90

SYNCHRONICITY
The final Police album was released Jeff Lynne was the lone voice raging there was also an overdubbed ride
in June 1983, and was a worldwide against digitization.” cymbal bell. It was one of the few
hit, selling over eight million copies, times I got to play with overdubs like
reaching #1 on the charts in the The only Police songs recorded to an everyone else!”
U.S. and U.K., and winning three external tempo, according to Stewart,
Grammy awards. As with Ghost in were “Synchronicity I” (which uses Regarding the function of Hugh
the Machine, Hugh Padgham co- a sequenced keyboard part) and Padgham and Nigel Gray, Stewart
produced and engineered the album “Every Breath You Take,” which relates that neither producer had any
and it was recorded at AIR Studios was done to a click and had all the input as to the actual parts that were
in Montserrat, with Stewart in a drums overdubbed. For that track, being played; their focus as producers
separate room from the other band according to Jeff Seitz, the bass drum for The Police was to capture the
members. The rhythms on the album is an Oberheim drum machine kick, sounds and performances, and
are a crystallization of the Arabian, the backbeats are overdubbed with to have (as Stewart put it) a good
reggae, punk and rock influences snare and gong drum together, and “bedside manner” to keep the band
from the earlier albums with hints then the hi-hat and crash cymbals members working together with a
of other styles added to the mix. were also overdubbed separately. minimum of tension.
World music influences are present “‘Every Breath You Take’ was one
in “Tea in the Sahara” and “Walking of the songs that was very different By the time of the Synchronicity
in Your Footsteps,” while the two in the process from everything else,” tour, The Police were the biggest
“Synchronicity” tracks rock hard says Stewart. “We tried a lot of band in the world. Jeff Seitz has
while employing a buoyancy created different versions. The demo tape was fond memories. “It was a buzz, like
by Stewart’s use of syncopation a Hammond organ and vocals, which a rocket ride. There was non-stop
and the internal dynamics of his is obviously not much fun for Andy, action, setting up, getting the show
drumming. “Every Breath You Take” so he worked out that arpeggiated running, and then 25,000 or 30,0000
and “King of Pain” are master classes guitar pattern from the Hammond. people in an arena or stadium. We
in pop songwriting, and “Murder by That’s something Andy was very were self-contained, there were three
Numbers” has a 12/8 feel that has good at: achieving harmony, and his crew members plus the monitor guy,
elements of jazz and blues. voicing is a big part of our sound. All front of house guy, and lighting guy.”
the drums were recorded disparately. Did Stewart feel more pressure as the
Although the drums were recorded We started with an Oberheim drum band played for bigger and bigger
in the same room with the same box, and the part was so solid and audiences? “No, it got easier and
method as Ghost in the Machine, the fit perfectly—I would never have easier,” he says. “Playing an arena or
final tracks sound slightly different in had the discipline to play that; it’s stadium is easier than playing your
tone. “After we finished Synchronicity, hard enough live. We fought over best friend’s wedding. When you
we went to mix it in Montreal,” the hi-hat: Sting wanted to use the walk into an arena or Shea Stadium
says Stewart. “The guys there said, Oberheim, but I had recorded my and there are thousands of people
‘There’s this new technology… own (acoustic) hi-hat. I came back there cheering, they already love
check this out!’ and they ran our mix the next day and Sting had erased you. They’re there to drink in the
through PCM technology, which it and put the Oberheim back. On godhead. At the wedding, every one
had just been invented, digitizing it. the record, Sting might think it’s of your human imperfections is there
We thought, ‘Wow, you can hear the the Oberheim, but I have the multi- on display, and the worship of the
space in between everything!’ But track. It’s my hi-hat! The backbeat godhead is not there to protect you.
what we now know is that it lost a was a gong drum and a snare drum, That small-level occasion is much
lot of wave form. It created space but with a gong drum crescendo into more stressful than a huge concert.”
lost texture. (At the time) my buddy the chorus and a cymbal roll. I think

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 WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER
This song had a music video that was in constant rotation on MTV in 1983-84, exposing
thousands of drummers to Stewart’s playing and his octoban-accessorized kit. The song has
an interesting approach to the groove, where for most of the song, there is only a backbeat
on 4 (with 2 omitted). In the verses, this backbeat is a cross-stick, and the 1 is omitted on
the bass drum. When coupled with Stewart’s hi-hat artistry, this groove references the one-
drop while putting it more in the realm of rock drumming. For the choruses, the backbeat
on 4 moves to the open snare drum, and the 1 is played on the kick. While this groove isn’t
a baladi rhythm per se, the melody of the song and the choice of drum part does have hints
of Arabic music.

