Stewart Copeland Shares Police Stories in New Book

Ever wonder what it'd be like to sit down for a meal with Police drummer Stewart Copeland and hear tales of being in one of the biggest bands in the world? Well, Copeland is now offering the world the next best thing in his new book, 'Strange Things Happen: A Life With the Police, Polo and Pygmies.'

"These are a lot of stories I've been telling over the dinner table for years and it's a collection of short stories really that I guess adds up to kind of a biography," he says. "But actually I leave a lot of the biography out, the boring parts -- 'I went to school, I went to college, I had a family, yada-yada.' Wonderful things, but what's more fun is the actual stories."

He gave Spinner a sneak preview of one of those anecdotes, like his current favorite, which comes from the recent reunion tour. "The one that gets the most laughs around the dinner table is from Turin, Italy, the night I bought Sting a tuba for his birthday present," he recalls. "It's the perfect instrument, the bass member of the brass family for the bass member of my band family. It started out like a beautiful evening and we were in Italy. It ends up with Sting and I screaming at each other, trying to kill each other."

"But the fun part of the story is this is an evening that began so beautifully," he continues. "We're playing a stadium in Turin, 80,000 people, and it's an old, crumbly old stadium. To get from the dressing rooms to the stage you get in a little bus and the little bus has a police escort, sirens, lights flashing. We get into our little love bus, the three of us, and it's Sting's birthday. He's happy with his tuba and he's already figured out how to play 'Tequila' on it.

"Then we notice that we're on a freeway and the stadium, which blocks out the sky, is receding behind us. Then we get back and finally we're back at the stadium in the parking lots. A few minutes we're still in the parking lots, a few minutes later we're still evidently lost in the parking lots. Eventually we make it to the stage, 20 minutes late, still feeling pretty cheerful. We get out there, it's a magic evening, we start up, Andy's fucking blazing on the guitar, my heart is full of joy and love for music. Over at the front of the stage right, not so happy, not so joyful. And that's where it begins. You'll have to read the book to get the end of the story."

Alright, we're hooked. 'Strange Things Happen' is due Oct. 6.