During the time I spend with Stewart Copeland, the former police drummer imitates the oscillating warble of a white sparrow sparrow, the usual “Whoop Whoop” of a peak and the groaning call of a spotted hyena – one of his favorite species, he tells me, with a matriarchal social system in which women disguise themselves. “Their vagina looks like a penis,” says Copeland with animation. Someone at a table behind him shakes his head in our direction.
The 10th largest drummer of all time, according to a list of top 100 of the Rolling Stone, is seated in the bar of a London hotel. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Fiona, but stolen from New York following the first of the Juilliard School of a battery piece which he composed on the basis of the poem of Edgar Allan Poe “The Bells”. It characterized its range of results since the police stopped in the mid-1980s. Opera, ballet, film scores, soundtracks for television and video games, inter-generes collaborations: if Rolling Stone compiled a list of the most varied curriculum vitae of pop and rock, Copeland, 72, would surely be near the summit again.
His new album unit with a non -human distribution of singers. SAUVAGE CONCERTO is based on the sounds of the screaming animals, growls and twitter. The music was recorded by an orchestra in Abbey Road Studios and presents a typically skilful work from Copeland on drums. The noises of animals are by the famous record player of nature Martyn Stewart, who, over the age of 50, has raised a library of nearly 100,000 recordings on the ground.
There are 12 instrumental or songs if twitters and screenchers are considered to be singers. “I have to make a confession,” explains Copeland. “Although all these animals are magnificently arranged in close harmony, the reality is that some of the artists predate the other members of the group.” He makes a mischievous smile. “I don't know certain rock groups I know.”
The album is released in the period of land week next week, an annual event promoting biodiversity. A discouraging number of features is in danger. But unlike Martyn Stewart and the producer of the album, Ricky Kej, Copeland is not motivated by environmental concerns.
“I am not so much the observation of this team's trees,” he says. “I hope it will help to raise awareness. But no, I did not think of saving the planet, I thought:” It's a cool sound. “”
The album vocalizations are mainly coupling calls. “They say,” I'm here, where are you? ” Come on, “which is sort of the same thing as humans do on the disco floor,” says Copeland. The musical style is both fun and sophisticated, with a feeling of almost jazzy swing. The enriching sparrow is associated with flute parts; The howling wolves are shaded by the trombone. Meanwhile, the delicate delicate work of Copeland shines like sunlight.
I mention zoomusicology for him, the study of animal communication and musicality. The concept is new for Copeland, whose ears are pricked. “Hang on at a moment,” he says. “A guy does it – Me – And they have a whole word for that?
Yes, and I have bad news for him: Pink Floyd arrived before him when they recorded a border collie barking in a song of blues on their 1971 album Mingle.
“Assholes,” says Drily. “I have this problem with Pink Floyd all the time. The other is the eighth note in dotted lines. ”
He drops the table to illustrate how this musical progression works. “The rehearsal is timed to land there, which is very familiar with any police record, on my drums or the guitar. Andy (Summers, guitarist) and I argued from who came with. Then (U2 guitarist) chose and he became a part of the very slow version of guitarist. But it turns out that Pink Floyd has done it – a very slow version – Sprinkle.
Copeland is an entertaining company, with a colorful musical plumage that he takes a funny pleasure to float. His father, Miles, was an American spy who co -founded the CIA, and also a jazz trumpeter. His mother, Lorraine, was an Scottish archaeologist. She instilled the love of classical composers such as Ravel and Stravinsky, who “had much more impact” on him, in his words, than her father's jazz.
Born in the United States in 1952, Copeland spent much of his childhood in Lebanon and England, where he went to the boarding school. He was a member of the London Prog-Rock Band Curbed Air before training the police in 1977 with Sting. They were quickly joined by Andy Summers. As the eighth note in dotted line shows, the trio had a rare ability to marry adventurous musicality with mass attraction.
Initially, they had to disguise their ambitions, a bit like the spotted hyena, in order to adapt to the shiboboleths of the punk era of the lack of adornment and technique. Copeland believes that these constraints have helped them evolve.
“On the one hand, he taught Doris how to write a successful song,” he said from a code name Jokey for Sting to avoid attracting the attention of neighboring tables. “He had the instinct necessary to write successful songs, like beautiful melodies, but being surrounded by this world is what produced these results.”
The police met for a world tour in 2007 and 2008, but separated again thereafter. Copeland likes to compare himself and his former group comrades at Silverback Gorillas, in competition for the primacy with a lot of breast and noise beat. He had a particularly heavy working relationship with Sting, with whom he is otherwise friendly. The police tradition abounds with stories of the pair compete on how the songs must be played.
He and Sting “understood this in the therapy of the group of decades later: the dichotomy of our goal of making music”. The singer wanted his songs to be played exactly as he wanted. But Copeland is less interested in the sacred character of the songs than the expressive possibilities of music itself, the endless game of notes and pitch and stamp available for a gifted instrumentalist.
“It is generally accepted that everything should serve the song,” he says. “But I hit shit because I like to hit the shit. I don't give the ass of a rat on the song. This is to serve me and make the group cool. The song is like petrol in the car. The car is not going anywhere without petrol – but it's not the car.”
SAUVAGE CONCERTOThe emphasis on nature recalls the activism of the tropical forest which has been well received, which led a kind of South American tree frog named after him (dendropsophus stingi). “Everyone sniffs. I admit that I did a little sneer myself, ”explains Copeland. But he praises the singer for his achievements.
“He did something really significant. But no good action remains unpunished. The first time I saw a brickbat thrown on Doris, it was the result to do a good deed. It is sort of why I avoid politics and trees. I hit and make music, and I hope that a good in will derive.”
“ Wild Concerto '' released on April 18 on Platoon Records
