50 Fun Facts About The Police (Band)

Often taken for a tender ballad, the Police's "Every Breath You Take" is sung from whose point of view?

A possessive lover keeping watch is the narrator, and Sting has called the song sinister and ugly. He wrote it in half an hour after waking in the night with the idea.

The Police frontman got the nickname Sting from which black-and-yellow striped garment he often wore?

A sweater (a jumper, in British English) in black and yellow hoops made him look like a wasp, a jazz bandleader remarked. Sting says even his mother and children use the nickname.

Sting named the Police song "Roxanne" after a character in which play, seen on a Paris hotel poster?

Cyrano de Bergerac was advertised on an old poster in the foyer of the seedy hotel where the Police stayed in October 1977. Sting took the name of the woman Cyrano loves for his title.

Before the Police, Sting held which job, the one at the centre of his hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me"?

Schoolteacher was Sting's trade for two years in Cramlington, near Newcastle, before music paid the bills. He has denied that the song's story is autobiographical.

Which 1997 tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. was built on a sample of the Police's "Every Breath You Take"?

I'll Be Missing You came out before Puff Daddy had cleared the sample, a mistake that handed Sting the publishing royalties. The two later performed it together at the MTV awards.

At Shea Stadium in 1983, Sting of the Police thanked which earlier band for lending the venue?

The Beatles got Sting's thanks near the end of a show for 70,000 fans in New York. He later called that night his Everest, and it was there that he decided to go solo.

Stewart Copeland of the Police grew up in Cairo and Beirut because his father worked for which organisation?

The CIA sent Miles Copeland Jr., a founding member of the agency, to the Middle East a few months after Stewart was born. The future drummer began lessons at the age of 12.

In the Police's "Message in a Bottle", what does the castaway learn when replies finally wash up on the shore?

Many others feel the same, he sees, when a flood of answering messages lands on the beach a year after he sent his plea. Sting has named it his favourite of the Police's songs.

While fronting the Police, Sting played the villain Feyd-Rautha in which David Lynch science-fiction film?

Dune gave Sting his first big-budget film role, shot in 1983 while the Police were at their peak. The orange hair he wore on the Synchronicity tour was left over from the part.

Sting earned a co-writing credit on which Dire Straits hit for a melody borrowed from "Don't Stand So Close to Me"?

Money for Nothing has Sting singing its MTV refrain to the tune of his own hit, which brought his lawyers in. Early pressings credit Mark Knopfler alone, and later ones add Sting.

The Police first bleached their hair blond in 1978 to appear in a TV commercial for which product?

Chewing gum, Wrigley's Spearmint, was the product, and its makers wanted a punk group, so the broke trio dyed their hair. The commercial never aired, but the look became a trademark.

The Police's Synchronicity topped the US chart for 17 weeks, interrupting which Michael Jackson album's long reign?

Thriller had the last laugh, though: it beat Synchronicity to the Grammy for Album of the Year. The Police album still sold more than eight million copies in America.

Which Police single, modelled on Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry", is famously misheard as "Sue Lawley"?

So Lonely topped a 2020 British survey of misheard lyrics; Sue Lawley was a BBC newsreader when it came out. Sting admits he lifted the chorus from the Marley song.

Sting wrote the Police's "Every Breath You Take" at Goldeneye, the Jamaican estate once owned by which novelist?

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, left his writing desk at the house, and Sting began the song at it. He had retreated to the Caribbean to escape the public eye.

The Police's "Synchronicity II" sets a family man's despair against the stirring of which legendary creature?

The Loch Ness Monster wakes as the man's anxiety grows, two events linked by symbol and not by cause. During the video shoot, the scaffolding tower under the drummer caught fire.

Sting of the Police says nobody, not even his mother, ever called him by which real first name?

Gordon is the name he was given at birth, but he told Time that if you shouted it in the street he would just move out of your way. He has never legally changed it.

The title of the Police's second album, Reggatta de Blanc, is a loose French rendering of which phrase?

