The Police

• 1. Introduction

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  The Police formed in London in 1977, and within six years they would play Shea Stadium to 70,000 people and hold the number one album position in the US for seventeen weeks. That arc from a ten-minute debut concert in Newport, Wales, to the biggest band on earth is one of the more compressed ascents in rock history. How did three musicians who were quietly mocked by punk purists for lacking street credibility end up being called, by Rolling Stone, the first British new wave act to break through in America on a grand scale? And what made them walk away at the precise moment their power was greatest? The answers lie in an unlikely chemistry, a taste for musical risk, and tensions that ran so deep one member later described the collaboration as a Prada suit made out of barbed wire.

• 2. An Unlikely Assembly

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  On the 25th of September 1976, Stewart Copeland was mid-tour with the British progressive rock band Curved Air when he met Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting, at a concert stop in Newcastle upon Tyne. The introduction came through music journalist Phil Sutcliffe. Copeland got Sting's number from Sutcliffe's partner, and when Curved Air split up, he called. Sting moved to London on the 14th of December 1976, and on that same day he sought out Copeland for a jam session. Copeland, energised by the punk movement sweeping Britain, wanted into the London scene. Sting was less personally invested in punk, but he saw commercial possibility, so they formed the Police as a trio, adding Corsican guitarist Henry Padovani. Their first concert, at the Alexandria Club in Newport, Wales, on the 1st of March 1977, lasted only ten minutes. Their first single, "Fall Out", was recorded at Pathway Studios in Islington on the 12th of February 1977 on a budget of £150 and released on the 1st of May 1977 on Illegal Records. Mick Jagger reviewed it in Sounds.

  The permanent line-up arrived through a detour. In May 1977, musician Mike Howlett invited Sting to join a side project called Strontium 90. A decade older than Sting and Copeland, guitarist Andy Summers had already played with Eric Burdon and the Animals and Kevin Ayers. Strontium 90 performed at a Gong reunion concert in Paris on the 28th of May 1977, and Summers left Sting impressed. Sting wanted Summers in the Police, but Summers set a condition: he would join only if the band stayed a trio, with him replacing Padovani. Copeland and Sting were held back by loyalty, and they kept the four-piece going through two more live dates. After an aborted recording session on the 10th of August with ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale producing, Summers issued an ultimatum. Padovani was out. The three-piece line-up of Copeland, Sting, and Summers performed together for the first time on the 18th of August 1977 at Rebecca's club in Birmingham.

• 3. Punk Impostors, Musical Chameleons

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  Music critic Christopher Gable later wrote that the Police merely used the trappings of 1970s British punk: the bleached blond hair, Sting in jumpsuits and army jackets, Copeland's near-maniacal drumming. Other punk bands attacked them for lacking authenticity and street credibility. Their musical backgrounds were simply too broad, too professional, and too eclectic to pass as true punk. Their sound drew on reggae, jazz, progressive rock, and pub rock as well as the nervous energy of the punk scene around them. In late 1977 and early 1978, Sting and Summers recorded and performed with an ensemble led by German experimental composer Eberhard Schoener; Copeland joined for a time as well. The resulting work was a mix of rock, electronica, and jazz. Television appearances with the Schoener outfit in Germany introduced German audiences to Sting's distinctive high-pitched voice, laying the groundwork for what would come.

  The band's signature bleached-blond hair started as a commercial accident. In February 1978, the Police were short on money and agreed to dye their hair blond for a Wrigley's Spearmint chewing gum commercial directed by Tony Scott, because blond hair was associated with punk. The commercial was filmed but never broadcast. In a December 1987 interview with Musician magazine, Sting described what he saw as the band's actual position in the market: "I saw this vacuum between punk, which was unschooled, and the horrible corporate rock on the other side. I saw this thing in the middle that was clean and simple. That's what 'Roxanne' is; it's so simple and bare." Copeland's older brother Miles was initially reluctant about Summers joining, worried about punk credibility. He reluctantly put up £1,500 to fund the first album.

• 4. Breaking Through on Both Sides

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  Outlandos d'Amour was recorded with no manager and no record deal during off-peak hours at Surrey Sound Studios in Leatherhead, Surrey, a converted facility above a dairy run by brothers Chris and Nigel Gray. Miles Copeland heard "Roxanne" for the first time at the end of a studio session and was struck by it immediately; it was the track that secured the band a deal with A&M Records. "Roxanne" failed to chart on its initial UK release in early 1978, and A&M promoted the single with posters claiming it had been banned by the BBC, though it was never actually banned, only not play-listed. Copeland later acknowledged: "We got a lot of mileage out of it being supposedly banned by the BBC." A second single from the album, "Can't Stand Losing You", was genuinely removed from BBC playlists because of its cover art and became the Police's first chart entry, peaking at number 42 in the UK.

