Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer who was the drummer of the English rock band the Police (1977–86, 2007–08). Before the Police, he played drums with the progressive rock band Curved Air (1975–76).

As a composer, Copeland's work includes the scores of the films Wall Street (1987), Men at Work (1990), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the theme music for television shows The Equalizer, The Amanda Show, and Dead Like Me; and the scores for video games in the Spyro series and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. He has also written pieces for ballet, opera, and orchestra.

According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th-best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.

Early life

Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of British archaeologist Lorraine Copeland (née Adie; 1921–2013) and American espionage officer Miles Copeland Jr. (1916–1991). His mother was born in London, while his father was from Alabama. His father was, according to his own 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, a key intelligence operative in Britain during the Second World War and a founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency. Stewart's mother was also an espionage veteran, serving in the British Special Operations Executive.

Miles Copeland was assigned CIA duties in the Middle East and the family moved to Cairo a few months after Stewart's birth. When Stewart was five years old the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drumming lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.

Solo projects and film soundtracks (1987–1998)

After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for films (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.

Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his songs "Red Rain" and "Big Time" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also played on albums by Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits.

In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).

Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)

Copeland was commissioned by Universal Interactive and Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. He would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! (1999) and Spyro: Year of the Dragon (2000). Universal Interactive had different developers handle the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (2002), which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy (2018).

This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (2001), his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date.

Collaborations (2002–2006)

In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.thumbnail|right|250px|Copeland performing in 2006

In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but the tour was cut short.

In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmodrome, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S. debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).

The Police reunion (2007–2008)

At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.

In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.

Projects (Since 2008)

In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.

In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.

On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego–based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by HarperCollins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.

On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".

On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.

In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.

In 2017, he reformed Gizmodrome as a supergroup with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name. That album peaked at No. 14 on the UK Independent Albums chart.

Ricky Kej and Copeland previously worked together on a song in 2016. During a pause in concerts and overall activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kej reached out to Copeland. The duo eventually collaborated on a studio album entitled Divine Tides. This album was released in 2021 alongside eight music videos shot in locations ranging from the Himalayas in India, to forests in Spain.

thumb|right|Copeland performing in 2022

On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.

In 2022, he was appointed a Visiting Scholar at McGill University in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, during which time they co-wrote the chapter "What Can the Performing Arts Learn from Empirical Time Research? Timing, Tempo and Rhythm: Evidence from the Laboratory and the Concert Stage" for the Oxford University Press book "Performing Time: Synchrony and Temporal Flow in Music and Dance."

On February 6, 2023, the album Divine Tides brought Copeland his seventh Grammy Award and Ricky Kej his third Grammy Award in the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in the category of Best Immersive Audio Album.

In 2025, Copeland collaborated with British audio naturalist Martyn Stewart on Wild Concerto, an album featuring Stewart's audio recordings of animals.

Personal life

In 1974, Copeland became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina, and they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own. In 1981, he fathered a son with Marina, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness and Mariga Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife Fiona, with whom he has three children.

Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, filmmaking, and playing polo.

Drumming style

Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.

Equipment

Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.

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See also

  • List of drummers
  • Membranophone (list of drums)

References

  • Copeland's official site