Stewart Copeland: Sting Would Suck At Standup & Dad’s CIA Job

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Andrew Hobson (1:41)

From Dallas, Texas, this is The Adam Carolla Show. Adam's guest today, legendary drummer, Stewart Copeland.

Plus the news with Andrew Hobson and now, Adam Carolla.

Adam Carolla (1:54)

Get it on. All right, I'm on location. You could probably hear that already just by the sonics of what we're doing here.

I'm in a huge convention center. I'm doing this big Trumpathon thing out here. It's a long story. I'll fill you in later. But Stewart Copeland is joining me and Stewart has a Spoken Word tour, and I don't have the bio in front of me because of all the craziness, and we try to get it printed out at the hotel, and you know how it goes. But we'll fill you in all the details. But of course, you know, Stewart from The Police and many other endeavors as well as soundtracks for movies and everything else. Good to see you, Stewart.

Stewart Copeland (2:37)

Hey, great to see you, Adam. Long time. I think we go back to when you had The Man Show.

When we were men.

Adam Carolla (2:44)

No, I mean, I look at them and sorry for any ambient sound you may hear here. We were told no one was coming into this facility before this, but now the place is packed and they're doing a whole bunch of stage announcements and everything. So we'll muddle through this. But yeah, the police were a revolutionary band in my world. They were sort of new wave before everyone else got there. I mean, I could remember hearing Roxanne early when I was like in the ninth grade or something and thinking that is a different song than any other song I've ever heard before. Did you guys know you were on to something different and was the plan to do something different?

Stewart Copeland (3:32)

No, the plan was to completely do something the same.

Our brief was to be a punk band because that's the only work available in those days. It was the end of the prog rock era and I was in a big prog rock band called Curved Air. But we could just see that the whole scene was losing altitude and the only thing going on was this new punk scene in London. And so we were a fake punk band when we started until Andy joined and Sting started writing actual songs. And then we kind of morphed into a not punk band and I guess Roxanne was a step away from our origins.

Adam Carolla (4:08)

Yeah, but you know, one of my favorite police songs, So Lonely, is kind of a punk song.

Stewart Copeland (4:15)

Yeah, well, the loud choruses and quiet verses.

I don't think we invented that format. I think we just picked it up and had been forgotten for a while.

Adam Carolla (4:24)

In a way, I guess you are sort of like the pretenders in that you're not from England, but it's an English band. You know, Chrissy Hines from, I don't know, Ohio, but she's in an English band. You know, is that kind of like you?