  The breakthrough in North America came gradually. In February 1979, "Roxanne" was released as a single there, peaked at number 31 in Canada and number 32 in the US, and prompted a UK re-release. The re-issued version reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart. The group then drove themselves and their equipment around North America in a Ford Econoline van. Their second album, Reggatta de Blanc, released in October 1979, reached number one in the UK and number 25 in the US. "Message in a Bottle" and "Walking on the Moon" both hit number one in the UK. The third album, Zenyatta Mondatta, recorded in just three weeks in the Netherlands for tax reasons and finished at 4 a.m. on the day the band began their next world tour, reached number five on the US Billboard 200 and gave the group their third UK number-one single with "Don't Stand So Close to Me", which was the UK's best-selling single of 1980. Despite the pressure and the regret all three members and co-producer Nigel Gray felt about the rushed recording, the album won two Grammy Awards: Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "Behind My Camel" and Best Rock Vocal Performance for Duo or Group for "Don't Stand So Close to Me".

• 5. Synchronicity and the Summit

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  Recording the fifth and final Police studio album in 1983 meant the three members working in separate rooms, overdubbing at different times, to avoid open conflict. The tensions were severe enough that Sting later described the summit as the natural endpoint of the band's creative arc. Synchronicity was recorded and released in 1983, and its lead single "Every Breath You Take" became the band's fifth UK number one and their only US number one. Rolling Stone described the Police at this moment as "the first British new wave act to break through in America on a grand scale, and possibly the biggest band in the world".

  The Synchronicity Tour began in Chicago, Illinois in July 1983 at the original Comiskey Park. On the 18th of August, the band played in front of 70,000 people at Shea Stadium in New York. Near the end of that show, Sting announced: "We'd like to thank the Beatles for lending us their stadium." Copeland later reflected: "Playing Shea Stadium was big because, even though I'm a septic tank, The Police is an English band and I'm a Londoner - an American Londoner - so it felt like conquering America." The tour ended on the 4th of March 1984 at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Australia, with Bryan Adams and Australian Crawl on the same bill. Synchronicity stayed at number one in the US for seventeen weeks and at number one in the UK for two. It was nominated for the Grammy for Album of the Year but lost to Michael Jackson's Thriller. "Every Breath You Take" won the Grammy for Song of the Year, beating Jackson's "Billie Jean", and also won the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. It also received two Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

• 6. The Break and the Silence

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  During the Shea Stadium concert, Sting concluded that performing there was his personal "Everest" and decided to pursue a solo career, as he later recounted in the documentary The Last Play at Shea. The Police went on hiatus after the Synchronicity Tour. Sting recorded the jazz-influenced solo debut The Dream of the Blue Turtles, released in June 1985. Copeland made The Rhythmatist in 1985, and Summers recorded Bewitched with Robert Fripp in 1984. At the 1985 Brit Awards at London's Grosvenor Hotel on the 11th of February, the band collected the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

  In June 1986, the Police played three concerts for the Amnesty International A Conspiracy of Hope tour. Their final performance before the official split was on the 15th of June at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. They closed with "Invisible Sun", brought Bono onstage to sing the final verse, and then handed U2 their instruments for the all-star finale of "I Shall Be Released". Bono described the moment: "It was a very big moment, like passing a torch." A month later the trio tried to record a new album, but Copeland broke his collarbone falling from a horse and could not play drums. The session collapsed. Andy Summers wrote in the liner notes to the box set Message in a Box: "The attempt to record a new album was doomed from the outset. The night before we went into the studio Stewart broke his collarbone falling off a horse and that meant we lost our last chance of recovering some rapport just by jamming together. Anyway, it was clear Sting had no real intention of writing any new songs for the Police. It was an empty exercise." The resulting single, "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86", was released in October 1986 and reached the UK Top 25 as the band's final release.

• 7. Reunion and Legacy

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  Twenty years of solo work separated the split from what came next. On the 11th of February 2007, the Police opened the 49th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles and announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are The Police, and we're back!" before playing "Roxanne". The Police Reunion Tour began in late May 2007 with two shows in Vancouver. Tickets for the British leg sold out in 30 minutes. The group played to 82,000 fans in Dublin in October 2007. The final show was on the 7th of August 2008 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where the band performed "Message in a Bottle" with the brass band of the New York Metropolitan Police Corp and donated one million dollars to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's initiative to plant one million trees in the city by 2017. The tour sold 3.7 million tickets and grossed $358 million, making it the third-highest-grossing tour of all time at its conclusion. The band were the world's highest-earning musicians in 2008.

  By the time the tour wrapped, the Police had sold over 75 million records. They hold six Grammy Awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the 10th of March 2003 in their first year of eligibility. Four of their five studio albums appeared on Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In May 2019, "Every Breath You Take" was recognised by BMI as the most performed song in their catalogue, overtaking "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" by the Righteous Brothers. Sting, speaking in 2022 about the reunion tour, said: "It was cashing that asset in, saying, Let's do it one more time and see what happens. It was hugely successful but I wouldn't do it again. That would be a bridge too far."