Having released the deluxe version of ‘Klark Kent’ on November 17, Stewart Copeland joined a new interview with Tidal magazine. During the chat, he shared thoughts about The Police’s tracks and recalled going behind Andy Summers’ back on one of them.
Talking about 1979’s ‘Message In A Bottle,’ Copeland expressed regret by saying:
“Thank you, Andy [for calling it my finest drum track]. However, he deserted me when I needed him most. Andy was the quality control over the bulls**t. It’s a great track, but the end goes on forever. When Andy wasn’t looking, I did some snare and cymbal overdubs. I regret them now. There’s one too many overdubs, but if Andy likes it, it must be cool because he has a very high threshold.”
About the song’s creation, he added:
“Sting wrote the song and that riff, and the two of them put their heads together. Andy might’ve tweaked it and developed it, as he did with all the things. With that basic riff ‘daddle dee daddle dee da,’ Andy came up with the harmony guitar part to that, which is cool.”
Copeland Reworked The Police Hit
‘Message In A Bottle,’ from The Police’s second album ‘Reggatta de Blanc,’ achieved significant success as the band’s first number-one hit. Recently, Copeland revisited this song, among others, for his new album ‘Police Deranged For Orchestra,’ released on June 23.
In the 2023 release, the drummer rearranged several of his former band’s songs, including ‘Tea In The Sahara’ and ‘Roxanne.’ But, talking to Grammy.com, he admitted to facing challenges while working on ‘Message In A Bottle’ due to its sound structure:
“‘Message In A Bottle’ was like a diamond, and I could not mess with it; the form of it is what it has to be. I did mess with the orchestration, with the sound textures, and so on, but the song itself resisted all of my attempts at de-arrangement. But I did orchestrate the heck out of it.”
Check out the original and Copeland versions of ‘Message In A Bottle’ in the videos below.
