Former Police drummer Stewart Copeland to perform with orchestra at Fantasy Springs

In 2006, The Police drummer Stewart Copeland released his 2006 documentary, “Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out,” featuring super-8 footage he shot himself and an original soundtrack of “derangements” of the band’s songs.

Since The Police disbanded in 1986, Copeland has been composing film soundtracks and "finessing" his use of orchestra music. He's also performed The Police songs "Roxanne" and "Message In A Bottle" with orchestras during live performances. But now he's bringing the "derangements" to the stage with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Copeland will perform “Police Deranged" on March 25 at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino.

In a recent interview with The Desert Sun, the musician said "you never know what you're going to get" when he shows up, however, audiences shouldn't expect any appearances by Sting or other members of the defunct band.

“What you can expect on that night is me banging on s--t and three soul sisters on the mic singing songs you know with a big orchestra,” Copeland said.

It might seem unusual for a rock 'n' roll band or artist to perform with an orchestra, but since Metallica performed with the San Francisco Symphony in 1999, other bands such as KISS, Scorpions, Aerosmith and others have done the same.

Even though Copeland was born in Virginia, he grew up in Cairo, Beirut and London. His father, Miles Copeland, was one of the founders of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and was a CIA officer. His childhood abroad exposed him to a mixed bag of international music. The Baladi rhythms influenced his drumming as a teenager and he later noticed similarities of that style to Caribbean and Reggae music.

“Both of these geographically separated cultures came up with the idea of landing hard on three of the bar, while ignoring one and with an uptick between,” Copeland said.

"My dad used to say 'You're not just a drummer, you're a musician.' To be a full musician, you have to listen to stuff beyond that one radio station that you're locked into," Copeland said. "You have to check out R&B, country and world (music) because it makes your musical universe more interesting. Diversity has become a political word, but within music, diversity is cross-pollination, and it inspires."

During the late '70s in London, new wave bands were experimenting with fresh sounds and punk rock bands were rejecting polished rock 'n' roll, revolting against the monarchy and the British government. The Police were somewhere in between, with a blend of reggae, punk and jazz in the mix of Sting's hypnotic bass grooves, Summers' polished guitar and Copeland's distinguished drumming.

Reggae was prominent in the U.K. during the ‘60s and ‘70s because of post-war West Indian immigrants known as the Windrush generation. The punk clubs in London would blast music by The Damned, The Clash and Sex Pistols, but the DJs would settle the crowd with a comedown of hostile dub reggae music, which Copeland described as “chill, but still pissed off.”

“The punks needed to chill after the glue they were sniffing wore off every now and then,” Copeland said. “That’s where reggae got into the bloodstream of punk rock in London. Since we were a fake punk band at the time, it got into ours as well. The Clash were the first skinny white musicians to attempt reggae and I'll give them that, but we were all inspired by that. For half a century we had the backbeat and all pop music had it. This was a complete reinvention of rhythm that us white guys had to listen to very closely and figure out. But it came easy to me because I knew all about beat three, I never tried it on a drum set but it was in my DNA."

Copeland is also a member of the supergroup Oysterhead with Phish frontman and guitarist Trey Anastasio and Primus frontman and bassist Les Claypool. Similar to the Grateful Dead, the band tosses a live setlist aside and improvises during performances. He described the spontaneity as going into "stranger inner worlds and bizarre outer galaxies."

"(Oysterhead) breaks all the rules of show business that I grew up with," Copeland said. "We have songs with verses and choruses, but that's just the launching pad. The real s--t is what we come up with in between those punctuation points. The journey Oysterhead takes is very complex and different from when I do a show with the Atlanta Symphony or the Rochester Philharmonic where the complexity is all on the page."

International music has become more popular in recent years. Puerto Rican rapper (and 2023 Coachella headliner) Bad Bunny has been Spotify's most-streamed artist for the past three years, K-pop groups have amassed millions of fans in the U.S. and Belgian singer (and 2022 Coachella performer) Stromae has sold out Madison Square Garden twice.

"I had kind of given up on world music because I wasn't gaining much traction with it. People are more interested in my symphonic work, or my guitar, bass and drums American music. I'm glad to hear that world music is receiving some recognition and appreciation, even at Coachella."

If you go

What: Stewart Copeland performance

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 25

Where: Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84-245 Indio Springs Parkway, Indio

How much: $49 to $69

More information: fantasyspringsresort.com

Desert Sun reporter Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment. He can be reached at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com or on Twitter at @bblueskye.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Drummer from The Police to perform with orchestra at Fantasy Springs