Along with the basic groove construction, there are lots of interesting little embellishments
all throughout the track. Stewart incorporates his splash cymbals, icebell, and motifs on the
toms in various places. The fill leading back to the verse (measure 59) ascends the toms and
ends on a splash, with the bass drum downbeat omitted. This approach appears in reggae
and Arabic music, where embellishments end before the downbeat of the next bar, and
Stewart’s personal amalgamation of these styles uses this concept freely. Halfway through the
fourth verse (measure 110), Stewart raises the energy and drive by shifting to a full 2-and-4
backbeat, which is maintained until the outro of the song. The incredibly crisp and clear
recording and mixing of this track enable us to enjoy the depth of detail in the drumming.

“This was (a song) that in the take, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I hadn’t really
grasped the rhythm of the track; I didn’t really understand where the changes were; I didn’t
like the lyrics. I love all the songs, but this one would be at the bottom of my list—I just
didn’t get it. I enjoyed it live because I had my whole percussion rig with timpani and
everything; it was glorious. You can go on YouTube and see the ‘Stew cam’ from the reunion
tour, and it’s just all my shit for the whole song. I had the timpani going, the xylophone,
the crotales, and all this cool shit happening. The other guys had no idea what was going
on behind them.”

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 WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER

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93
Clockwise from top: July 23, 1983: Synchronicity tour, Comiskey Park,Chicago, Illinois (Photo by Paul Natkin). February 19, 1984: Rosemont Horizon,
Rosemont, Illinois (Photo by Paul Natkin). 1983: Synchronicity tour (Photo by Danny Quatrochi).

103
 Jeff Seitz has been Stewart’s drum tech since January 20,
1980, joining him after the recording of Reggatta de Blanc.
A Juilliard-educated musician, Jeff has pursued his own
musical projects and remained active as a player during
his entire association with Stewart. He continues to be
Stewart’s drum tech and production coordinator, assisting
with all of his live projects. Jeff provided invaluable
information for this section.

DRUMS
With The Police (in their original period, not the reunion
tour), Stewart used three drum sets, all Tama. The first
was a light blue Imperialstar that he acquired with his
first Tama endorsement—an association that has lasted
almost half a century. “In Curved Air I had a double-
bass Ludwig Vistalite, my first record-company funded,
professional kit,” said Stewart. “I was reviewing gear for
Sounds magazine, and I reviewed a set of Tama drums,
and they blew everything else out of the water. It’s hard
to appreciate today how much Tama revolutionized drum
gear. They really were a revolution in drum manufacturing,
and the other companies had to catch up. The hardware
made other brands look like toys. Also, the sound: the
nine-ply drums with a painted interior just had a volume
that was unmatched. It took a lot to give up my double
bass monstrosity, but sound engineers were asking me to
play the Tamas, because they sounded so good. I had to
relearn how to get my groove on just one bass drum!”

Stewart used the original Tama kit on Outlandos d’Amour

and Reggatta de Blanc and their subsequent tours, and
then Tama gave him a new mahogany-finished Superstar
kit that he used for recording Zenyatta Mondatta. Stewart
didn’t feel the Superstars responded as well in a live
situation, so for Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity he
used a third kit, a dark blue Tama Imperialstar which was
also used for the recording of those records.

Stewart’s setup remained fairly constant with The Police,

but there were some changes. The original powder blue
Imperialstar kit had two rack toms, although there
are photos from the early period where he had three
mounted toms. He settled on the added 10" tom with
the Zenyatta kit and kept all three racks through the end
of the Synchronicity tour. For the reunion tour and his
subsequent projects, he went back to two rack toms up
front, sometimes placing the third tom to the left of his
hi-hat, and changing from one floor tom to two.

Stewart began using Tama octobans as soon as they came

168
Stewart’s setup March 23, 1982: Ghost in the Machine tour.
Courtesy of Jeff Seitz.

out. It’s unclear when exactly he added them to his kit,

but it was certainly sometime during the recording of
Reggatta de Blanc. Tama sent Stewart a set of 8 octobans,
which can be seen in photos of a gig at the London
Lyceum on June 17, 1979, and in the “Message in a
Bottle” video, but soon he settled on using four of them
in his trademark “straight line” arrangement above his
hi-hat. Stewart also made use of another Tama original
instrument, the gong bass drum, but only as an overdub
in the studio, never in his main kit. (The backbeats of
“Every Breath You Take” were overdubbed with Stewart
playing one hand on his snare and one on the gong
drum, according to Seitz.) For live shows, the gong
drum is incorporated into his percussion setup, separate
from the kit.

