8. The PoliceRegatta De Blanc
The Police were like my Beatles. I recently watched this amazing film that the drummer Stewart Copeland made called Does Everyone Stare: The Police Inside Out and it really struck me what a huge inspiration this band was to me. I appreciate their music still but watching this film really made me realise that this was my musical education. Here were people at the top of their game producing this really amazing music. I started out as a bass player and it was Andy Summers who prompted me to take up the guitar.
A friend of mine used to buy vinyl bootlegs of The Police and you heard they weren’t playing the songs the same way; they were really playing with this stuff and going off in different directions within the framework of the song. That was a real education for me and their ability was really evident on the title track which came out of one of their “yo-yo-yo!” jams.
The other thing that I would say is that Stewart Copeland is a really good songwriter, too. Stuff like ‘Contact’ and ‘On Any Other Day’. And Andy Summers really is a master of his instrument.
