It’s now a little over a year since the end of The Police’s highly successful 2007-2008 Reunion Tour. So what are they all up to now? It’s interesting to see how the three members of the band have (or haven’t?) been keeping busy since then, perhaps using the tour as a launching pad for new projects of various kinds.
Stewart Copeland seemed to take very little time to rest at all before jumping into numerous new endeavors. During this past summer, he did a brief tour of Italy with his “La Notte Della Taranta” ensemble and also appeared at the La Jolla Music Festival in California to premiere a new piece of music. September will bring the world premiere of Ben Hur Live, a musical/stage spectacle which Stewart composed the music for (and for which he will be doing the live narration at the London premiere performances.)
As if that’s not enough, he’s also been hard at work on an autobiography. The last member of the group to pen one (even original guitarist Henry Padovani beat him to the punch with his book “Secret Policeman”!), Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies is set to be released by HarperStudio in September. Talk about keeping busy! In a recent interview, Stewart admits he hasn’t been taking calls for movie soundtrack work for three years now–which had been one of his major areas of work before the tour for a long time. So it seems The Police tour has done great things for his visibility and ability to pursue lots of other projects of various kinds.
Sting has also kept somewhat active, but in perhaps a less prolific way. He performed several one-off concerts this year (a charity event in Toronto and at Foxwoods in Connecticut). In October he will be releasing “If On A Winter’s Night…”, a collection of mostly traditional music from the British Isles with a few reworkings of his own older material. He also has a performance scheduled with The Philadelphia Orchestra in January of 2010. When he may have an new album of truly “original” material is unclear; he hasn’t released one since 2003’s Sacred Love.
And Andy Summers? Well, he seems to have returned to his other passion besides music: photography. His official website lists numerous exhibitions featuring his photography work which has shown through the year in California, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and Australia. An associated book of photography, Desirer Walks the Streets, was published by Nazraeli Books in March.
Of course, some fans are still holding out hope for a new Police album some time in the future. The possibility of such seems quite slim, given the disparate interests and pursuits of the band members these days. But who is to ever say for sure? Most of us fans thought a reunion tour would never, ever happen, and then we spent the bulk of two years following them around the world.
Myself, however? I’m kind of more hoping Stewart gets Les Claypool and Trey Anastasio back together for an Oysterhead reunion!