White Reggae is the meaning, in the same made-up Franglais as the debut album's title. The instrumental title track won the Police their first Grammy.

Which Police song did Sting first give to Grace Jones, then re-record for a 1993 Sylvester Stallone action film?

Demolition Man reached Grace Jones as a demo, and her version came out before the Police recorded their own in 1981. Sting wrote it while staying at Peter O'Toole's house in Ireland.

In 1992 guests pressured the three members of the Police into a surprise reunion at which event in Sting's life?

His wedding to Trudie Styler, in an 11th-century Wiltshire chapel, had both bandmates among the guests. Stewart Copeland said that after about three minutes it was the old band again.

A 1986 attempt at a new Police album collapsed after Stewart Copeland broke his collarbone falling from what?

A horse was to blame: he fell off the night before the sessions began, so the trio could not even jam together. All that came out at the time was a remake of an old hit, their final single.

The Police mimed "Walking on the Moon" beside real rockets for a video filmed at which American site?

Kennedy Space Center in Florida hosted the shoot in October 1979, with Stewart Copeland tapping his sticks on a Saturn V moon rocket. Sting mimes on a guitar instead of his bass.

The Police hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me" name-checks the author of which controversial 1955 novel?

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, is the book in question, and critics mocked the rhyme Sting built on the author's surname. He owned up to using that terrible technique a few times.

Sting first imagined the Police's "Roxanne" as a bossa nova until Stewart Copeland suggested which dance rhythm?

Tango became the song's final rhythmic form, and the drummer also told Sting where to place the bass notes. The band were at first embarrassed by how slow and quiet it was beside their usual material.

The Police kept a stray chord and a laugh at the start of "Roxanne" after Sting accidentally did what?

Sting sat on a piano by mistake in the studio, and the atonal clang and his laughter were left on the finished record. The song went on to win the band its first deal with A&M.

Which Police hit has a video in which Sting runs through a maze of tall candles and finally knocks them over?

Wrapped Around Your Finger was filmed with the music sped up, so the band seem to drift in slow motion at normal speed. Andy Summers felt Sting made a meal of toppling the candles.

On the best-known sleeve of the Police album Synchronicity, Sting reads a book of that name by which psychologist?

Carl Jung used the word for events connected by meaning instead of cause. The sleeve came in 36 versions, each with different photographs and colour stripes.

Which Caribbean island was home to AIR Studios, where the Police recorded Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity?

Montserrat was, in Stewart Copeland's words, a 12-hour flight from the nearest record company. He set up his drums in the studio's dining room to get a livelier sound.

Which singer joined the Police at Giants Stadium in 1986 to sing the final verse of their last pre-split show?

Bono sang the closing verse, and the Police then handed their instruments to U2 for the all-star finale. He called it a very big moment, like passing a torch.

The Police ended their reunion tour in August 2008 with a final show at which New York venue?

Madison Square Garden saw the trio open with a New York police brass band and later salute Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The tour had sold 3.7 million tickets.

Although their drummer was American, the Police won which Brit Award at the 1982 ceremony in London?

Best British Group went to a trio whose drummer, Stewart Copeland, was born in Virginia. Three years later the Brits honoured the band for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

Sting of the Police made his screen debut as the Ace Face in which 1979 film based on a Who album?

Quadrophenia, loosely based on the Who's 1973 rock opera, gave Sting a well-received debut. He followed it by playing a mechanic in love with Eddie Cochran's music in Radio On.

Which Police hit, later covered by Alanis Morissette, began with a dark spot Sting saw on the sun?

King of Pain started when Sting, newly separated from his first wife, pointed out the speck and said it was his soul up there. The single reached number three in America in 1983.

Which Police single, written during the Belfast hunger strikes, had its video banned by the BBC?

Invisible Sun reached number two in Britain without its video, which used footage of the conflict in Northern Ireland. For Stewart Copeland the song was about Beirut, his childhood home.