The iconic snare drum that produced the classic sound

that became Stewart’s sonic fingerprint was a Pearl.
Stewart isn’t sure when he acquired the drum. “It is
unknown when that drum came into my kit. Why would
I have had a Pearl snare drum?” Jeff Seitz, after doing
some research, has concluded it was acquired in the
summer of 1979. There were actually two Pearl drums:
one chrome over brass, and one chrome over steel. At
first the drums were used interchangeably. It wasn’t until
the Synchronicity tour that the sound engineer picked
the chrome-over-brass as “the one” with a brighter crack
and larger decibel range. On the album recordings,
Seitz believes both drums are heard on different tracks.
Top: Pearl catalog photo showing snare drum model used by
Stewart cracked the original flanged batter hoops on the Stewart (Courtesy of Jeff Seitz).
drums, so Jeff replaced them with die-cast Tama hoops.
Bottom: “The Snare”: Stewart’s Pearl snare, photographed at Sacred
Grove by Dietmar Clös.

169
 The snare drum batter head was tuned extremely tightly, 1981 (according to the Paiste website), having begun
with the bottom head tuned “normal tight,” according to playing them during the Zenyatta Mondatta tour. He can
Seitz. The tom tom-heads were rarely changed, says Seitz. be seen using Zildjian cymbals in earlier photos. Stewart’s
“For one thing, Stewart wasn’t a big tom-tom player. And cymbal setup was fairly consistent in terms of placement,
the heads sounded good. They were Remo Emperors, and although he has used different models of cymbals over the
they took the beating. I probably would have gotten more years. Known for his use of splash cymbals, he has had
attack out of them if I had changed them more, but they two of them in his setup starting with Reggatta de Blanc.
sounded good.” Stewart’s hi-hat work is the stuff of drum legend, and he
favored Paiste 602 13" hi-hats once he signed with Paiste
On The Police reunion tour, Stewart used a brand new
in 1981. His ride cymbal was a 24" Paiste RUDE Ride/
Tama Starclassic Maple kit with his Tama Signature Palette
Crash, and his crashes varied a little from tour to tour.
snare drum. The snare was matched by Tama’s designers to
In a 1982 Modern Drummer interview, Jeff Seitz cites the
sound like his original Pearl drum. Live recordings from
crashes as two 16" and two 18" RUDE Ride/Crashes, but
that tour reveal the signature drum to sound nearly exactly
Stewart would opt for thinner models in the studio (often
like the original. Stewart reports it to feel the same as well,
2002 or Formula 602 crashes). A Paiste 8" Bell and a UFIP
with the same snare response at all dynamic levels.
Ictus 8" bell cymbal were also mainstays in his setup and
Stewart has also used all Tama hardware for many years. appear prominently on several of the songs transcribed in
After seeing Slipknot in concert in 2000, he began using this book.
a double pedal. Interestingly, he places the slave pedal on
A Paiste “Profiles” book of 1981, provided by Erik Paiste
the outside of the hi-hat pedal.
through Jeff Seitz, lists the following models as Stewart’s
CYMBALS setup:
Stewart began officially endorsing Paiste cymbals in March • 13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hat

Left: Tama catalog image with Stewart Copeland Signature Snare (Courtesy of Tama Drums).
Right: Tama magazine ad featuring Tama Starclassic Maple kit made for The Police reunion tour (Courtesy Tama Drums).

170
 ZENYATTA MONDATTA
RECORDING SETUP
(1980)

DRUMS CYMBALS
Tama Superstar, mahogany finish Zildjian (for recording of album)
1. 14x22 bass drum A. 18" Thin Crash
2. 5x14 Pearl snare (B4514 chrome over brass) B. 14" New Beat Hi-Hats
3. 8x10 tom C. 8" Splash
4. 8x12 tom D. 16" Thin Crash
5. 9x13 tom E. 18" Thin Crash
6. 16x16 floor tom F. 22" Ping Ride
7. Octobans – low-pitched set of 4

NOTES
The Tama Superstar kit used for the recording of was at this time that Stewart began to check out Paiste
Zenyatta Mondatta was soon retired, as Tama sent a new cymbals, soon to become an endorser. The bass drum
Imperialstar kit that Stewart preferred. By the time of and a Remo roto-tom were fitted with triggers that fed
the Zenyatta tour, the Pearl snare had made its way into a Tama Snyper DS-200 drum synthesizer for live shows.
Stewart’s setup, and the cymbal setup was expanded. It This kit is now owned by Jeff Seitz.

177