You’d have to be pretty brave—or pretty crazy—to rearrange some of the most beloved
songs in the rock and roll canon. Luckily, Stewart Copeland is both.
“I’m blessed with an inordinate sense of confidence and impunity,” the Rock and Roll
Hall of Famer jokes. “I’ve definitely taken a lot of liberties with the music, but there’s
still something familiar about it, too, and the audiences love it.”
If anything, that’s an understatement. For the last two years, Copeland—most
recognizable for his role as founder/drummer of legendary British trio The Police—has
been selling out halls around the world with an epic show that reimagines the band’s
music through the lens of his decades in film scoring and orchestral composition. Now,
he’s captured the project on record for the first time with his extraordinary new
album, Police Deranged for Orchestra. Based off a series of “derangements” Copeland
built from multi-track recordings and live improvisations from The Police’s early days,
the collection takes listeners on a bold and unpredictable journey through the group’s
remarkable catalog, offering unique insight and fresh perspective on iconic hits like
“Roxanne,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Message In A Bottle,” and “Don’t Stand So
Close To Me.” The arrangements are as cinematic as they are adventurous, blurring
the lines between pop, classical, and world music as they push well-known tunes into
uncharted territory, and the performances—recorded with a full orchestra alongside
Copeland, bassist Armand Sabal Lecco (Paul Simon), guitarist Rusty Anderson (Paul
McCartney), and vocalists Amy Keys, Carmel Helene, and Ashley Támar—are nothing
short of virtuosic. Add it all up and you’ve got revelatory take on some of the most
indelible songs of the last 50 years, a joyous, larger-than-life love letter to the
music—and its fans—from a multi-instrumental renaissance man with a boundless
appetite for artistic growth and creative discovery.
“I’ve learned a lot about the songs and about myself as a composer and performer
through this project,” Copeland explains. “But ultimately, my mission with this show
has always been to light up audiences, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Born in Virginia and raised around the world in a series of moves that took him from
Cairo and Beirut to London and Somerset, Copeland grew up immersed in jazz and
classical music until Jimi Hendrix filled his mind with dreams of rock and roll
rebellion. After attending college in America, Copeland returned to England in the
mid-1970s, where he dove into the punk scene and launched The Police with Sting and
guitarist Andy Summers, who joined shortly after. Though their early years were lean
to say the least, the band would go on to become one of the most successful and
influential acts of all time, selling more than 75 million records, earning six Grammy
Awards, and topping charts around the world over the course of five classic studio
albums.
“We got nowhere for those first two or three years,” says Copeland, who’s also set to
release Stewart Copeland’s Police Diaries, a new book based on his personal journal
entries from 1976-79. “We all bonded and knew we were in the right company,
though. We worked hard and stuck together without knowing where it would take us.”

In 1983, Copeland made his first foray into the world of orchestration, earning a
Golden Globe nomination with his score for Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumblefish. When
The Police disbanded three years later, he began a two-decade run as a highly sought-
after composer for films, TV shows, and video games, working with everyone from
Oliver Stone and John Hughes to Anjelica Huston and Richard Linklater.
“Film scores force you to go everywhere and do everything, to tap into every
emotional nuance that music can inspire,” Copeland explains. “At first I would hire
arrangers to help bring my compositions to life, but after a while I started learning
how to do it all myself: how to use the brass most effectively, when to use a clarinet
and when to use an oboe, how to dictate not just the notes, but the performances.”
Copeland had always been a DIY kind of artist—in the late ’70s, he landed on the
British charts under the alter ego Klark Kent, which found him playing every
instrument and singing—and his newfound autonomy in the world of orchestration
allowed him to continue the trend, transitioning from film and television into writing
his own works for opera, ballet, and concerto. As Copeland traveled the world
performing with orchestras, he would occasionally mix obscure Police songs into the
sets, and the response was so electrifying that he began making plans for an entire
show of the band’s hits. In typical Copeland fashion, though, he decided to do it his
way, orchestrating a series of alternate versions of the songs he’d assembled to
soundtrack the 2006 documentary Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out.
“Delving into the multi-tracks of our original recordings and live performances
revealed all these lost guitar solos, bass lines, and vocal improvisations that were just
too cool to leave in obscurity,” Copeland recalls. “The ‘derangements,’ as I dubbed
them, were all built around things we’d done as a band, so they came from the same
world, but they were exciting and different, too.”
Bolstered by Copeland’s ambitious orchestration work, producer/mixer Craig Stuart
Garfinkle’s deft sonic craftsmanship, and the infectious R&B girl group energy of the
album’s vocalists, the songs take on dazzling new life on the record. “Don’t Stand So
Close To Me” leaps and twirls, while “Demolition Man” bristles with live wire
electricity, and “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” walks an exhilarating tightrope
between tension and release. Even relatively deeper cuts like the stately “Tea In The
Sahara” and blistering “Murder By Numbers” take on blockbuster status here, but it’s
undoubtedly the most recognizable tracks that steal the show. “Roxanne” is an
anthemic tour-de-force; “Message In A Bottle” takes listeners on a pulse-pounding
thrillride; and “Every Breath You Take,” which begins with a stunning two-minute
instrumental introduction, shines new light on a timeless favorite.
“Diving back into these tracks in such detail, I finally came to the unpleasant
conclusion, and please don’t tell Sting I said this, that the man’s a f*cking genius,”
Copeland laughs. “And when I got into Andy’s chord voicings, I had a similar
revelation. I came away from the whole thing with even more respect for those guys
than I had before. All this orchestration stuff is my revenge.”
And the audiences love it.