By Sting's account, who coined the nonsense title of the Police hit "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da"?

His son came up with it, Sting says, joking that he has never paid the boy. The song is about the way words get abused, though many listeners heard only baby talk.

Which rapper added a verse when the Police closed the 2007 US Live Earth concert with "Message in a Bottle"?

Kanye West rapped over the chorus while John Mayer traded guitar parts with Andy Summers. The charity concert was staged to raise awareness of global warming.

Andy Summers, a decade older than his Police bandmates, spent 1968 in which group fronted by Eric Burdon?

The Animals made one album with him, Love Is, which includes a guitar solo more than four minutes long. He had already toured the United States with Soft Machine that summer.

Before the Police, Stewart Copeland was road manager, then drummer, for which British progressive rock band?

Curved Air were on tour in Newcastle in 1976 when a journalist introduced their drummer to a local singer and bassist known as Sting. Within months the two were jamming in London.

For tax reasons, the Police recorded their third album, Zenyatta Mondatta, in a studio in which country?

The Netherlands hosted the sessions at Wisseloord Studios, which ended at 4 a.m. on the day a world tour began. All three members later regretted the rush.

The cover of the Police album Ghost in the Machine draws the three members' heads in the style of what?

An LED display of the segmented kind was the model for three red pictographs, each with its own hairstyle. The band used them because they could not agree on a cover photo.

After the Police, Stewart Copeland scored which PlayStation series launched by Insomniac Games in 1998?

Spyro the Dragon got four soundtracks from him, and he played through every level before composing for it. He also wrote the theme of the TV series The Equalizer.

A 1979 reissue of the Police's "Can't Stand Losing You" stalled at number two behind which Boomtown Rats hit?

I Don't Like Mondays kept the single off the top in the summer of 1979, a year after its first release had stalled at 42. The BBC had objected to the original sleeve.

Which Police instrumental by Andy Summers did Sting dislike so much that he buried the tape outside the studio?

Behind My Camel survived the burial, and Summers had to play the bass part himself because Sting refused. It then won the Police a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

Which Corsican guitarist was the Police's original third member until Andy Summers replaced him in 1977?

Henry Padovani played on the band's first single, then lost his place when the more seasoned Summers issued an ultimatum. He rejoined his old bandmates for an encore in Paris in 2007.

Stewart Copeland of the Police earned a Golden Globe nomination for scoring which Francis Ford Coppola teen drama?

Rumble Fish was the film, and its song Don't Box Me In, made with Stan Ridgway of Wall of Voodoo, got wide radio play. Scoring for film and television became Copeland's main career.

The Police took the album title Ghost in the Machine from a 1967 book about the mind by which writer?

Arthur Koestler said he was slightly tickled by the homage. Sting, an avid reader of his when young, drew on another of the author's books for the band's next album.

Andy Summers built his guitar part for the Police's "Every Breath You Take" on violin duets by which composer?

Béla Bartók's duets were on Summers's mind from an album he was making with Robert Fripp. He recorded the famous lick in a single take, after Sting told him to make the song his own.

Sting sang and played bass in which Newcastle jazz-rock band before moving to London to form the Police?

Last Exit gave Sting material he later recycled: verses from one of its songs resurfaced on the Police's debut album.

Which 1977 debut single by the Police, cut for £150 before their first gig, was reviewed by Mick Jagger?

Fall Out came out on the small label Illegal Records and was taped two weeks before the trio's first concert. Jagger reviewed it for the music paper Sounds.

Sting wrote the Police's "Spirits in the Material World" in the back of a truck on which instrument?

A Casio keyboard gave Sting his first taste of a synthesizer, and he wanted the record to do without guitar altogether. Stewart Copeland calls it the hardest Police song to drum.

Sting came up with the riff of the Police's "Walking on the Moon" while drunk in a hotel room in which city?

Munich was the scene, after a concert, and Sting first paced the room singing about walking round it. Next morning he wrote the riff down and found a better title.