Indeed the band was signed up in early 1978 to do a Wrigley’s gum commercial. The band were required to all dye their hair blonde and they were filmed carrying a giant bar of gum. It wasn’t used, but it gave the band a cohesive unthreatening new wave image they kept with.

Stewart Copeland ….Wrigley’s.. we did things that would pay us money so that we wouldn’t have to sell the music before we made it. The Police Release, Big O Publishing

Miles Copeland I recorded their album because Stewart had run into a complete fiasco with a manager he’d acquired and who did nothing. He came to me distraught and was convinced Sting was going to split and I said let’s make a record. I could make one for £1000 and how bad could it be? I’d make my money back and help him out. I had no idea they were going to create Roxanne and the thing was going to be amazing and they’d be the biggest band in the world.

I found a studio up in Leatherhead. It so happened they played Roxanne for me and I recognised that song was special. But I could not get any label to give me any money for them because there was no press, no tour, nothing except the record

So I went to A&M Records because I had a relationship with them from Squeeze signing and they were beginning to think I was the nice side of Punk rock  – they had their experience with Malcolm McLaren which was like a nightmare and I was doing punky stuff but could at least talk the lingo and I wasn’t wearing swastikas on my forehead (laughs) So I said I’d give them the record for free but listen to it and tell me if you like it. I took away all the reasons why the guy would say no and I got them the deal. A&M pressed and promoted the records and did all the stuff a label is supposed to do.

This meant the band wasn’t tied to an advance which down the line they would benefit massively from.

Not everyone was happy that The Police were having money spent on them including label mates Chelsea, who Miles viewed as true punks.

Chris Bashford (Chelsea Drummer) James said look I can understand you putting money into Squeeze but The Police – forget it they’ll never get fucking anywhere. Two weeks later the radio came on with Roxanne  – Fucking hilarious.

The Police will play every gig they can whether it’s supporting Spirit from the US in March at The Rainbow with labelmates Alternative TV or whether it’s their own tour but with latest Illegal signing The Cramps in support. Each show they are professional and look after the support bands. Around a year later Sting (when starting to make it big) will fill in on bass for a Chelsea gig at the Fulham Greyhound.

Roxanne doesn’t chart and neither does their third single Can’t Stand Losing You as they are effectively banned for the themes of prostitution and suicide. They have already made a step change from the usual punk ramalama to a style their own and it will be instrumental in their later change of fortunes. It’s even more a surprise for them to take this route given their musical backgrounds of no reggae (bar Bob Marley) and especially Stewart who takes to reggae drumming with aplomb.

Sting I saw a rhythmic connection between a fast bass in punk and holes in reggae. I got interested in trying to write songs that combined these apparently diverse styles…We have our own sound which isn’t anything to do with reggae – it’s our own synthesis of rock & roll and reggae rhythm

Stewart Reggae is really the most interesting thing to look forward to getting into. Just because it’s so unexplored. We’re the only people who are not real reggae artists – so we can break all the rules. The Police Release, Big O Publishing

With no advance from the record company the band are broke having to make ends meet. Sting takes on a couple of acting roles. He’s cast by Julien Temple for The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle as a member of a gay rock band called the Blow Waves who attempt to kidnap Paul Cook. The scene is not used.

Stuart keeps his hand in punky matters producing and supplying the drum kit for the notorious Moors Murderers under Steve Strange who recorded Free Hindley and Ten Commandments.

He also notches up a hit as Klark Kent beats The Police to a Top Of The Pops appearance with his solo single Don’t Care (Sting didn’t want to sing it in The Police). It reached number 48 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1978. Stewart is badly disguised in makeup and glasses, but behind him in masks are Sting, Andy Summers, Kim Turner and Florian Pilkington-Miksa (Curved Aiur drummer).

Their second single So Lonely goes to #42.

Sting tries out for another role as the bellboy Ace in the film Quadrophenia which also stars Phil Daniels and Leslie Ash. This time his scenes won’t end up on the cutting floor.

It’s a busy time. A&M didn’t want to release the album Outlandos Amour till they had a hit and now it and the 3rd single Can’t Stand Losing You are coming out in November.

The tour will tighten them up as a band but more importantly, will sow the seeds that will enable them to get a toehold in America. Roxanne gets released there and becomes a minor hit (#31) but prompts a re-issue in the UK in April and this time becomes a hit making #12 and the first TOTP appearance. They also appear on the BBC’s Rock Goes To College.

Rock Goes To College – The Police live at Hatfield Polytechnic 21.02.1979

From here on the story of The Police just snowballed. Previous singles were rereleased and were massive hits, the first album went back up the charts to #6 and even Fall Out made it to #41 making it probably the best ROI of a single ever.

And what of Henri? They all remain friends. He joins the Electric Chairs almost immediately after leaving The Police then forms the Flying Padovani’s. Further down the line, when Miles has built up his IRS Record label to become a major force, he will head up IRS France and even become a judge on the French version of Pop Idol. In 2007 when The Police reformed for a world tour he joined them onstage for a couple of gigs.

The Police will roll on to become the biggest band in the world while they are still together but that initial tension between Copeland and Sting which drove the band for so long will become too much and they split.

Last words to Andy Summers and the whole Police as a punk or new wave band from a book published about them in 1980.

Andy Summers None of us are trying to trade off the past…I think one of the definitions of old wave, in a way, is the absence of old wave…. Instead of trying to recreate whatever, [we] try to make new music and look to the future, not just become some rock ‘n’ roll retread. The Police Release, Big O Publishing

It could have been so easy for The Police to have just thrown in the towel after Fall Out and when Henry left but the emergence of Sting into the songwriting helped give The Police a unique twist. The uncharitable would say cod reggae but on the other hand, you could argue Walking On The Moon takes the spirit and sound of dub and works it into a classic mainstream new wave song that is completely unique.

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Fall Out / Nothing Achieving
(Illegal May 1977)

Actually recorded in February 1977 around a month after the band had first come together and it’s two Stewart compositions when he was the dominant force in the band. I don’t think anyone would class this as a punk rock classic but for effort and DIY you have to give the boys some credit and Stewart and Henri were genuinely enthused with punk rock.

Stewart Copeland We went into Pathway studios in Chalk Farm and recorded Fall Out and the other side Nothing Achieving. And we had this tape in 1976, and Henry, Sting and I went to the top of the building I lived in, took a picture, got a Xerox off the picture, cut it up got the Letraset out and wrote THE POLICE. On the back we got a picture out of Detective magazine, stuck it on, got the Letraset out again and wrote produced by Stewart Copeland and everything. It was a really neat thing, almost like a school-project or something – what with the glue, the scissors and the razor blades. When we picked up the records from the factory they weren’t in the sleeves, so the first 5000 Fallouts I put in myself. The Police Release, Big O Publishing

Henri Padovani In fact, the day of the shoot with Lawrence Impey, a photographer friend of Stewart, I had a massive toothache and I was pulling an incredible face but the shot was a good one and I had the right look. This comforted Stewart who, I always understood, needed me to give credibility to the punk band that we wanted to be then…

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Roxanne / Peanuts
(A&M Roxanne April 1978)

The massive gap of eight months between singles was a lifetime in the unfolding timeline of punk. Yet so much had happened to the band, not least Sting had taken over writing the songs and Miles Copeland on the strength of this song, became manager and signed them to A&M. So there were great hopes. It was released, but its subject matter about prostitutes was too risque for the BBC and it sank. Beginning with a discordant piano, courtesy of Sting sitting by accident on it and left in, it’s a fine new wave/reggae mix with more emphasis on the former. Sting is given full range to sing. A year later it would be in the charts as success exploded for them.

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So Lonely / No Time. This Time
(A&M November 1978)

Was he really saying Sue Lawly Sue Lawley? Another new wave reggae cross over and a fine single to boot. Nothing more to be said. Another classic

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Can’t Stand Losing You / Dead End Job
(A&M August 1978)

You’d like to think this was a last hurrah from a punky Stewart getting in Peter Gravelle (The Damned, Skewdriver etc covers) to do the cover which features himself in a noose on an ice cube in front of a fire holding a picture of The Police and the back cover a puddle of water. Fine driven reggae rock pop new wave tune. If the BBC didn’t like songs about prostitution they also weren’t keen on suicide either and it wasn’t added to their playlist. A year later and a new cover that would all change.

Predictably the music press thought it pants. In the NME Bob Edmands said “The Police great name for an outrageous punk band. Lousy name for a feeble white reggae act. Last observed proceeding in the direction of the waste bin. Not worth apprehending.” How we lolled at his clever witticisms.

Shame the video didn’t match up to the cover and song

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Message In A Bottle / Landlord
(A&M September 1979)

First single and it’s another cracker from a Sting riff. Came on green vinyl too to help boost sales. A rockier more driven punkier song. New wave and melodic with their hallmarks of changes of tempo, volume and speed.

The B side is a throwback to their Padovani days with the Sting penned punkier heavier number that used to begin their set.

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Walking On The Moon / Visions Of The Night
(A&M November 1979)

Second single to be pulled from Regatta De Blanc and it sums up The Police perfectly. Considering they are a 3 piece, the deftness of touch and what seems like acres of space for the instruments played so simply and with the minimum of content for the maximum impact make this arguably their best song and as post-punk as anything by The Slits off Cut.

The B side sees the boys short of tunes and doing an ‘Adam & The Ants’ and recycling old songs. In this case, it’s the aborted second single Visions Of The Night which sounds pretty average, to be honest.

The boys were also very photogenic and had fully embraced the oncoming video revolution as their videos onward from Roxanne show.

When Miles Copleland agreed to fund the first Police album which was to be released on the Illegal label Sting recalls.

Sting Miles, years in front of the parody Spinal Tap already wants to call the album Police Brutality and envisions us dressed up as cops interrogating some scantily clad female on the cover. The others, to my horror, seem reasonably amenable to this ludicrous folly, but I am already planning sabotage and sedition. Sting, Broken Music, 1997

Miles then came up with Outlandos D’Amour as a title which is roughly translated as outlaws of love which I suppose is a title of sorts that’s pretty meaningless.

Ok Ok I know – the band are nicely sanitised and what more do you want on a cover to sell it than three blonde white males all reasonably good looking. Yes they look a little punkish but only just enough to give them an edge and nothing threatening so ideal to sell to America. And what works for the first works for the second so rinse and repeat.

That said neither album is consistently good and the pick has to be the singles on both and some of the other tracks like Peanuts and Next To You.

Regatta De Blanc loosely translates as white reggae and it’s an apt title. Resisting A&M pressure the boys again regrouped at Surry Sound with Nigel Gary and knocked this out fairly quickly. Having had pretty much a full set of tunes to use for the first album another set was more a problem as they had been on the road for a good many months.

So the actual album is a hodge podge of Last Exit lyrics, bits of old songs recycled into something new and So Lonelys B side tacked on the dn to make the album a bit longer.

That said it doesn’t sound like that and the band had matured its sound they would fine tune over the next 3 albums which along with this would all go to Number 1 in the album charts and the singles from this go to Number 1.